Go And Get ‘Em 9, the most recent of the Go And Get ‘Em geocaching events held every six months or so in Ottawa, took place last weekend (October 20-21, 2006). Starting at 18:00 Friday evening, it consisted of 24 hours of geocaching, followed by a dinner that started at 18:00 Saturday. Friday night, Darin and I headed out and found our first cache shortly after 6pm. We completed seven caches Friday night before calling it a night.

Saturday morning, Darin and I met up at my place, swapped vehicles. The only hitch, other than being up before 0700, occured when I fumbled I was holding while getting out of the elevator and watching my car keys go sliding across the floor and down the crack between the elevator car and floor. Retrieving my backup set of keys, we headed off for breakfast with the geomob at the Newport. After feeding, we headed out to find the first cache in the small Maplelawn park on Richmond Road. From there, we did another 9 caches before calling it a day.

Dinner started around 6pm at a restaurant called Stan’s. The food, while good, took a long time to arrive, probably because they just weren’t ready for about 200 people to order simultaneously.

Tick and Nammie, a local geocaching couple, organized yet another great event and deserve a round of applause. Everyone I talked to had a great time caching and socializing afterwards.

(Oh, and if you’re wondering about my car keys, the elevator engineers happened to be on-site a couple of days later and retrieved them from the bottom of the elevator shaft for me.)

We received pictures of one of the Go And Get ‘Em 9 geocoins today…

We’re very happy with how it looks in the picture and can’t wait to see the real things when they arrive next week. 🙂

Edit: We received a picture of the satin silver version of the geocoin today. 🙂

Darin (aka geoSquid) and I have produced a special, limited edition trackable geocoin for the Go And Get ‘Em 9 event taking place in Ottawa near the end of October. If you’d like to buy one (or two or six), please visit our online store at http://geocoins.pinetree.org.

I woke up bright and early this morning and decided to dedicate the day to geocaching.  I found 9 out of 10 caches (the 10th was a micro on an old railway bridge).  I started with a cache near Osgoode and proceeded along the south shore of the Rideau River, stopping at a park near an interchange on the 416 and at Nicholson’s Lock before crossing the river at Merrickville and heading to the chocolate factory in Smiths Falls.  There, I tried to find the micro on the railway bridge to no avail and then headed towards Perth, stopping outside Port Elmsley to find a cache that looked liked a birdhouse.

In Perth, I found a cache near the swinging bridge and then headed north towards Lanark to find numbers 199 and 200.

Cache #200, called Animal Crossing (GCKFTE), was near the end of a dirt road.  At the very end was a gate with a large sign warning that people entering were subject to real-time photography — not quite sure what that was about.  I found the cache fairly easily and released a geoSquid geocoin (TB14EJY) to celebrate my 200th find.  From there, I made my way home, stopping in at the Mount Beckwith Cache (GCN56D), where the bugs were terrible.

All in all, a very good day! 🙂

One of the local geocaching forums I take part in had a thread talking about the closest caches to where people live.  This got me wondering about the profile of the 185 caches I’ve found so far, so I did a little analysis using GSAK and Excel.

• The closest to home is 0.3 km (GCA49C – coincidentally the first cache I found)
• The farther from home is 7735.6 km (GCJ162).
• The average distance I’ve travelled from home to find a cache is 444.5 km, but half of the caches I’ve found are within 15.3 km of home.
• I’ve gone caching in three countries (Canada, the US, and the UK).
• Of the caches I’ve found, 24 (13%) are either disabled or archived.
• In terms of cache ratings, the hardest difficulty I’ve found is a 5 (GC7C99 5/3). The hardest terrain I’ve cached on is a 4 (GCA846 3.5/4). Half of the caches I’ve done are rated 1.5/1.5.
• I’ve found more caches by bluelamb03 and Captain Hook (tied for first place) than I have any other single cacher. Valpin and Zartimus are tied for second place in terms of people who have hidden caches I’ve found.
• I have found 154 traditional caches, 14 multis, 6 virtuals, 5 events, 5 unknowns and 1 webcam cache.
• The most caches I’ve logged in a single day is 11 (29 April 2006 – GAG8).
• Over half of the 78 days I’ve found caches on, I’ve logged 2 or more finds.
• It does not appear that I have found any caches by binthair, so far.

I’ve been making a lot of pivot tables at work lately.

The first Upper Ottawa Valley Cache Challenge (GCV6JX) was held in Petawawa over the weekend.  About sixteen geocaches were hidden specifically for the event, including one I placed called The First Deacon of Golden Lake (GCW5JH).  People started caching Friday evening and met up for dinner at Kelsey’s in Petawawa Saturday evening.  (Fortunately, unlike another Kelsey’s I’ve written about, this one knew how to properly cook beef and no broken glass was found anywhere.)

I headed out Saturday morning after the dragon boat practice and found my first cache shortly after 2pm.  Over the next four hours, I found another five caches and attempted an additional two that were DNFs.  I met up with a couple of other cachers from Ottawa at the third-last cache and we did the last three together.  The last cache, Life’s a Beach (GCVDVH), took us to a beautiful sand beach at the edge of the Ottawa River in Deep River.  If it hadn’t been for the fact that we had to rush back to Petawawa, we would have stayed there for a while soaking up the sunshine and fresh air.

It was a very successful event and there was already talk of a second event to be held in the fall.

I headed out this morning to Val des monts on the Quebec side of the river and managed to log my first FTF (first-to-find). The cache, Valpin #18 – Tranquillité (GCVW2A), was hidden at the side of a swiftly flowing river. While I was there, a heron landed about 15 feet away from me, which was very cool.

I then did another cache and when I came back to where I’d parked I discovered that I’d parked on glass so I had to change the tire. Fortunately, the tire place tells me that it’s pluggable so I won’t have to buy a new tire. Or tires since it doesn’t appear the Tiger Paws on my Tracker are available.