Muggle punk! May 29, 2008
Posted by Jason in Geocaching.add a comment
It appears that my Genealogy Quest #1 Travel Bug (TB) may have been taken by a muggle (the “technical” term for a non-geocacher). 
Here’s the relevant part of the last log at the cache it was in:
This one had been found by a muggle just before we got there, so close surveillence might be needed.
I checked the cache today and the TB was gone. Maybe if I’m lucky he’ll place it into another cache. I hope. Otherwise I’ll probably release the duplicate tag in a couple of weeks. Damn muggle punks!
Combining genealogy and geocaching May 16, 2008
Posted by Jason in Genealogy, Geocaching.2 comments
Today I combined two of my favorite hobbies by dropping off two travel bugs in geocaches. My travel bugs have a specific mission: To travel through the areas that my ancestors have lived! I’m hoping that eventually they’ll make it down to Izard County, Arkansas and Lawrence County, South Dakota. Genealogy Quest #1, tracking my ancestors, is heading down to Arkansas. Genealogy Quest #2 is tracking Kari’s ancestors and heading to South Dakota. Hopefully they’ll reach their goals!
Eventually I plan on releasing more travel bugs with foreign coins attached and tasked to return to their home country. Coin collecting and geocaching! A perfect match. 
More geocaching adventures May 10, 2008
Posted by Jason in Geocaching.add a comment
Kari and I did some more geocaching today in and near the City of Newaygo. Many pictures follow below the fold!
Geocaching April 20, 2008
Posted by Jason in Geocaching.1 comment so far
Kari and I made our first geocaching trip today! In case you don’t know what geocaching is, here’s a description we found on a card in a geocache container today: “Geocaching is a sport which uses a multi-billion-dollar military satellite system to find tupperware in the woods.” That about sums it up! You can read more about it at geocaching.com. The basic idea is that someone sets up a container somewhere and uploads the coordinates so that other people can locate the container using a GPS unit or maps. Then, if you so choose, you can swap out objects in the container (be sure to bring something to put in there!).
Kari’s dad gave us his old handheld GPS so we used it to locate our first geocaches in Branstrom and Arboretum parks in Fremont. We went to Branstrom first. The first geocache was located clear at the back of the park so we had to walk quite a bit. We had to backtrack when we went up a wrong path once, but eventually we were able to find it. We signed the log and left some foreign coins from my collection for the next person.
We weren’t able to find the second geocache in Branstrom. It’s actually a multi-stage cache with seven total stages, I believe. We’ll go back and try to locate the first stage sometime in the future.
Lastly we went to Arboretum Park. Arboretum is fairly small so the GPS was virtually no help at all. It’s about ten years old so I’m not really sure how accurate it is. There were some little kids playing nearby that actually pointed us in the right direction. They must have talked to people searching for the geocache before because they knew what we were doing and exactly where the geocache was.
All in all it was a lot of fun! I recommend it if you can get your hands on a GPS.
Jason Felton is a homo sapien in his mid-20s observed to be living in west Michigan. Observations suggest that he spends way too much time on the internet reading blogs, researching family trees, and keeping track of current events in science and politics. Other interests of his include atheism, electronics, religion, and history, among many other things.
