The first 10000 is the hardest

Spring has been here for a while, although winter gives us a reminder from time to time. But during the Easter weekend weather was fantastic.  So what better things to do than to do some geoCaching? (Ok, there are things that are better but you get my drift.)

For my part, the weekend started with a trip to Timmersdala, outside Skövde, with torado and father&son Hampe97. Timmersdala is a nice area, with shifting terrain. Here a gang of 6 cachers have put out a series of caches called KM-xxx which I thinks stands for Klyftamon.  Each hid a series of 20 caches, with a mystery bonus on that.  And there was a final mystery as well.  So in all 127 caches. They have been pretty clear that this is not a power trail, making them often a bit more difficult and a bit higher terrain. I think they succeeded quite well, but some parts (especially the D series) still felt like power trailing. What better way to spend "long Friday"?

During the early parts of the Klyftamon trip we met Inycon from Skövde, who tried to go around this series on bikes. They (a pair, husband and wife) would have succeeded if not his back tire had become flat. We helped them out once (with the right equipment in the back trunk) but it did not help, so they fetched there car and continued around. But I think mountain bike is a recommended way to travel around these parts.

We did try to log all these but did not manage all of them. A typical series was easier in the beginning and got harder near the end, so avoid logging them in reverse order. We managed to log the first four series, with just a few life line phone calls...  As we reached the E series we run into problems, and also a gang of other cachers, Larsen I think was among them. They had been looking for E-081 for half an hour and just found what looked like the remains of a log strip. Then they had been search for E-082 for half an hour more. So they decided to skip to F series directly.  We did some searching for E-082 and E-081 on our own but had to make our first DNFs. We tried some more E caches, and found a couple but the number of DNFs increased - so we skipped to F series as well.  In that we DNF a terrain 3½ and the bonus mystery, so the final mystery was not possible. 

Instead of the DNFs we did pick up a few other caches, but not many. And it took quite some time to make the Klyftamon trip so in all we managed 115 caches that day.  As they dropped me off in Motala, and I had some time before the bus departed, I did take a walk and logged the "FNs Geocachingkommite" mystery by Bo & Elisabet.  A great mystery that fitted my interests, both when it commes to mystery caches and when it comes to things outside geocaching... Recommended.  So, 116 caches become my new record.  I do not feel any preasure to break that record, but we'll see.

The title?  Oh, there is a saying among the real rich that the first billion dollars is the hardest. And that is definitely true - don't think I ever will get to my second ;-) But 10000 caches is an easier goal, soon reached by the first cachers in Sweden.

This was the first blog entry about the Easter weekend. I will try to make two more, about Sunday and Monday. Saturday was a resting day - just one cache logged!

The new disease?

One thing I have noticed is that you change your way of looking at things when you learn new things. For example, when I started with golf I did think about this as soon as I smelt the smell of grass. And when I drive around in a car I tend to look out for radio base stations. If you learn about clouds, skies and air preassure as a meterologist instead of looking out of the window and think "What a nice day we have" you will think "Cumulus Nimbulus, ah - that means rain tomorrow". And so on.

Bike in Boren next to the Svarthäll cache

So what about geoCaching? Of course this affect your thinking when you walk out in a forrest. Does not that tree looks like a good place for a T4 climbing cache?  That rock there has a nice cavity would make a good place for a hide. How can I use that information in a multi? What kind of mystery would that make? Etc...

Don't know if this "illness" has a name but I could call it "geocachitis" or something.  Judging by previous experience this disease will stay with me as long as I keep up geocaching, and probably years afterwards.

More events in Linköping?

Isn't it time for more events in Linköping?  There are all kinds of event all around Sweden now that spring has come, and I would like to have more, closer to home...  But do they need a lot of work before hand?  Not necessarily.

I think that it would be nice to have something like "En välförtjänt kopp kaffe" (GC2PKFX). At that event (which I considered visiting, but eventually did not) at a set time a number of caches are published. But you do not meet before this time but instead are expected to be spread out across town. A few hours later those interested meet up at a set place (for example a café) for some discussions and social interaction...  Sound like this could be a simple thing.  Number of caches could be any. In the Södertälje case it was 20.

So, I would consider doing something like this in Linköping. Is there any others that would be interested in participating?  If we were 4 cachers (or signums) we could make 5 caches each.  It could be simple rules (like 3 km or so from the event place), splitting the city in 4 parts.

7-8 May there are two events in Ödeshög ("En sten, en skog" GC2HZN6, "Ett berg" GC2NH0R), and 9 April one event in Norrköping ("Våren är här", GC2NR5V).  Also there are some events further away, for those of you that like to travel a bit.  What is a suitable date in the calendar?

What did I tell you? Wet feet!

In a previous blog entry I stated that wet feet is something you get a lot of during winter. But that was before Evil Beaver in Örebro...