Local Heroes Travel Bug Hotel

Another quick find on the way home was the Local Heroes Travel Bug Hotel. The GeoTots found this one with no problem! We even met some very nice neighbors who chuckled at the kids as they looked for the container.

We dropped off some swag trinkets of our own, plus left the Le Croissant travel bug. We grabbed two other travel bugs (the Yuengling Bottle Opener and Liberty Island). But as the kids were picking through the swag, my daughter found a beautiful pink gem. When she showed it to me I was impressed at how nice it was. It wasn't until she showed me the little black bag it had been in that I realized what it really was.

That gorgeous pink gem was actually a trackable GeoGem called What a Rock! Until today, I'd only seen pictures of them. It's a nicely shaped plastic gem with the trackable code inscribed on the top. It was only after some grumbling and pouting that my 4-yr-old daughter gave it up (and after a promise from me that I'd get her some different princess jewelry...).

Girl Scouts of Central & Southern NJ

This geocache is called Girl Scouts of Central & Southern NJ. We made a quick pit stop for this cache on the way home. The kids found it with no problem after the GPS settled down. They each took a little trinket, replaced them with a few of their own, and dropped off the Travel Bugs Pierre and Pooh and Friends. We also picked up the Travel Bug Clue - The Weapon.

Update: Stop for a Minute

I just received an email stating that our Stop For A Minute trackable piece was dropped off in Nonek's Knoll. That geocache is in Florida, just south of Fort Lauderdale. According to the Geocaching website, our little sand timer Travel Bug has now traveled 8,958.9 miles!

This trackable moved over 400 times and has been from New Jersey to Maryland, Virginia, New York, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, California, and Florida.

Update: Italian Flag Micro Geocoin

I got an email today stating that our Italian Flag Micro Geocoin was just dropped off in a geocache called Eiszeitpark Harsefeld located in Niedersachsen, Germany.

This little coin has officially traveled 5,340.7 miles! It has been moved from Florida to New York to Massachusetts and finally Germany. Hopefully one day it will eventually make it to Italy and spend some time there.

Update: Sailboat Suncatcher Geocoin

I just received notice today that our Sailboat Suncatcher Geocoin was placed in a geocache in Washington called South Portage Bay, which is just north of Seattle.

This beautiful sailboat geocoin has officially traveled 4,856.5 miles. It's moved from New Jersey to Florida, the Bahamas, back to New Jersey, and now to Washington.

Critter #7 - Creek Watcher 2

This was one of the more interesting cache containers I've seen in awhile. I could tell by the name of this geocache, Critter #7 Creek Watcher 2, that an animal or other small creature was involved in some way. This cache was hidden beneath some large bushes that bordered the parking lot of a landscaping company store.

Is that a geocache in your mouth?

There's the critter!

 

He's actually pretty friendly!

Myerstown Lock

A small park in Myerstown borders a youth baseball field.  Several easy trails and paths run through it beside a creek that winds deeper into the woods.  The geocache Myerstown Lock is hidden in those woods.  The container was an old army ammo can.  It was hidden underneath some large old rocks that make up the end of a crumbling old wall in the middle of the woods.  Aparently, this is where the Myerstown lock chamber was located on the Tulpehocken creek. 


An old wall in the middle of the woods.



The end of the wall.  The geocache container is in there somewhere.



The ammo can container filled with some decent swag.

Mount Ain't No Cache

I had several hours to kill between meetings today, so I took my time exploring Myerstown, PA because it was right between the locations of my morning and afternoon meetings.  The first cache I found was called Mount Ain't No Cache, which I assume is named in some way for Mount Aetna.

The cache was hidden at the back edge of an old cemetary, which sat high above the surrounding land.  The cache was easy to find, and the view of the farmland below was spectacular. 

The cache container hidden underneath some rocks.



The opened container.



Another gorgeous view.



Scenic view from Mount Aetna.



A beautiful view.



I Hate Micros

I had some time to kill between meetings while working out by Harrisburg, so I went out to grab a cache called I Hate Micros.  It was hidden on the far edge of a gigantic deserted parking lot behind an old movie theater.  I got to the area where the container should have been, but it was nowhere to be found.  After a few more minutes of searching, I finally discovered it on the ground, half buried in the dirt and mud.  It looked like it had fallen off of the nearby tree where it was hanging.  I signed the log and re-hung the container (a camo'd bison tube) from the tree. 

Can you see it?  A camo'd bison tube.



There it is!



Sneaky little sucker!



Le Croissant

The Le Croissant travel bug was inside one of the caches that Gino and I found this afternoon, Walk Around The Walls. This unusual little trinket started its journey in Germany in December of 2006.  Over the past 4 years, this thing has traveled over 12,000 miles! 

The tag on this travel bug has the same basic message in both German and French. 
In German it says:

"Das kleine Croissant möchte die Welt kennen lernen. Gerne würde es seine Heimat Frankreich besuchen. Auf andere Länder mit leckeren Backwaren ist es aber auch neugierig. Bitte macht ein Foto, von den leckeren Backwaren, wenn ihr die Möglichkeit dazu habt." 

In French it says:

"Le petit croissant voudrait faire la connaissance du monde. Volontiers cela visiterait son pays natal la France. Cependant c'est aussi curieux d'autres pays(terres) avec les pâtisseries délicieuses. S'il vous plaît, fait une photo, des pâtisseries délicieuses, si vous avez la possibilité de cela."

11th & 17th Birthday Cache

Gino asked me this afternoon if we could go treasure hunting because it's a beautiful warm day, plus it's been awhile since we last went. So I looked up a few decent geocaches nearby and off we went. We found 11th & 17th Birthday Cache hidden in the woods in Wenonah. It was a nice walk, the temp was just right, and we had fun.

Inside the cache container, Gino found the Jim Jaggers travel bug. It's a little army guy, very similar to our own Recon Soldier. We'll try to find a good place to help him continue his journey.

The Phantom Zone

The second geocache that Gino and I found today was The Phantom Zone, hidden in the same wooded park as the other cache.

The GPS signal was weak under all the trees, and I couldn't get an accurate position to help find the container. After looking for ten or fifteen minutes, Gino suddenly jumped up and said, "Dad, I bet it's under that broken tree!" Of course, I swear I looked there, and we had climbed over and around that tree a few times already, but I never saw it. Once Gino started looking in that area, he found the container in amount a minute.

Inside the cache container was an Evil Micro geocoin. We'll look for a truly nasty evil micro cache to put this in sometime soon!

NGS Benchmark JU0679

Set into the side of the Mary Ethel Costello school in Gloucester City is NGS Benchmark JU0679. The date stamped into the disc is 1930, which is apparently when the school was built.

The Saviors

After finishing up my second meeting of the day in Glassboro, I took a short stroll through a small park by a pond and grabbed The Saviors geocache. It was a small bottle covered with camouflage tape, hidden in the thick shrubbery at the base of a small tree. It was easy to find and the park was beautiful, which made for a nice little break from working in the afternoon.

A beautiful park beside a pond

Another view of the pond fountain

Small gazebo across the pond

The cache is hidden in here

Ground Zero

The camo'd cache container

Rowan's Cache

After a morning meeting nearby, I had some time to kill before my next appointment, so I took a stroll along a beautiful wooded path on the Rowan Universtiy campus and grabbed Rowan's Cache. It was situated in the crook of a large tree in the middle of the wooded area, just slightly off the main pathway. If I were a few inches shorter, I might not have been able to reach this, but as it was I only had to stand on the very tips of my toes to grab the container (a vitamin bottle covered with camouflage tape). Inside the bottle was nothing really special, so I put my Coins Of The World travel bug inside for the next geocacher.

The Big Tree

Can you see the cache hidden in there?

Camo'd Vitamin Bottle

Cache contents (with my Coins Of The World TB)