Tuesday, December 31, 2019

MSPCGT: By The Numbers



100 Michigan State Park Caches found on 21 days of caching during 12 separate adventures

204 days between our first and last MSPCGT caches

Logging 6,070 miles driving and approximately 225,405 steps (almost a 1/4 of a million!) walking

$2,316 in hotels, $585 in gas plus countless dollars in food, souvenirs, and snacks.

83 Michigan counties completed

4 MSPCGT pathtags and 2 geocoins earned

1 MSPCGT GeoTour souvenir awarded

1 MiGO calendar cover, 1 completed journal and 1 FTF for Scrapcat


And 3 very happy geocachers and 1 stuffed frog, too!



Monday, December 30, 2019

MSPCGT: It's a Centennial Wrap!


To complete the Michigan State Park CENTENNIAL GeoTour during the CENTENNIAL year, TaGeez, ShelleyJean and I made two last cache runs in December.

But first... we needed to dress appropriately. This is what every geocacher is wearing this season.


Early December found us at Fort Custer and Lake Hudson State Parks for a letterbox and two more Traditionals. The ground is hard and the ponds almost frozen over. We spied 3 Tundra swans overhead.

 *** This post is riddled with spoilers! ***

Fort Custer - Letterbox

Fort Custer - Gadget Cache

The water looks so frigid but the seagulls and one excitable Golden Retriever thought this was heaven.


Fort Custer Lake

With a late start and an early sunset, we had to end our adventure early and leave the remaining 4 parks for another day.  We were anxious to get out of the woods as the roads were lined with Hunter's trucks and that wind off the lake numbed our toes. Ah, caching in Michigan.

Lake Hudson

One week later we headed out in snow flurries to tackle.. er... enjoy the last four parks! FOUR LEFT!

First stop of the day, and we faced snow flurries when leaving the Detroit area. Luckily, this was the shortest walk today. Quick find and sign & then we continued down the path to see the frozen lake. 

WJ Hayes State Park
Afterwards, since we were in the Irish Hills, we stopped to see the trabejo rustico at St Joseph’s Cemetery.


Do you see that "fencing" in the above and below pictures? They're made of cement! 
"The trabajo rustico (rustic work)—or faux bois (imitation wood) technique used natural elements as inspiration for cement creations."
There is a another magical version of trabajo rustico less then a mile down the road at McCourtie Park.



Next up was Watkins State Park. One thing you need to know about this park... there is no restroom facilities or places of concealment.  Just wanted to point that out. In case you are asking... for a friend.

Fascinating to see the hundreds of Canadian geese on the almost-frozen lake on the way in.  This was the first time I've experienced a Natural Beauty Road in a state park.


This was a lovely, gradual walk up the hill to the cache.  It was worth the cold wind off the slope, and I'm grateful we didn't do this in the direct summer sun.

Watkins Lake State Park

*** DID I MENTION SPOILERS? ***

Do you see it?


How about now? 


Brighton Recreation was unremarkable except for two things: First, we didn't get shot, and, second, it was state park #99. Luckily, as a quicky near home, that gave us plenty of time at Michigan State Park #100: Meridian-Baseline State Park!

You could feel the change in the air, and we knew it was going to be a good party when Signal found a disco ball at the first cache!

Squirrel Night Club GC84JH2

As we were getting down to the single digits, we looked at the remaining caches and decided this would be our final MSPCGT cache to wrap our fabulous 6 month journey! Meridian-Baseline had the highest favorite points among the remaining with a new Virtual as a bonus. This was the right choice.

When we hit ground zero, there was no surprise where the final was hid. Even with the icy slopes and frozen river, we gingerly made our ways down to GZ.... 


... where the monster under the bridge screamed and warned us to go back. What a hoot!



WE DID IT!

Team SST completed the Michigan State Park Centennial GeoTour!


100 Michigan State Parks discovered, explored and enjoyed!
We kept to our mission: To visit and enjoy all the 100 Michigan State Parks on the tour, and we completed it within the Centennial year! 


Honestly, this was like no other experience, and our state is so ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! 

Sand Dunes! So otherworldly! Swamps and coastlines and old-growth forests. Beaches made of Petoskey stones, ankle-breakers, and silty sand. Lighthouses! Flatland and hills and a mountain, to boot. Waterfalls and rapids and lakes in the clouds with ridges that were oh so high! Historic forts, mining towns, logging encampments, and CCC sites, too.

We sagged under the sun, tunneled under trees, cached in the bitter rains and were pelted by ice. We experienced our state in all four seasons (I'm counting 'construction season', too).  Pasties and Danish pastries and a bakery run by monks! American Bald Eagles, Tundra swans, and, oh, so many Sandhill cranes! A coyote!

Gadget caches and birdhouses and that amazing raft at Kitch-iti-kipi! Letterboxes on Lake Michigan, ammo cans along Lake Superior, bugs on Lake Huron, and one lonely cache on Lake Erie. We wandered along sand dunes for wherigos and watched amazing wind surfers and plovers at our Earth Cache.  
    
Thank you to the Michigan DNR and Michigan Geocaching Organization for creating such an amazing adventure!

*

To celebrate this accomplishment, we continued down this path for the new Virtual, Meridian-Baseline State Historical Park GC7B70X.  I think I shared enough spoilers in this post so I'll let the final images do the talking.




And thank you to everyone who followed along on our adventure.

Happy New Year!


Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Merry Cache-mas!


Christmas Eve geocaching in the 'D'

TaGeez and I had a fabulous Christmas in Detroit!

We hit the road on Christmas Eve to find our cache-a-day and enjoy the holiday lights: Pleasant Ridge to Campus Martius to Belle Isle and Lakeshore Drive (in exclusive Grosse Point).


Belle Isle Aquarium and Conservatory

On Christmas Day, we headed to Hamtramck (ham-tram-ick) -- one of Detroit's most prominent multicultural neighborhood comprised of Polish and Middle Eastern inhabitants. We figured we'd have the narrow streets to ourselves, and we were right. Perfect day to do an Adventure Lab!

Hamtramck, MI

Less than a month old, TeamGMMP released his 5-stop Adventure Lab and Bonus cache in an area rich with amazing food (pierogis and latkes, crepes and stuffed cabbage, bakeries every few feet) and murals. As we cruised up and down the one-way streets, we found ourselves driving in circles to reach the new-to-us murals on the walls. 

What's up with scrubbing bubbles? 



The five stops included a park mural, downtown mural, Polish art center, and two churches including St Florian's. St Florian's is known for its community events, holiday lights and Nativity.


We discovered LIVE DOVES in their Nativity! Totally unexpected as we approached when their little heads popped up to greet us!


Fabulous time on the tour and a quick find at the final. Definitely an enjoyable experience while working off Christmas breakfast.

Did you win one of the Adventure Labs? 
TeamGMMP shared his experience and advice in my last blog post

Speaking of Christmas, did you see Cachly's surprise for iPhone users? All our finds have Santa smileys today! I'm sure, like last year, it will revert back tomorrow, but that's so happy, right?

Michigan State Park Centennial GeoTour
Honeybee GeoArt

I hope you found some time this holiday to go outside and adventure!

Merry Cache-mas to All!


Monday, December 16, 2019

TeamGMMP Primer: Did You Win an Adventure Lab?



TeamGMMP won an Adventure Lab, and he was looking for ideas. Instead of letting his collect dust (like mine – I won one, too), he setup a series of events to motivate the other winners (AKA Adventure Lab Brainstorming Guild)

Weird people show up to events

His Adventure Lab Hamtramck – Following Polish Footprints and Bonus Cache released last week! Greg was kind enough to share feedback to help the other Lab owners.




Here are a few notes, based on what I have experienced myself, creating my adventure lab and based on feedback I have received from other geocachers.

Feedback

1.      RTFM! Yes, do it first. It is well written and explains a lot of things. You have received it as a link in the email you got from Groundspeak.
2.      Set your theme – for example “Cemeteries in Warren”, “Famous people buried in this cemetery”, etc. To be a good sport, avoid existing stages of wherigos, multicaches and other. What is the point of duplicating it? Avoid single business chain theme, like “Best Dunkin’ Donuts in Metro Detroit”. You get the gist…
3.      Scout your locations, take lots of pictures of the objects – from far away, close-ups. You don’t want to visit the places more than once, just because you made a boo-boo of your picture. Prepare 6 or 7 locations, so you have something to discard, when working on your lab at home.
4.      Take ACCURATE coordinates of your locations. Use websites, like Latitude and Longitude of a Point to fine-tune them. Nothing takes the fun out of geocaching more than wrong coordinates.
5.      As your adventure lab coordinates (or starting point), you may use your first location, or somewhere close to a parking lot. The big fat red pin on the map points to this location, so it is easier for other geocachers to use Google navigation.
6.      In regards to code words to have the location accounted as “found”: take pictures of them (close-ups!), make sure you remember (or write them down), which code word is for which location (doh!), LOL. Also, as I have been enlightened by one of the geocachers (thanks, june17!) that they are not case sensitive.
7.      Use your adventure lab app to search for existing adventure labs. Yes, I know, you are far away from them, but at least you’ll see their introduction pages – this will help you quite a lot.
8.      Use as many characters as you can in your description. 1024 of them is not much, but it is better, than “It is just a brick church” description…
9.    Create a couple of locations first, place pictures, short descriptions, questions for code words and TEST your lab (there is a button for that). In test mode fencing is off, so WYSIWYG (Google it, LOL) from the comfort of your home.
10.   About fencing – I had reduced mine from 1000 meters to 100 meters. In Hamtramck cell coverage is good, so I had no issues. Avoid tightening it too much – to 5 meters or even 1 meter [:O]. This is just annoying and takes fun out of geocaching.

FAQ

A few of questions from other geocachers:
1.   QR Code – what’s up with that? It gets created, when you create your adventure lab and opt-in (I believe, this is an opt-in) to have a link for private mode. The link to my adventure lab is this https://labs.geocaching.com/goto/GMMPHamtramck and QR code is just that. After I have created my lab and before I set it to “private”, I scanned the QR code with my cell phone (from my laptop) and I had my adventure lab running on my phone.
2.    Did you use any videos in your adventure lab? No, I didn’t. I would have to create them, post them on YouTube with director’s commentary, etc. Sorry, I didn’t have time for that. Look for a theatre in downtown Ft. Wayne adventure lab, it has a video there.
3.    Did you write everything yourself, or copied from somewhere?. Both. If you copy, make sure you mention the source, to avoid legal trouble. I used Wikipedia and mentioned it on my pages.
4.     Why did you create a bonus cache? Why not? It is optional, you don’t have to do it. It is allowed and mine got published without any issues. To make it work, at each location CODE WORD CONFIRMATION page, mention a few digits for the bonus cache coordinates, or even better, letters. I have used one letter per location, so if you put them in order into Certitude geochecker (of the bonus cache), final coordinates will be revealed. The advantage of letters over having portions (digits) of coordinates in the adventure lab is that if you have to move your bonus cache, you don’t have to mess with your adventure lab – you just change the final waypoint of the cache and the Certitude checker solution.
Again - so you know - insert the bonus cache info in these fields only:
Journal message [Optional]
Enter a message to display when a player has completed this location.
5.      How many lab cache icons do I get in my “hidden” statistics? The number of locations – in my case – five.
6.      How many lab cache icons do I get, when I find somebody else’s adventure lab? Same – the number of locations found by you.
7.      Did you set your adventure lab to linear or non-linear? Non-linear. It means, you can play locations in ANY order. If you set it to LINEAR, you force other players to play the locations in order you listed them from top to bottom on the main page. By the way, if they get stuck on the first location and cannot continue, I am pretty sure that you’ll hear, what they have to say about your adventure lab… in very unchosen words…
The switch is on the main page, right above the list of your locations and it is called “Play locations in sequential order”.

Title Page Example

For your reference, here is the title page of my adventure lab, you may copy and paste it and edit to your needs. do mention the projected completion time, whether it is linear or non-linear, etc.

This is your opportunity to visit 5 locations in Hamtramck related to Polish history of this city. All locations have parking areas nearby, the whole adventure should not take you more than 2 hours of driving and walking.

At each location a question will have to be answered correctly to receive credit for the lab cache. A total of 5 credits will be given. In the end you will have "found" 5 lab caches.

The locations do not have to be visited in order.

Note for the code words: I will give you hints, what to look for to get credit for a given location. Typically, you'll be looking for a number of characters. They will be a mix of letters, digits, spaces and special characters. They can be all letters or all digits as well.

At each location description, a letter will be given for the bonus cache. Collect all 5 of them, then enter into the bonus cache's checker for its final coordinates.

I hope you enjoy this adventure lab!

TeamGMMP

And Finally….

Hereby, I would like to thank all geocachers for many good ideas and pointers I have received, while preparing my adventure lab. Especially, I would like to thank scrapcat, who last month, at the I won an Adventure Lab and I need help! event just threw it out in the open - "How about Hamtramck, G.? You could do that!" So I did [:)]. Big, very big thank you, scrapcat [:)].

I hope my scribbling below will help other geocachers to create their adventure labs.

If anybody has more questions, I will be happy to help, just send me a message or an email.

TeamGMMP


Saturday, December 14, 2019

Puzzle Grid Complete!

Victory today!


TaGeez and I headed out for a Team Rumble Puzzle today to finish our 366 Puzzle grid. We selected that one for this milestone because it's the closest puzzle to PopLob and a lonely cache!

Imagine our disappointment when we couldn't find it?!?

Imagine our joy when we eventually found it 60 feet down a hill, amidst a pile of Muggle debris?!?

Both excited we completed it (and can publish our challenge) but now a little lost at what challenge next. Any suggestions?

Friday, November 29, 2019

GOT THE COVER!

Hey! One of my pictures is the cover to the Michigan Geocaching Organization annual calendar! The calendar celebrates the Michigan State Parks this year! ☀️ Wow!


This is MSPCGT:Fayette HSP-Village GC801K6 - great memories with TaGeez and ShelleyJean in the U.P.! 

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

MSPCGT: Gluttons for Punishment


What were we thinking?!?



2019 is ticking down, and the team had hoped to finish the Michigan State Parks Centennial GeoTour (MSPCGT) during the centennial year. So that means finding caches in all season - including the unseasonable weather that has rolled in.

Starting at Holland State Park (time to get the "sand dune" wherigos over with), we began on the beach where the water was frigid and the the wind carried ice pellets! BRRRR!



The MSPCGT: Holland State Park cache is an 18-stage tour of the beach area, nearby town, up 200 steps, along the top of a sand dune, and, eventually, to a cache final. We've been dreading it all year, but we're determined to finish all 100 caches in the series. 


Waiting until Fall, we hoped to avoid the heat on the sand, the EEE mosquitoes in the woods, and the Muggles on the beach. It did that, but we weren't accounting for the freezing wet feet and chapped cheeks. 



Up! Up! Up, we go! Summer crowds are so numerous there are signs that the stairs must be taken single-file and NO STOPPING! 



Look! Atop the dune and heading down!

I won't spoil the final. So, instead. here's a lion. After making the find, we headed downtown to see the new Wizard of Oz statues outside the library and for a little shopping downtown. If you get a chance, the art made from recycled materials along the main road are fun!

Holland State Park
Reprieve over... time to tackle another dune.

MSPCGT: Saugatuck SP is down the road from Holland.  This is another lengthy wherigo. This time touring the Felt Mansion....



... along the property into the nearby state park....


... and taking trails up the side of hills, along ridges, and over the dunes.


Yet another view of the beautiful and frigid Lake Michigan. The final was just a few hundred feet further on the trail. It was purported "so hard to find", but I think all three of us tripped on it almost immediately. WOW! Two multi-mile wherigos involving steps, trails & sand dunes -- I felt it for days afterwards.


Last find of the day was MSPCGT: Van Buren SP. I gave the letterbox container & special stamps a favorite point, but, if I'm being honest, the short walk to the cache was a major influence.


Our reward for our perseverance was an amazing sunset in South Haven and then dinner at Clementines! Look at these amazing photos! It's one of my favorite places in Michigan <3 



Thank you, ShelleyJean, for this favorite photo!


Sadly, we turned away from Lake Michigan Sunday morning and started heading home. Our next three MSPCGT caches were ammo cans on the pole.

MSPCGT: Grand Mere

MSPCGT: Warren Dunes

You would'a thought the word "dunes" in the state park name (Warren Dunes) would've clued me into the possibility of more sand and sandy heights. Oi! Luckily SJ and TaGeez powered on!



We pulled up to the gates of MSPCGT: Warren Woods and found a surprise - a locked gate with a sign stating "Closed until April".  Not deterred (we came so far) we hefted our packs and headed a half mile down the road. Nearing the final, we spied a group looking as guilty as we were. 

Team Stone's Throw was a group of muggles we hopefully converted. They were fascinated by the cache and the idea of caching. They are a beautiful group of women who actually hike for fun! I hope we see them on the trails again.




And now... off to my favorite road, U.S. Route 12 in Michigan. I swear, one day I'm going to drive it from Detroit to its final in Aberdeen, Washington. In Michigan, U.S. 12 takes you through quaint town squares and along the railroad. We visited historic cemeteries, stopping at several Virtuals.


Hero's was one of my favorite Virtuals on the trip. It's in a little downtown park filled with many, many, many ducks! Excitedly we paid out our quarters and fed the ducks until they stormed us! A single-minded flock of feathery evil! Luckily, I saved enough feed to make it to the Virtual and back. I distracted the swarm with the last of the bird food and raced to my team, pinned in the car! Adventure!


Last stop of our tour was MSPCGT: Coldwater Lake SP. We were warned that it was an undeveloped slight of land with no amenities. To gain the cache you had to wade through waist-high grass. Ok, let's get this over with before it gets dark. 

Amish speeding by


93 caches completed - 6 weeks to complete 7 more!



Update on my state park journal - I've kept on this. I have seven pages for seven parks to go!