today

hey guys ... been one crazy week in this house and today just before Rhonda left for school she called over to her sister sue to see how she is this am -- well they were all asleep and my niece needed to go to school so Unkie gets dressed to go drive her to Horton ,,, after I drop her off look at my phone and 2 new caches nearby -- 1st is a cemetery --only have nuvi --set coords and of we go --- 10 minutes later way up the mountain we arrive --- so I just walk from tree to tree till I find  the cache hahhahahha ...
2nd cache coods in and takes to land of Evangeline but no way  do I have any idea where the cache is so home I go because I needed to cook for sue --  we had eggs and did all the things she needed done till 2 pm and then she said she wanted to sleep so home I went --- then Mark my #2 son who came home from Quebec yesterday texed and said he was coming over -- I grabbed the GPS and when he drove in we went for the cache --
 2nd FTF of the day ...amazing -- this one  was a good cache -- well done -- You guys will like it --then one more quick cache and then Wolfville for groceries for supper then home -- by the old road BUT going over the railway tracks we hit a bump and then -- back tire flat --- they pulled out a 3 inch bolt 0000 man -- called rick but had it changed before he arrived .... new tire on now ---  home had a great supper with Rhonda and mark -- Mark now gone to Nick's place ( #3 son in falmouth ) .. rhonda gone to see sue and I am about ready for bed ,,,,
But 2 ftf ..... a cahe  and a couple of good deeds -- supper and 3 loads of laundry ----
Not a bad day  Nova Man !!!!

Smilies on Google Maps

I'm sure you have noticed that the smilies indicating our finds still aren't back on the Geocaching.com Google Maps. Here is the post from the feedback forum explaining why:


The addition of many new major features plus the record traffic levels we're experiencing has caused some serious performance issues for the site. Some features like the personalization of the maps have been disabled temporarily just to allow the site to function. Fixing these and other performance issues is a top priority.

In the meantime, you can access the beta map (http://www.geocaching.com/map/beta) and still have personalization. (However, keep in mind that display of PMO caches has not yet been implemented on the beta map.)


So it was a conscious decision by Groundspeak to disable them. That really sucks.

Ken

GC2NG62 - R0AR!!! Sue the T-Rex

GC2NG62 - R0AR!!! Sue the T-Rex is a puzzle cache, probably one of the most difficult geocaching puzzles I have ever solved. I had to have a little help from a friend to get the job done. I then set the result aside because it was just too far to go. And I knew that at some point I would be in the neighbourhood. Today was that day.

I was invited to a 40th anniversary celebration for a former colleague and his wife in Timberlea today so I loaded up the waypoint in both my Oregon and Nuvi. After the party I headed out on the hunt, complete with dress shoes and a tie! I soon realized that I had loaded both GPSr's directly from the cache page instead of GSAK, which had the corrected coordinates. In other words I was navigating to the wrong location. I did have the corrected coordinates in my iPod, though, so I pulled over and edited the numbers in both receivers. After that it was a quick find!

One other thing happened today. I had loaded all Nova Scotia waypoints to my Nuvi as points of interest. When you make the load, you have the option to set an alarm as you arrive at a given distance from a POI. I could see problems with that, so to be safe I set a rather conservative (so I thought) distance of 200 meters.

Wrong move!

That frickin' Nuvi alarmed quite regularly all the way in on the 101. And when I got to the St. Margarets Bay Road it beeped almost constantly. At one point I counted 23 alarms in a row - bing bing bing 23 times. I thought I was going to go nuts. I couldn't shut the Nuvi off because I needed it to direct me to my destination. So I had to put up with it.

I swear, I am going to hear that alarm in my sleep tonight.

Needless to say, the Nuvi got reloaded tonight with no alarm set. Not going to fool me twice.... I hope.

Saturday Afternoon Caching

Well, Claire got off work at 1:00 PM today so I went to their place shortly before then and she, Barry and I spent the afternoon caching together. We grabbed a total of 15 with no DNF's mostly in the Kingston area. Nice afternoon, but wow am I tired tonight!

Off to Truro tomorrow where I will spend the day taking a course as an adult advisor of the local chapter of DeMolay. I hope they serve coffee, I may need it.

But now for some NHL Stanley Cup Playoff action!

saturday

today was Rhonda last saturday at her course so we left a bit early as I wanted to stop at my cache at exit 10 to replace the cache holder that is MIA -- well the one  I brought was too small and fell all the way in and when i was going back to car my feet got caught in reeds and I feel right in front of car -- ripped my new jeans --- just skinned my knee but I feel pretty hard and of course Rhonda was worried I hurt my self -- I told her just my pride -- a man getting coffee at just us came right over to see if I was ok ... anyway on we went I dropped R at her course and had an hour so went after Valley View -- I had the right co-ords last saturday but did not want to park my car on the exit ramp and did not like the hill so did not do it last week but today I parked right in the field by the exit 11 and walked 150 m to cache and it was all flat --- so got that one off my list ...
Cya Monday weather looks great --- have a good night -- Chris

Caching with non cachers.

I had been working everyday all week for 1 person or another trying to tie up all the loose ends before th 21st. Since it was nice and sunny yesterday decided to take the day off to enjoy the fine day. Made arrangements to meet non caching friends (Yvonne & Danny Hennigar) at Swiss Chalet in Bridgewater and then planned for Vic & me to do a little caching. Our friends had no plans for the afternoon so it was decided they would go with us. We headed to the Riverport area to do a few easy caches as Vic can't walk on uneven ground yet. It was beautiful in that area with the sun shining off the water, the wind was a little cool though. Danny got out first at every cache and found a few of them. Yvonne even made the find on one that was giving us trouble. We got 8 finds with 1 DNF. I don't think i made cachers out of them but they enjoyed the outing and said we should try to get together once a month to do things together.

Two Days in a Row!

Well, I got out caching again today for a short time all by my lonesome. I was 3 for 3 when I headed home, and those were the only caches on my list today. I picked up both Treasure in the Trees Eh? 2 and 3 as well as Hugh's new one that Chris got the FTF on yesterday.

I was a little nervous when I got to Hugh's - it was in the pile of rocks that forms part of the dike, and you know me and piles of rocks. I almost walked away, but then I spent a couple of minutes studying the site. I decided that if I sat down on one large flat rock and swung my legs around its edge my feet would then be on another large rock below. So that is exactly what I did. Both rocks were large enough to be safe and steady. I grabbed the cache which was under the rock I sat on (right where I expected it to be), signed up the log, sat back down and swung my legs back up to the top. Too easy and perfectly safe!

today

hey guys --turned out that the oral surgery my sister was having was a bone graft and a post implant so much bigger than I thought so was longer and she needed more care -- I did manage to grab a cache in Dartmouth where my daughter in law works as I was dropping off a  birthday present and then one cache after leaving my sisters --- cya Monday

Yesterday

First I was glad to see that Ken did get out yesterday -- our communications lines were tangled --- I saw huey's puzzlle come up and looked simple - but need someone who could here video -- but first I had an e-mail that a big load of food arrived at food bank so had to go there first and was the 2 1/2 hrs putting the stuff on the shelves -- then by Rick;s but no one home and then texted Ken but no answer then sent Brian a text to please look at this video -- that did not work for Brian so tried with my ear right ti the speaker -- hahhahah funny to see but no go so I just googled the ?? and got my answer then off I went -- it was out on the Dykes and wind  was so strong -- the CI was making so much noise from wind that it actually hurt and I so I took it out -- found cache and got a FTF --Yahoo then on Evangeline beach Micro -- now I am not going to tell you how many times I have been here but I will say that every time I was in the wrong spot --that makes me feel better as it si a guard rail cache -- hahhahahhahahah so finally got that done then home ----
Today I am in city with my sister and I have to go to Dartmouth for one stop so I just put halifax , darthmouth in the search and ran a PQ and now have 500 caches loaded hahhahhahhahah Gonna be a busy day ,,,,
See you both Monday -- Have a great weekend --- Chris

Went out with Claire for an hour and a half after she finished work today, then we picked up Barry and went for another hour or so. I ended up with five new finds, so nothing spectacular. We did a couple of long walks on the R2T trail in the Auburn - Kingston area, it was a nice day to be out!

tuesday

Well my computer work got cancelled today as hospital is in lock down due to a flue illness in hospital . I had lots of work here at house to do as  I have not done much in weeks and then a chiropractor appt at 2 30pm . Well at 10 am a new ToNS cache in Windsor of all places --- lately not a lot of action around so I thought I was pretty safe for a few hours --I worked very quickly and got my list done and headed out after my lunch  and had the cache logged within 20 minutes of leaving home ...there ws another but I had mt shoes on and not a lot of time ---- just checked and it is still not done but food bank in morning and dentist at 1 30 pm and helping a friend to learn how to use his  GPS later in the afternoon so maybe just 1  FTF for Nova Man this week .... have a good night and looking forward to Monday ... Chris 

April 9th

Vic and i ran away from home for the day, hired a sitter and took off. Went to the city for more supplies for the kitchen and then had time to do some caching. Looked for a series i could do that wouldn't interfere with a day trip for the 4 of us. Thought of Chris's WWR series and off we went. They are Chris's caches and i knew Rick and Ken had already done them so they were a perfect choice. We had a great time doing the series and i reached 1300 on WWR 15. We got to see the Church up on blocks waiting to go. Arrived home around 9:00 tired but happy with the day we had.

Elusive cache

Ok i went back today for another crack at the cache at Beach meadows Beach. I bent down and looked under the building and there it was looking me right in the face, don't you just hate that. I had my good luck charm (Vic) with me today, maybe that made the difference. I don't understand how i missed it the last times i was there. Our trip to Pei for this weekend is off. Too many strikes against it. Strike 1: Dave's program at the center is cancelled for Friday so he will be home all day and the sitter isn't available till later in the afternoon. Strike 2: Amanda isn't feeling very good and i didn't want her to have to look after Dave when she isn't up to snuff. Strike 3: Vic pulled her hamstring in back of her right knee. She has been on crutches for the last couple days and moved up to a cane today. She wouldn't be comfortable driving and couldn't do any hikes. We have another opportunity in mid May so we will have another crack at it then.

Sunday

Hey Guys , I really do enjoy our blog and it is better than e mail I think ... I could just see Brian at that cache site ,,I had one like that on a foundation and I am sure the last cacher knocked it off ... it eventually became disabled but they are frustrating for sure ,,,,,I grabbed a cache on Friday in sackville that I had visited before with no luck and this time had a hint and yes I did find it but it was very tricky and without the additional hint I do not think I would have gotten it. I like when I can get them without the additional hint but sometimes .........it is needed ......
Brian  the trip away for you and Vicki sounds awesome and it is so neat that she is now so into caching --it will make the trip so much better and enjoyable for you and for Vicki ... have a great time ....
ok , not sure why I am so tired but been a very busy week and lots going on and it seems like I was in a hearing situation 24/7 this week and that is tiring for me so gonna sign off ...
have a great week guys ......

Friday

Made my 5th attempt at a new cache 1.5 miles from my house and still no luck. That was after a big hint from the female half of Blackrattle who were FTF. The cache is at Beach Meadows Beach and is tucked up under a combination change house and out house and the CO says it is winter friendly. I know where the cache is supposed to be but you can't see up under as it is too close to the ground. I've run my hands up under so many times i know every knot in the wood by heart. I am goint to back off on this cache till somebody else finds it. There is a ledge up under and a drop off behind it and i suspect that when Blackrattle put it back it fell off the ledge. On another note Vickie and I are planning a 4 day road trip starting next Friday. We are going to NB & PEI. Of course there will be some caching involved. LOL. I have the PEI database already built and ready to load to my GPS units. Should be a fun trip. Amanda is coming over to stay with Dave from Fri evening till Sunday afternoon and then we have a sitter booked till we get home on Monday. I can't remember the last time we were away that long together. Yahoo!!!!!

Great day Thurs

Spent all day Thurs outdoors and what a great day. Started out the day replacing a cache for Escaper, i was FTF on the cache when it came out last year so i knew where it was supposed to be. Left a new container in a slightly different spot as the org. was right on the ground. Sent a email to Gary from the sight with the new co-rds and info and he had the listing reactivated with the new co-rds in less than 5 mins. Now that's efficient.LOL Then moved on to Convent's multi cache which i have adopted. Leona & Kevin did it on Sunday and sent a text to me that the stage that had beads on a string with the co-rd numbers painted on the beads was broken. The beads were there in a pile so i sent her the cords for the next stage. She left a bullet container with the next co-rds on a piece of paper. I went today to retrieve the beads but couldn't find them. Sent a text to Leona and got a reply that she has them in her truck. I wish she would have told me that before i drove down. I had a list of caches i was going to work on until i got a call from Vic that she was getting off at 12:00 and if i could meet her in town. I had time for 1 cache that required a hike and on P&G before i headed off to meet Vic. We had lunch by the water in Town by the bridge then drove out to Port Laherbert Pockect Wilderness. We hiked the trails and Vic got 4 caches and i got the 1 that i didn't have from there yet. All in all a great day.