Spiders Geocaching?

Here's an idea for geocaching. This specimen is to be placed along the Luce Line Trail, and would be named, Sugar & Spice.

To the right you see a common, rubber spider that might be found along any geocaching trail in the contiguous United States; no different than any other Dollar Store, rubber spider. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

All spiders except those in the families Uloboridae and Holarchaeidae, and in the suborder Mesothelae (together about 350 species) can inject venom to protect themselves or to kill and liquefy prey. Only about 200 species, however, have bites that can pose health problems to humans. Many larger species' bites may be quite painful, but will not produce lasting health concerns.

Spiders are found all over the world, from the tropics to the Arctic, living underwater in silken domes they supply with air, and on the tops of mountains. In 1973 Skylab 3 took two spiders into space to test their web-spinning capability in free-fall.

OK. OK, we get it. Spiders...

Alright.

But this rubber spider is a little different than most others. Turn it over and you will find a geocache hidden inside - complete with micro log. Pretty clever, wouldn't you say, loved ones? A perfect addition to our growing collection of geocaches along the Luce Line.

Geocaching & RSS Feeds - Why?

OK, so I'm off the geocaching topic again. It's still cold outside.

Here's a quick & clever video that I think is really important to bloggers and those who read blogs. It may not be as fun as geocaching, but explains the mysteries of RSS, subscriptions, and why everyone should use them. Subscribe. It's fun!



Maybe the weather will change and we can get out and do some geocaching!

More Caches on the Luce Line?

For the current Minnesota Ice Age, we have a PQ of caches that have the winter accessible attribute - which really cuts into the caches available. Yesterday we went out in search of some small towns, with neighborhood parks, that contained caches. Only to find that small towns don't bother to plow the parking lots of neighborhood parks. We went by three of them that had no on-street parking, and two-foot snow drifts in the parking lots. No joy today, so we walked the Luce Line to look for hide opportunities.

I once thought that there were SO MANY geocaches around here that there was hardly room for more. As you know, we placed The Luce Line Crossing last week. You can see it on the map in the upper right-hand corner. (Click to make map larger.) The trail is visible as a dark, thin line near the top. Along with our cache, you can see three others along the 3.5-mile stretch of trail. The next geocache to the west (off picture) is a mile further down the trail.

Over the past eight months, we've scored quite a few geocaches along the Luce Line - probably over a dozen. But as you can see, some of those geocaches are more than a mile apart. To get six in a day requires getting in and out of the car, or a 12-mile hike, round trip. Nothing like they have out in Disneyland. So I'm going to start thinking like a California geocacher. Shouldn't there be more caches on the Luce Line?

Here's a photo of my proposal. While out yesterday, we found decent hiding spots at each pin location. In the same space that once held four caches, now would have 10. There's still some 1800 feet, on average, between caches. Or should we take out three, space them out a bit, and make seven where there was once four?

It's not like we are over-crowding. The Luce Line is a 63-mile trail, and we are talking about three miles of trail here. Below is a series of geocaches named bikeathon along a regional trail in the near, West Metro area. As you can see, some of the caches are placed even closer than the ones I proposed. And people rave about doing the series.

So I leave it up to my readers - how many more geocaches should we place on the Luce Line?

A Most Devious Geocache

This geocache would be brutal, but quite a thrill when finally found! This set of photos is from a series posted on flikr by SEDCClint. He also blogs at GPS & Geocaching in Education.

Here's a fence post like many others in the desert.

Nothing unusual here.

An ordinary railroad spike.

Ah, but is it?

The end of the spike was drilled and tapped. Then a hollow bolt containing the log was screwed in the end. Another symptom of microsiscannotfindus.

My Last Skirt-Lifter

While geocaching, that is.

Some people claim they get boring after you've found 10 in a row. All in one Wal-Mart parking lot! But this one takes the cake. It's the last one I'll ever do. Just no more challenge.

I lifted this photo from jonnygeos's Electric Safety Blog. Click the photo to go there.

Actually, one of the very first caches that we hunted was a skirt-lifter. We had no idea that such a thing existed! We looked for about half an hour in a park that was about the size of a Buick. Finally, I kicked the skirt of the flagpole. Sure enough, it was loose, and there it was.

We have a pretty tough reviewer in these parts, and there's very few shirt-lifters in private property parking lots.