GeoWoodstock Offline Cachly Maps

Countdown clock is on and only a week until GeoWoodstock 2018! 

TaGeez and I spent that last two car rides to work listening to Geogearheads Attending Megas & Gigas and GeoWoodstock 2018 podcasts. Located at historic Coney Island in Cincinnati, we're heading to the amusement park with WikidKriket and Snakeylicks and looking forward to geocoins, virtual reality & gadget Lab caches, and, of course, the coveted GIGA icon!

Right now we're in the planning stages. Bought snacks and sunblock last night. Bookmarked lists of must-do's for the ride down. Checking out new reward Virtuals since our last visit. And preparing our pocket queries. Luckily we've been to Cincinnati several times recently so we've found many of the Favorited caches but experience tells us there are pockets of areas where we won't have mobile data (TaGeez has Spring, and I have AT&T).

Lucky for this iPhone user, Cachly has made available offline maps specifically for the surrounding environs of GeoWoodstock!

You can see where I have already saved these maps (gold star)

Cachly did it right - super easy!

1. In the Maps tab, click the Map Types icon 
2. Click Download Offline Maps
3. Click North America
4. Click United States
5. Available maps will appear. Scroll down and click on Geowoodstock 2018 to install.

When you need to access these maps, click the Map Types icon again and select your saved maps under the Offline Maps section. Although only 87 MB, once you are done with these maps, you can slide your finger over the offline map entry to delete it.

Michigan maps are downloaded for our trek to the Thumb this weekend, and, HEY! Canada maps, too! Very cool as we live less than 10 miles from Ontario!

Road Trip Apps!

I was listening to my friend, Shortyknits, on GeoGearheads this week (GGH 210), and she mentioned Furkot. She's working on several challenges at once (Illinois DeLorme, Illinois counties, and Illinois Virtuals) and had a really successful adventure in the new year. She and ScottBerks made a major dent in finding qualifiers while criss-crossing across the state. A wiz at trip planning, she said she used Furkot.com


FURKOT - Miss the turns on your terms! Use real dates, find interesting places, book hotels with ease

Furkot is a free trip-planning website (that works just like an app on your mobile device). You can plug in multiple stops and the planner will route the most efficient route from one destination to the next. You can pick dates and even travel times - travel times will accommodate sightseeing stops but keep you on track from missing check-in times or sundown, if needed.

From their site: You can even plan meal stops and add gas stations to your itinerary. Not to mention biking paths, museums, monuments, climbing routes, national parks, scenic views — add as many as you want. Furkot will keep you on track. You just need to show up.

A website that's also mobile-friendly and works like an app

When I posted this online, another friend, Yellowjeeperman, said he's been using Roadtrippers for years.

ROADTRIPPERS - Maps built for travelers.

YJM said, "If you like finding things on road trips, awesome restaurants, cool spots to stops, highly recommended places, movie locations, it's the best app."  I have to admit I enjoyed clicking on the Attractions & Culture and Points of Interest features. Looking at my local area, it was pretty thorough. 

Besides the standard Food and Accommodations, I can also see my family enjoying the Guides: Roads & Rides, Camping, RV'ing, and Destination Strange. Destination Strange wonderfully reminds me of my favorite website: AtlasObscura.com. Have you been? Talk about fascinating places and a fabulous website, too!

Both a web site and a free app

Now, YJM is a very helpful sort. He also mentioned another favorite travel app: Sit or Squat by Charmin!

SIT OR SQUAT - Need a bathroom on the go?

This is available via a fee app or online.  At first I poo-poo'd his suggestion (pun intended) until I remembered that we're going to Washington DC and Central Park this year. Talk about tough places to find a public loo! Good suggestion, Brad!

Both a mobile website and a free app

Still and all, I can't end this post without mention my buddy AstroEricJ's favorite, WAZE. 

WAZE - Outsmarting Traffic Together

I wrote about WAZE after our epic journey from Michigan > Indiana > Illinois > Wisconsin > Minnesota > Iowa > Illinois > Indiana > Home. This is social media for traffic. As you travel along your route (and it will route for you if you plug in a destination), you will see real-time traffic issues like accidents, construction, traffic slowness and police presence as reported by other Wazers. Waze is smart enough to navigate you around these hazards in a fun, interactive way.

Available as a free app only

Now, this is definitely not all-inclusive, but this should make for some interesting experimentation this summer on the road to DC and NY. Especially if we acquire a mobile wi-fi like AstroEricJ - yes, wi-fi on a geo-adventure (drool).

Lucky Me! Lucky Me! - Geogearheads Edition

I was the big winner on Geogearheads this week! 

I'm the big winner of Question 202 with my blog post about locking trackables. One year free membership from Project-GC.com! It didn't take me long to redeem it because sometimes it IS about the numbers!

Google Earth and Tracking Trackables

It's been an exciting week for Google Earth!  They're offering the license key for Google Earth Pro (normally $399) for free!

Get Google Earth Pro for Free! Formerly $399!

I will confess here that I have a love/hate relationship with Google Earth.  It was thanks to Google Earth that I bought my first iPad.  We were vacationing in Traverse City and my nephew pulled up satellite images of Grand Traverse lighthouse!  First time I've ever seen anything like that.  We spent the evening scanning other Michigan landmarks. It was thrilling every time I opened the app to see the globe and then watch as we swooped to our current location!

Grand Traverse Bay Lighthouse

And then Google Earth seemed to drop the ball when it came to it's iPhone app.  The app would take up more and more room and offered less and less features.  Someone also said the desktop version would no longer pin the coordinates you were entering but the closest building or address.  Annoying. So it was with great excitement when I downloaded the Pro version on my desktop for free - already playing with it!

Google Earth Pro - Detroit Ren Cen in the lower right

And I LOVE Google street view.  My sister-in-law asked the name of the restaurant in Mexicantown next to "that great mural".  Well, there's murals everywhere down there - a very colorful neighborhood.  I told her to "street view" it and see if it was the right one. It can be a powerful tool for planning trips and routing cache runs. 

One of my all-time favorite caches involves Google Earth (Views from Orbit GC27MAW). You can see an airplane in the Google map of the historic and ever-popular cache, Beverly GC28 (rumor has it people have searched for the plane!) And there's even funny websites dedicated to the wackiest scenes captured on Google Earth.

Beverly GC28

Why all the ruminating about Google Earth?  I was listening to the latest GeoGearheads show. Someone had emailed asking how to map out a trackable's history.  

I had the same answer as debaere - above the logs, click on the View Map link.  It takes you to this map, which diagrams, in order, each visit.  As an added bonus, if you scroll down you will see all the logs (including GC codes, mileage, and state information).

DarrylW4 had a different answer.  In the Trackable Options box (upper right corner), click on View in Google Earth.  It navigated me to the Google Earth app on my iPhone (and downloaded a .kml file to open in Google Earth in my desktop) to generate this map.  Pretty cool, eh?   

It's a slightly different perspective. Weird that I pride myself in knowing Geocaching.com so well and never noticed that link before.  

Next up is to take a test-run of Geotribes, whose tagline is "interactive maps & statistics for geocaching travelbugs, geocoins and all your trackable items...".  Debaere said it has some pretty nifty features so that's good enough for me.

Plus the Advance Search Email from Groundspeak!

Ooh! I also received the Premium Member's email to beta-test the new Geocaching.com Advance Search feature.

First of all, thanks for being a Geocaching Premium member. Without you, we wouldn't be here. In 2015, one of the ways we're showing our thanks is by giving Premium members exclusive sneak peeks at new tools, features and upgrades.

Right now, you can help fuel the future of geocaching. Get a first-look at the new and improved Advanced Search, a tool that's been requested by the geocaching community. It's been completely retooled, revamped and streamlined based on geocaching community feedback. Here are a few of the features we've been working on:

•   Search by Geocache Name - Look for any geocache with a certain keyword in its name, anywhere in the name, not just at the beginning.  

•  Search by Minimum Favorite Points - Only like finding the best of the best? This will make it easier.  

•  Filters - Narrow your search with ease using filters like geocache type, D/T and more.

 

Keep in mind this page isn't 100% complete yet, so some things may change before the official release. We'll send you another email in about a week to get your insights and opinions. We're excited to hear your feedback.

I LOVE the idea of using the Advance Search instead of the pocket queries to gather a refined list. This one below involved finding enabled caches that myself nor TaGeez has found yet.

I'm excited because it generated a list of 911 results (with no paging required - all results appeared below).  I'm able to map my results, but I don't see a method of creating a GPX export or bookmark list from the results, though.  

For those who aren't aware of this pending update, GeoGearheads released a good show on it this week (episode 160.5).  What's cool is that Eric from Groundspeak did a demonstration (around minute 26:00) on locating favorited challenge caches and he searched Detroit, Michigan!  Some of my challenge caches showed on the list! Woot!

I can't wait to give this Advance Search a whirl this weekend.

GeoGearHeads 155: Lucky, Lucky Girl!

As Winter storms in, there’s nothing more enjoyable than spending our evenings listening to geocaching podcasts and solving puzzle caches!  In December, the GeoGearHeads hosted their monthly Randomize show.  And, of course, Randomize XXX had to be co-hosted by Walt & Scott of the Chicago Geocaching Podcast!

It was like visiting with old friends again.

Lucky me, I entered and was one of the winners of the live drawing!  Woot!  A 2014 Compass Rose Geocoin! 

I had to laugh at Walt’s reaction when Darryl announced my name:

“Scrapcat?!? The amount of coins scrapcat has she can build a house now”

With Darryl replying,

“And path tags…… she can use them for the roof.”

Hmmm…. I guess they’ve seen all my posts – LOL.

Thank you, DarrylW4, for delivering this gorgeous coin to the HNY-15 event!

Sighter in Birmingham

What a fun (and cold) adventure today!

I heard about the newest location-based game called Sighter on a recent GeoGearhead's podcast.

Sighter, found on both iOS and Droid, is a cross between Wherigos, Virtuals and Munzee. The app, using distance, a compass and hints, directs you towards "places of interest". Once there, you use your smartphone app to take a picture of the object. If you do so correctly (the right angle and zoom), you get a point for the find and (hopefully) additional information. To ensure you've met the qualifications, the site compares your captures to the original capture and checks your GPSr location.

Today, members of Team Free Range Lobsters (TaGeez, WikidKriket, SnakeyLicks, and myself) met up with GeoGearhead's DarrylW4 in downtown Birmingham, MI. Darryl just released one of the first Sighter trails in the US, and we were trying it out.

This tour centered around the sculptures of Marshall Fredericks, Birmingham legend whose work is part of the Smithsonian Art Collection. It was a fabulous 7-stop art tour around downtown and a nearby cemetery. The group shot was taken at Frederick's grave site underneath his famed piece, Leaping Gazelle.

It was a gray, 20°+ degree day ("feels like" in the single digits thanks to the wind). As well as the tour, we also grabbed additional "sights" like the Birmingham Theater, the old Edison building and Royal Oak's wooden Mad Hatter statue.

We were victorious. Snapping away, we found 22 sights and each created another 2. As there aren't many playing the game yet, we topped the weekly leaderboard for both Michigan and the World.

I have several observations:

- Don't do this on a 20° day. Brrrr..... However, snow didn't effect the capture/verification process.

- It worked well on the 4S, 5 and 5C iPhone, for the most part. However, the 4S kept crashing in the creation process.

- At different times, each of us were unable to capture a sight. Even in the exact spot and trying different angles, we would get the "Sorry" message. Once, I walked in the HOT zone (as in "you are getting hotter"), and snapped something totally different and got my point.

- There is no social aspect, currently. No way to see if my sister had been there, etc.

- Although you use your phone's camera, it doesn't actually take a picture or save it to your photo library.

- It was fun and the interface was easy to use. However, don't get "caught up" in capturing sights that you forget the art you came to see.

I can't wait for Spring so that I can create many more. This will be fun as we explore new places while geocaching.

Happy Sightering!
Elisa

SE MIGO Meet + Dragon + Prize Geocoins

Had a great time at last night’s monthly SE MIGO Meet at Panera.  Caching Fire (TB5MKYT) made his grand appearance on the event scene.  I think it was a hoot!...er.. I mean a hit!

While at the meet (with everyone “discovering” my dragon), I ran into DarrylW4.  I mentioned earlier that I won a geo-prize in one of the GeoGearHead’s drawings.  He handed it to me.  Woot!  I won a 2011 DarrylW4/Firefly geocoin and a Cache-A-Maniacs geocoin!  Awesome!  I already have a DarrylW4/Firefly geocoin (with a silver border) so I’m going to give this gold-bordered one to TaGeez for his collection (I “earned” another DarrylW4/Firefly geocoin about a year ago at the Belle Isle event, and it’s in my sister’s collection).

All in all, a good event and the last one for me before Christmas.  I wish all my geo-friends an awesome holiday season!

Lucky, Lucky Day!

Wow!  Great drive home yesterday.  I love listening (and sending in listener feedback) to Geocaching podcasts.  Some of my local geo-buddies laugh at me each time they hear my name mentioned on a show.  It’s not that it’s “all about me”.  It’s just that I learn so much, and it’s like hanging out with peeps with my same passion.

My favorites are (in no particular order) The Podcache Show (folksy fun out of Britain), GeoSnippits Reboot (Andy can be VERY enthusiastic at times – totally hyped on sugar), GeoGearHeads (all-things geo-tech and the source of my Wallabee addiction), Podcacher (the granddaddy of them all), GeoTalk (monthly Australian fun), and Geocaching Podcast (I like the panel of rotating hosts lately).

As I was driving home last night, GeoGearHeads had their drawing for some geo-prize packs on their 100^th episode.  If you blogged, FB’d, tweeted, etc about their show recently you were entered into the drawing, and I was picked!  I’m not sure what I won… I’ll find out in a week, but it was an awesome surprise!  I have been so lucky lately!

And, much to DarrylW4 and my sister’s joy, I did pull off the road before I emailed GGH with my mailing address.

iPhone Keyboard Trick: The Degree Symbol

I learned a really cool keyboard tip on the GeoGearheads podcast show #94.  To enter a degree symbol on an iOS device (like an iPhone), hold down the number 0 button on the keyboard.  A pop-up window with the degree symbol will appear.  Handy when entering coordinates or discussing weather.  (Sorry for the sloppy mock-up image, I was in a hurry and didn't see anything online I liked).

You can find the GeoGearheads podcasts on iTunes or http://www.cacheamaniacs.com/ - they also have an official website at http://www.geogearheads.com/ .  You will learn a lot about iOS and Android devices (plus a little bit about everything else) on this show.

Oh, and another note of excitement: Today is my 600th straight day of caching!  Woot!