CacheCrazy.Com

Note from Bloodhounded: This is so freaking sad but incredibly inspiring at the same time. I really love this post and requested permission to post this at CacheCrazy.Com and track the progress and updates! What a wonderful way to keep the memory alive and share this young mans spirit with us everywhere in the world! FANTASTIC! That's all I can say, FANTASTIC!

On September 2nd of last year I performed maintenance on one of my caches, GC2ADFW Remembering Agnes: The Min Matheson Cache.  Acting on a recent log's message about a damp container, I decided to make some minor adjustments.  I felt the final stage was too close to the river, and with flooding occurring in March, it was time to move to higher ground.  We were in the middle of what felt like monsoon season, and the general feeling was the Susquehanna River was going to rise.

Just a few days later, on the 7th, all ears were on the weather report, and all eyes on the river.  Projections were being made about a crest occurring sometime over the weekend.  It would be bad, but it would be a gradual rise, and time would be had to make the proper provisions.  The Wyoming Valley knows the drill.  The usual low-lying areas were on notice.  Sometime during the day, on the 7th, I decided I'd make it a point to head down to my cache, and if need be, and get it out of dodge until the situation was over.  For one, I didn't want to see the cache get washed away, but more importantly, I'd hate to see someone try for a find in adverse conditions.



I woke up on the 8th, and couldn't believe what I heard.  The river level rose dramatically overnight, and the projections for flood levels and cresting were adjusted.  On my way to work I swung by the park, and couldn't believe what I was seeing.  I wasn't alive in 1972 to see Agnes, and I lived in Scranton in 1996, so I was new to seeing the Susquehanna, in all her swollen glory, up close and personal.  There had to be dozens of onlookers, as well as members of the media, gathered on higher ground, looking down below at the raging river.  Debris from upstream was floating by.  Lawn furniture, pieces of structures and other items were all swept up from the neighboring counties to the north, and making their way to the south.


At some point in the hour or so there, it struck me: my cache is somewhere in that raging river.  I was way too late to make an attempt in retrieving the cache container.  Min had a good run, I thought, and it was bittersweet irony that a cache dedicated to a flood would be lost in a flood.



Life returned to normal over the next few weeks.  Those who were evacuated returned to their homes, with varying degrees of sadness.  Some rebuilt.  Some got bought out by Uncle Sam.  Others just walked away, never to return.  There are homes, particularly in Plains and West Nanticoke, which have been totally abandoned.  The majority of Wilkes-Barre, proper, was spared by flooding, as the levee system, improved as a result of the 1972 flooding, held up.



It was not until the first week of October when I was able to drive down to the area where the cache would have been.  Garbage and other debris littered the landscape near ground zero.  I reached its hiding spot, turned over the rock which was to be concealing the cache.   Much to my surprise, the cache was still there! Wow!  What's even more amazing was what I found when I opened the container:  its inside and contents were bone dry!  Where I suspected poetic justice was going to be served, I found a geocaching metaphor, if you will.  I hid a cache honoring someone who stood her ground in the 1972 flood, at its time the worst natural disaster in American history, and here, as it turns out, the cache stands its own ground in the historic flooding of 2011.

WELCOME TO THIRSTY THURSDAY!!



Grab a cup of coffee, or tea, sit back and... on second thought grab that Fire Extinguisher.



Have you ever felt like you were on fire? Do you feel like you need some way to cool yourself off? Well I've got just what you need.



Join me, BigAL, from the Geocaching Department,  as I take you through 'how to make a Fire Extinguisher Geocache.'



The first thing you'll need is an EMPTY fire extinguisher (FX). Yeah I know everyone's got one laying around. Last month I had the local Fire Chief come to my place of work, which is a Senior Assisted Living Facility, for a Fire Safety In-Service for all of the employees. He went over how to use a FX. Our FX are mainly of the ABC type. They can be used on wood, cloth, and electrical fires. At work we use the PASS system. P/pull the pin, A/aim the hose at the base of the fire, S/squeeze the handle and trigger, and finally S/Sweep the hose side to side. Our FX are only good for a trash can size fire or smaller. Anything bigger and we let the firemen handle it.

He also talked about never turning your back on a fire, even if it seems like it is out. Always back away from the fire while facing it just in case it flares up again. Since I am the Fire Trainer at work I also went over what to do during a fire drill or actual fire. We have residents come out of their rooms and proceed toward the exit. We make sure the windows are closed and then as we leave the room we close the door and place an orange tag on the outside of the door knob. This indicates to all staff, and to the firemen, that the room has been cleared of all people.

We talked about the importance of knowing how to use a manual pull station, which when pulled activates the fire alarms.



That's the red box that says PULL on it and everyone in school tells you to never touch it. We look at it in a different light.  Sometimes I have staff actually pull them to initiate a fire drill. They need to know what it feels like to pull one and just how quickly the alarm sounds when it is pulled. This little box is what can save lives when used correctly.

The chief also talked about Stop, Drop, and Roll. That is what you do if you, or someone else, is on fire. Never try to beat out a fire with something since it will more than likely only fan the flames. We also went over how important it is to have an accurate head count of all staff and residents. You really need to make sure you know where everyone is during the drill or actual situation.

After we were done talking the chief lit a special metal drum filled with rags soaked in a propellant.  Then we allowed our staff members to take turns using a real FX to put out the flames.

Everyone enjoys this, especially those who have never done it before. Usually they say they are afraid, but after they do it once they always end up asking if they can do it again. This gives them real, live, experiences at putting out a real fire.

Okay, now that we have an empty FX we'll get into making it into a Geocache.


Once a FX is empty (make sure all pressure is out of it) you can remove the top if it is a screw top cylinder. (A lot of them are.) Any remaining powder can be poured out into a garbage can.



Next rinse it out thoroughly. Be careful not to breath in the dusty fumes. They are not really harmful, but you still don't want to do it. Once it is all clean  I let it dry over night. Then it's time to glue the bison tube in place.


I also let that dry overnight and then trimmed off the extra glue that always seems to come out of the edges. Then it should look like the below picture.


Then you put it all together and slap a GC sticker on the side. This way folks who happen to see it will take a better look at it and realize it is not a FX that can be used.


Since the canister is empty if you wanted to you could put very small items inside.
This way it could be a micro, regular, or even a multi-cache. The possibilities are endless.

Wherever you place this cache be sue to get permission from the land owner. I might just put this in the woods where most people would not see it. Maybe it'll be called Fire, Fire, Pants on Fire, or Fire in the hole, Fire Away, Where there's Smoke there's Fire, or maybe I'll call it "Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires!"

Just remember, have fun, play safe and learn how to use a Fire Extinguisher.

I guess all great things must come to an end. I want to thank Conni for contributing this adventure series and I hope we see more from MrsMamaHen.com soon! But, it's not over yet, check this out!

The first night that we were down in Valdez, after I saw that amazing mama bear and her 4 cubs...and while the menfolk were doing their first stint of salmon fishing, I kept seeing these strange shapes out in the water. I could tell they were some kind of animal because they were moving, but I couldn't quite tell what exactly they were.



Well the next night, I definitely got my answer!


Sea lions!!! I heard them before I saw them...the roaring and carrying on. At first I wondered if it was the mama grizzly again, but when I walked around the rocky hill, I saw these. The "Big Daddy" and his crew. There's no doubt why they call them sea lions, because they actuallysound like a lion!

The sea lions would dive down, snatch a salmon, and come back up, ripping off the heads and slinging the fish bodies. The gulls would swoop down and eat the pieces of fish that the sea lions tossed.


The fish were cornered against the shore at the mouth of the stream and gate. If you look carefully, you can see the wall of fish trying to get away from the sea lions.




When they had had their fill, the "big daddy" would swim out to a certain point, and sit there and roar. Then one by one, all the other sea lions would go out to meet him. 


And then the little seals would come in and have their go at the salmon.

So there you have it, a variety of wildlife in its natural setting in Valdez, Alaska USA! It's time to shove off so, thanks again Conni and we'll catch up soon somewhere on the trail!

See this post at Conni's blog MrsMamaHen.com

The Crystal Lake Illinois Park District has put together an outstanding geocaching series named the "90 Years of Fun Geocoin Challenge" and if you're in the area, you really should stop by for a fun day of caching.


The series of 12 caches was co-ordinated by John Fiorina, in celebration of the Park District's 90th anniversary.  John's duties include managing the Nature Center, nature programming and managing/restoring The Park District natural areas.


This is John, inside their large, well lit and jam-packed Nature Center.  See if he's around when you go in and be sure to say hello.  He loves to meet the geocachers!

John placed the caches along with the help of some very key people.  Local geocaching legend "Rocky is a Very Good Doggie" provided a ton of support and excellent advice in the planning of both of the park district geocaching series.  He also supplied ammo cans for some of the caches.  Another local cacher, "Zomarkaan," did all the work on the earthcache including the concept, research and cache page.  Rounding out the group was "Mtfish" who supplied invaluable help and has the fun job of passing out the geocoins at the Nature Center.  He showed us the ammo can full of the geocoins.  It's so heavy that I couldn't lift it.  You can see it on the desk behind him.


The concept is to go to one of the cache pages, (GC2YPXP for example) find the cache, and grab a geocaching passport out of the cache container.  The passports were designed really well, and each cache in the series is highlighted in the passbook, along with all the key information about the cache.


Inside each of the subsequent caches is a bag with a sticker unique to that particular cache.  You go find the caches, which are all located in different Crystal Lake Parks.  You sign the log, take a sticker and place it in your passport. 

Once you find at least 8 of the 12 caches, you can go to the Crystal Lake Nature Center and exchange your passport for a gorgeous geocoin.  How much fun is that?



This is the second series of geocaches that Crystal Lake has sponsored.   We did the first group last year and enjoyed it so much that we rushed out as soon as we could to work through the 2nd series.  I have to tell you - they outdid themselves this time around too.  All the caches were well thought out, placed in fun locations, had spot on co-ordinates, were filled with great swag, and were a nice mix of traditional, small, multi, puzzle and earthcaches. 

I'm going to show you some of the pictures we took over the course of our travels to the different caches.  I'm not going to tell you which caches they belong to because I don't want to give away too much information.











Ones of the caches is a locked box and you have to figure out how to open it!
I'm going to tell you a little bit about this cache because of the neat history about the location.    GC344DR  "Barry, Lisa and Nina"  is an old farm that the park district now owns.  The original owner of the property named his farm "Barlina Farm," after the combined names of his 3 children.  The buildings on the property are now used as storage for park supplies and some of the buildings house the Park Police Department and a pre-school.







One of the caches was a multi stage cache and we had to walk a frisbee golf course and gather clues from the tee boxes....



The park was huge and very well maintained.  They even have a nice dog park.  I wish I had my dogs along!

The foliage was spectacular....





On one of the trails we found dozens of these things.....  Does anyone know what they are?  Scroll down and I'll tell you!



It's called an Osage Orange.  It's from a tree that used to be planted as a living fence along the boundaries of farms. The name of the tree comes from the Osage Tribe and the smell of the ripened fruit.  The seeds are the only edible part of the fruit though.  Click on the link and go read more about it because it's really interesting.  The one I'm holding was huge and about the size of a softball. 

John and I chatted for awhile at the Nature Center and I asked him what he felt was the biggest advantage of putting out the Crystal Lake Geocaching Series. 

John:  There is a push today in outdoor education/nature programming for kids to spend more time outside engaged in "unstructured play".  The problem for me was how do you provide a program, which is structured by nature, that offers unstructured play?  The answer came to me while watching my kids hunting for geocaches.  I noticed, as we hiked to the cache that they were climbing on rocks, playing with sticks, running up and down hills, in other words they were engaged in unstructured play.  So in answer to your question, it gets people outside and enjoying our parks.


I also asked him if the park district was offering any instructional classes on geocaching as well.


John:  We offer a couple of paid programs:  one for families, one for Cub Scouts/Girl Scouts, and we have done a couple of fieldtrips for local schools.

Finally I wanted to know how well the new series was being accepted.

John:  The series has only been up for three weeks.  So far, it seems to be well received.  For example, one cache already has 50 logged finds.


The Crystal Lake Geocache Series is a perfect example of taking a sport/hobby to a new level.  I particularly like it because of how well it does interact with children as well as adults.  The folks at Crystal Lake have gone above and beyond in terms of implementing this program.  I'd love to see more park districts hop on board and do the same.

I'd like to thank John Fiorina for all his help and information on this post.  The best of luck to you and when you release the next series, if there is another one, you can bet I'll be out there!

For more information on our local cachers and their great geocaches, please click on the links below.....

Rocky is a Very Good Doggie currently has 86 cache hides to his credit.  His "Out of Sight" cache is one of my personal all time favorite caches!

Zomarkaan currently has 32 hides and his Quidditch caches are extremely popular.