Yeah! We found the medallion!

Very, very early on Friday morning, PJ and I finally found the Lakewood Treasure Hunt’s Treasure chest! You geocachers out there probably guess it… It was a clear plastic Gladware container. It seems that even local municipalities have gone clear! Considering the final location of the medallion, it was a great choice. No way was the bomb squad going to blowup an award winning Veteran’s memorial on accident because of a suspicious package!

This morning we met with Dennis Higashiyama of the Parks and Recreation Department who ran the treasure hunt to collect the “Loot”. As you can see in the photo they were very generous with their prizes! Thanks to the City for the reward for having so much fun!

Dennis was very happy that for their first ever Treasure Hunt, one, that the medallion had been found and two, with their limited advertising abilities that the community had responded so favorably to the idea. He hopes to be able to do it again next spring. He wouldn’t give us any hints on his next idea, but did say they clues would be a bit harder next time around. He was also quite interested to know about any other searchers experiences and would like you to email him and let him know what you thought and how they could make it more fun for the whole family. Visit the Lakewood Parks and Recreation page here to share your story with Dennis. Increased public interaction is what I believe they are really looking for, so toward that end, if you have not yet “liked” the City of Lakewood, Washington’s
facebook page. Go here to do so and let them know specifically about your experiences with the Treasure Hunt and at the many wonderful parks they work so hard to maintain.

The whole Parks and Recreation Department has been working really hard this year to make this weekend’s SummerFEST bigger and better than it has ever been. Make sure to go check it out June 25-27th at Ft. Steilacoom Park.

Dennis also shared with us that the City is indeed aware of geocaching and are planning on including it in their next employee picnic this August at Ft. Steilacoom Park. So all you cachers out there with caches in the park may want to keep an eye out and do a bit of CITO and cache maintenance during the month of August. Let’s show the City how much we appreciate their efforts and reward their children with some updated swag and properly labeled geocaching containers. I’m thinking of doing a round of my special signature magnets just for the city employees who participate in the geocaching aspect of the picinic. One might just be: “Lakewood Geocachers Love Lakewood Parks and Rec’s Dennis Higashiyama!” What do ya think?

Does your city host a Treasure Hunt? I’d love to know if you have participated and how you liked it.

Tupperware Tuesday

So, tell me .. How was your “Tupperware Tuesday”? To find out more and how to participate, follow this link: “Tupperware Tuesday”. If you love geocaching, we’d love to hear from you! Chime in with your comments or your weeks caching highlights. Can’t wait to read what you found today!

Link your Treasure Hunting or Geocaching article to this post:

Monday morning I spent tackling the hedge that runs the length of our property. It is a mammoth creature that I have not so affectionately nicknamed “The Beast”. After, 2 years of cutting and trimming I have it down to about 12-14 ft. tall and 8 ft. wide. The goal this spring is to get it completely cut down on the neighbors side back to the property line and down to about 8 ft. tall. I accomplished that task on the first 15 feet or so by Monday afternoon, just in time to enjoy the late day sun streaming into the yard space that hadn’t seen sunlight for years. Man that felt good.

What could make my day any better you ask?

Well, my sadistic side got a bit of a workout that afternoon. I fired up that Chipper/Shredder for the first time this spring and cut that “Beast” to bits!! The grinding, whirring, whooshing sound of the shredder in high gear was the most beautiful music I have heard in a very long time! It was transcendent! I just kept grinning and shredding, grinning and shredding, grinning and shredding! What a glorious day!

During my transcendent experience, the City of Lakewood published the next clue for their Treasure Hunt. PJ is hooked on this treasure hunt. If you have followed the link above and read the clues, you may notice the they are obtuse to say the least. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. This City is full of possibilities and with this latest clue, PJ rushed out to track some of those possibilites down. Me I was to busy grinning and shredding grinning and shredding… You get the picture. As night fell, PJ rolled in and we both started looking at the clues again. Trying as many different perspectives as we could find to come up with possible search locations. We looked all afternoon and into the evening. No Luck.

We decided to regroup and get dinner at Red Robin. To be honest up until this portion of the day I was leaning toward blowing off geocaching (and thereby this post) to keep looking for the medallion that is the treasure in the Treasure Hunt. But, sitting down to dinner I happened to check facebook and there I saw a very saddening message from a friend and fellow geocacher. His father passed away yesterday. I knew this would have hit him hard. So I decided to go a grab the tribute geocache, Screw You Sean! (GC29MF5) placed lovingly in his honor by Polarbz. It was just our way of showing a fellow geocacher some support. Our best to you and your family Sean.

The next geocache was a quick grab while stocking up on puzzle solving, up all night brainstorming food-like substances and Diet Coke. We found JAM (GC26Y12) by krklnmn. I haven’t met this cacher, but I would like to thank him for being an astute student of the obvious. Ya see, we live in Washington State. It rains here. It rains here a lot. I am constantly stunned by the number of micros that use regular paper as logs here. Regular paper turns to mush when wet. Heck just pulling a log out to sign it on a misty day is enough to get it wet enough to make signing for the next guy a real pain. BUT! krklnmn Didn’t use regular a regular old piece of paper smushed up in a tiny ziplock bag. NO!! Krklnmn is BRILLANT!! He used “Rite in the Rain” or iGage Weatherproof Paper. No need for a irritating little plastic baggie, just a Sharpie or a “Rite in the Rain” Weatherproof Tactical Clicker Pento be able to leave your mark with. I carry a very Fine Sharpie and a Fisher Stowaway Space Pen. If you are going to be a geocacher in Washington, these pens need to be considered “standard equipment”. If you are coming to Geowoodstock VIII in July, you may want to pick up a couple. After all, it is the middle of June and it is still raining here!

Well, here is hoping that tomorrow dawns bright and clear. Part of all that green that is springing up all over are weeds that need pulling. More yard work and mind bending clue deciphering are on the agenda for tomorrow. Until then, sweet dreams out there in geo-land!

The links to products on this page are affilate in nature. If you purchase items from these links I may or may not receive a small compensations. The Federal Trade Commision made me say that. Really. They did!

Tupperware Tuesday

So, tell me .. How was your “Tupperware Tuesday”? To find out more and how to participate, follow this link: “Tupperware Tuesday”. If you love geocaching, we’d love to hear from you! Chime in with your comments or your weeks caching highlights. Can’t wait to read what you found today!

The Go Day press release from 2009 stated that today’s kids are more likely to live shorter lives due to their parents inactive indoor lifestyles and evidenced by the obesity epidemic in children we are seeing grow with each passing year. A disturbing thought to say the least. In an effort to combat this problem GO Day events “will offer a mix of information centers and “active fun” areas – places where guests, and especially kids, can use a fishing pole, go geocaching, help pitch a tent and more. The sites will provide photo opportunities with characters like Smokey Bear, Woodsy Owl and other interesting creatures. Many sites also feature areas that focus on other aspects of healthy living, including sustainability and good nutrition. In addition to the GO Day events, participants will be invited to nearby follow-up activities called EchO events occurring throughout the summer, which include introductions to mountain biking and fly-fishing, hikes with rangers to see wildlife, kayaking and rafting and much more.” according to the National Get Outdoors website. Each partner in this effort deserves a massive round of thanks for attempting to combat the current epidemic of obesity in this country.

David Sikes of Texas in his recent article on caller.com entitled Key to happy, healthy child might be in the woods, references a book by Richard Louv, The Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. Sikes states, “Louv suggests that children with a more intimate relationship with nature are less likely to suffer from obesity, attention disorders and depression. I further contend that hunting, fishing, paddling, camping and other wilderness activities provide children with a lasting perspective on life that cannot be found on a television or computer screen.” I have to agree with him on this, but not just for children.

Whatever our age, an active lifestyle has massive benefits including reduced stress, improved sleep, better muscle tone, improved posture which helps ease back pain and healthier immune systems. Additional benefits are seemingly side effects, but are actually just as important as the physical benefits already mentioned. By being outdoors and interacting with nature, seeing wildlife in it’s own habitat as opposed to a zoo or computer screen, cements within us a bond to the land and it’s creatures that is lasting. We come to realize that we are not just observers of an eco-system; we are a participants of “the eco-system”. What we do matters. I can’t think of a better way to actually feel the truth of this, than by being outside in a space that is bigger than us. A space that is still mostly wild. A place where we as humans are not the main focus of the spaces existence. So this Saturday, June 12, 2010, drag yourself away from the screens in your life and got to a local GO Day event or visit a State or National Park with your kids. You won’t regret a minute of it.

Found this YouTube Video on “Jon’s Adventure Vlog: Geocaching For Buried Treasure!”

Happy Caching!

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