Bad Tour Guide

I wrote back awhile ago that I wanted to play tour guide to some travel bugs. I wanted to do something special with the travelbugs with photos. I figured that would give the owner a bit of a thrill. But I guess I'm a bad tour guide.

I got an email last week from a travel bug owner asking me to move him along. He said the TB is only 2 months old and I was only the second person to enjoy it. Sure enough, I had the bug for 5 weeks. Man I suck. I felt really bad about it. I was going to move it along to LA, but my caching adventures didn't pan out. I told him that I'd move it along this last weekend and I did. I found a Travel Bug Hotel at the Chamber of Commerce. I dropped it off in hopes that it will move from this city to another. I also told him that I'd post a picture of my dog, as that was the goal of this TB. I couldn't get a nice pose of my dog and the TB, so I'll just have to dig into my photos to find a good pic of my dog.

The second one was this ginormous stuffed heart. This is the one I mentioned in a previous blog entry. I was hoping I'd be able to move him along. But because of his size, it was hard to find a cache that would hold him. It turned out I had him for 2 months! I didn't realize I had him for so long. I was able to get the picture of him on my Birthday Caching Adventure and Photoshop'd him the following week. I made him look like he was about to destroy Billings. I also stuffed him into the TB Hotel. He took up a good bulk of the space. I hope nobody gets mad at me for such a huge TB.

I guess next time I pick up a TB, I'll make sure I can move him in a timely manner. If not, he's staying behind.

Birthday Caching

Yesterday was my birthday! So, naturally that means I get to take the day off work and do some geocaching! I went out at 9am and cached for about 3 hours. There was a travel bug that I wanted to get my hands on located on the Rims. Plus there are a bunch of caches up there too. So I thought that would be a great place to target. What a great area. I haven't been up here in 7-8 years. They have really nice paved paths. I think I'm going to bring my family up here in the near future.

Anyway, the first 25 minutes were a bust. The first few caches were beyond the Rims and in the valley. Since I have no interest in plummeting to the bottom, I had to write those off. But it wasn't long until I found the caches I could get to. I think I ended up logging 6 new caches. I probably attempted 10 or so. There were some that were in a dangerous area, a puzzle cache, or I had no interest in getting to (micro in the woods don't appeal to me).

I had a really great time. It was only 3 hours. But for a lunch time cacher, that is a very successful day. I brought my camera with me and took some pictures of some wildflowers.

Since the Rims are all sandstone, the trees sometimes have a tough time finding their rooting. I saw this crazy tree practically growing sideways.

I was also able to get a couple of pictures to use for my ginormous travel bug I'm playing host to. I'm going to doctor the pix up a bit in photoshop to make it a bit more fun before moving on.

Godzilla's Heart

Last Thursday, I decided I'd drop off my GeoCoin I've had for the last couple of weeks. There was a travelbug hotel near by, so I thought I'd exchange this coin for one of those so I could play with it a bit. The hotel was off the road near a bridge. I parked in a city park near by and decided to walk to it from there. It was a nice walk. I discovered a really nice path that I didn't know was there along the Yellowstone River. I think I'm going to take my wife and son there next weekend for a picnic and hike.

At any rate, the ammo can was pretty easy to find. I was expecting a bunch of bugs in there, but only really saw 2. There was a laminated photo of a bridge. It was kinda a lame travelbug. The goal sounded cool as it would like to visit and get pictures of other bridges. But a laminated picture? I bet there's a better bug that could have been used other than a picture. It almost looked like it was cut out of a magazine. Needless to say, it didn't strike my fancy and decided to leave that one behind.

The other travel bug was this giant stuffed cartoon heart. The thing is massive. Probably the size of a small cantaloupe. It was the only interesting travelbug in there, so I grabbed it in exchange for the coin. In hindsight, I shoulda left it behind. Something that big would be a bugger to find a cache to place it in. But since I have it, I'll play with it a bit.

I'm trying to think of a good place to take a picture that represents Billings. Problem with Billings is that it doesn't have any real landmark of note. The pictograph caves is just a hole in the cliff. Little Bighorn Battlefield is just prairie. Plus they're really not apart of Billings. I think because this travelbug is so big, perhaps I'll do some photoshop work and make it look like it's huge like Godzilla destroying Billings! That would be fun, I think. I guess we'll see.

On my way back, there was another cache near where I parked my car. I only had 10 minutes to find it. I decided I'd go after it. It was pretty easy too. This one was a Tupperware container that had a few items in it. The container had a hole in it. It cracked or broke somehow. The contents were completely dry. I guess that's the drawback to some cheap Tupperware containers. It's easy to break. But then again, it's easy to replace. The container had a few items in it. Mostly junk. I took a signature card and I decided I'd throw a few toys in there. A few bouncy balls and a few key clips. Just to boost up the swag a little for the next finder. I'm going to have to find some better swag myself. I'm going to try to avoid the cheap garbage and use something I'd enjoy finding. Probably geared more toward kids. Perhaps I'll put in a toy and a signature item. That way the adults would be interested in signature items, kids would be interested in the toys.

It was a fun lunch hour cache.

Man's Best Friend

I have this new interest in travel bugs. There's a travel bug that I want to recover, but I specifically have to block out some time to get there. Not that it's hard to get to. It actually looks pretty easy. But I can't casually get to it if I 'happen to be in the neighborhood.' At any rate. It's purpose is to get pictures of your K-9 friends. My dog is really getting old and probably won't last much longer. So I think I'm going to get the travel bug and have my picture taken with my dog and the travel bug. I also bought a travel bug tag. I'm going to look for a toy dog that looks like her. When she passes, I'm going to launch the travel bug in her remembrance. I'm not sure what her goal will be. But I thought it would be a good sentiment.