Halloween is right around the corner and just because you’re a little too old to go trick-or-treating, doesn’t mean you can’t still have a frighteningly good time. . You might carve a pumpkin with a geocaching theme, or dress up as your favorite Geocaching Trackable and let other geocachers discover you. There’s always a way to add a little geocaching to the spookiest of holidays.
Here are a few ideas to have a haunting geocaching experience:
Before lunchtime geocaching, and after lunchtime geocaching
Ready, set, lunch break geocaching
by: Bri Suffety
You should remember one thing, your keyboard won’t miss you if you leave for lunch. It never does. If you don’t share that dry sandwich, and unfulfilling old piece of fruit with your keyboard, it’s going to be alright. In fact, it probably needs a break and so do you, enter: Geocaching.
School is back in session, the weather is still begging you to get outside and geocache.
Much like the recess bell, lunchtime at the office is a much anticipated moment of our day. However, all too often it gets pushed aside for meetings, workouts or altogether forgotten with a just you, a sandwich and your desk. Ready for something that might make you gasp? Why not take your lunch break back?
There’s a whole world to explore through geocaching
5 easy ways to shake up your midday break and earn a smiley along the way
Walk that Way. Pick a geocache within walking distance. Even if you come up empty you can still got to stretch your legs, get some fresh air and exercise a little DNF (Did Not Find) pride. Can you say win win situation?
Fun Run. Already grabbed all of the geocaches within walking distance? Need to squeeze in a workout in? Find a geocache you can run or bike to; you’ll have a reason to push yourself to go further or faster and you can’t forget the glorious reward of a new find. Look at you multitasking!
How far can you go? Want something a little more adventurous? See how far away from your office you can get. Jump on a bus and stare out the window as you travel into uncharted territory. Allot ⅔ of your break for travel time and ⅓ for finding the geocache and exploring. You might even discover a hidden park or your new favorite food cart.
Make a Date. Lunch can be a great time to catch up with friends or your significant other. Next time you’re looking to schedule a lunch date, pick a restaurant with a geocache nearby. You can grab it while you wait or use it as an excuse to walk off your lunch. Invite your date to help. Yes, even if they’re are a muggle; you never know who geocaches and who may be become your new caching partner.
Outsmart the weather. Weather isn’t cooperating? Use your time to savor your meal, create a space for yourself mentally and solve that puzzle cache that has been on your to-do list all summer.
The antidote to lunch at your desk
Set aside your excuses; a busy schedule doesn’t have to be a roadblock. You can spare at least one lunch break this month to go out, stretch your legs and up your geocaching game. Are you up for the challenge?
Do you have a lunchtime geocaching adventure to tell? Share your stories in the comments.
Lurking in the shadows of night is a different kind of geocache.
Sounds spooky, right? Don’t worry, it’s just a friendly Night Cache. These geocaches are the same geocaches you know and love—except they can only be found at night. Some Night Caches use reflectors, while others use glow-in-the-dark ink and require a UV flashlight.
For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the shorter days of winter are a perfect time to learn all about geocaching at night. There also happen to be several Mega-Events around the world, like this upcoming event in Sweden, that are dedicated to Night Caching.
The bottle contained a very clear note from 1970. It also contained a request, a mission even. And Jean-Francois took the mission seriously. The note read, “Anyone finding this bottle please contact: Darilyn Yates and Georgia Love… ”
Jean-Francois, who discovered geocaching in 2003 and now has more than 250 logged geocaches finds, is used to finding. As determined geocachers often say, he wouldn’t DNF this (Did Not Find). An online investigation began but success didn’t come easy, “(I) did a search online with the name and the city where they were from. I found the name of Darilyn Yates’ father and found he had moved to another city. From there I contacted a Darilyn from the same area but with a different surname and it was a match!” Darilyn says she dropped the bottle in the Bow River while on vacation in 1970. She was just 14 years old, and according to news reports, not sure exactly where along the river she tossed the bottle in.
Darilyn today [Courtesy CTV News]
Darilyn in 1970 [Courtesy CTV News]Darilyn had moved hundreds of miles away to Vancouver Island. She fondly recalled the trip she took back in 1970 when she dropped the message in the bottle in a river. Jean-Francois says, “Darilyn has contacted Georgia’s cousin to let her know about the find.”
Since finding the message in the bottle, the story has spread across Canada.
The story first appeared in the Calgary Herald (Click the image to read the story)
You can hear and see Darilyn and Jean-Francois. They’ve appeared on CBC radio together [click on Part Two in the link]. And even in this CTV television story.
The stories is not over yet though. Jean-Francois plans to hand deliver the bottle back Darilyn. He’ll drive to Vancouver, securing his first to find and reuniting Darilyn with a 44-years-old memory – that had patiently waited for her in a bottle.
Click the image to see the news story featuring Darilyn and Jean-Francois
Sometimes history sneaks up on you… while you’re trying to preserve the future.
It happened to a group of geocachers clearing garbage from a roadside marshland just west of Calgary, Alberta. The geocaching event is called a CITO (Cache in Trash Out). The group cleans up geocaching friendly locations. They had already found and removed a room-sized carpet, a fractured row boat and a steel rope. The location they chose to help cleanup is a wild space frequented by migratory birds. Jean-Francois Cianci (known in the Geocaching word as Monkeyturtle) was headed back to the meeting area when his team decided to clean up one more patch of land.
The Geocachers at the CITO (Kathy, Laika and Chomper the other members of Team Monkeyturtle pictured) removed this discarded rowboat
That’s when a patient message’s 44-year wait to be opened ended. Jean-Francois said, “The message in the bottle discovery came towards the end of the event. We were walking back to the gathering point, alongside the road, and decided to pick some of the garbage we had missed. The bottle was in plain view, near some bushes so I decided to pick it up. That’s when I noticed it had a piece of paper in it with a date. I was in bit shock to find a note with such an old date on it.”
Jean-Francois with bottle
He said the mystery began immediately, “The bottle looked old and we pulled strange enough things that day that we thought it was real from the beginning.” When he opened the bottle and removed the note, he also unlocked a nearly 50-year-old challenge by two girls from July 7, 1970. The note asked the finder to do some finding of their own. Thankfully geocachers are known to be especially good at finding. Jean-Francois had to contact the two girls, now women, who dropped the message in the bottle nearly a half century earlier.
The note read:
“Anyone finding this bottle please contact: Darilyn Yates and Georgia Love… ”
The message in the bottle
The message in the bottle sparked a small quest that would take weeks.
Geocachers, Gumbydude, Mr. Caneohead and Pokey and Reese(the event organizer), were among those that helped cleanup 25 bags of trash. The group plans to make this CITO a twice-annual event.
![Darilyn in 1970 [Courtesy CTV News]](https://www.geocaching.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/darylin-2-1.jpg)
