Stashing my Cache

Stashing my Cache

Sunday, July 15, 2012

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Nathan & me on cache-stashing day

Before leaving New Hampshire, Nate & I pledged that we'd create our own geocache someplace in Portsmouth as a way of leaving a bit of ourselves behind. We spent half a day looking for the perfect place & ultimately settled on an old tree trunk on the outskirts of the old cemetery across from our apartment, overlooking a body of water called Curriers Cove. It was just difficult enough to find that we were proud of ourselves; you had to hack through some brush & brave some rocks to reach the cache in its hiding spot, which we aptly named "Junk in the Trunk."

A few days after I submitted the cache to the official geocaching folks, we got bad news: Our cache had been denied. Apparently there's a 500 feet rule, & ours didn't fall within the parameters. It was too close to another cache near the same graveyard, despite the fact that the two were a good half an hour apart in terms of brush & overgrowth. Disappointed but undeterred, we headed back to the original spot to retrieve our cache so that we could re-hide it. We found that it was a good thing our cache had been rejected... because it had floated away with the tide!

After scouring the area for a new, within-the-rules hiding spot, we settled upon one we were still able to name Junk in the Trunk. Last week, I got an email from the good folks at Groundspeak, who confirmed that our new cache placement had been approved - quickly followed by an email saying that someone had already found it!

All this to say that if you're in Portsmouth, I urge you to register with Geocaching.com & download the app so that you can track down our cache.

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Quirky Weekend, Lovely Life

Quirky Weekend, Lovely Life

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

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There's nothing quite like a three-day weekend to refresh a slightly downtrodden soul. Nathan had to work overnight on Friday, so I spent the evening drinking PBR in a can & catching up on reading blogs. No photos are available because I was so tired & downtrodden that I became immediately drunk & fell asleep early.

When I awoke on Saturday, Nathan was home... & cooking breakfast burritos! They were supposed to be breakfast tacos, but, um, he bought the big tortillas. Whatever, that doesn't make them any less delicious. I like anything that involves chorizo.

There's a joke in "American Reunion" in which Kevin rags on ex-girlfriend Vicky for posting photos of her meals online. Nathan likes to mention this any time I snap a pic of our culinary creations, but Instagram beckons, y'all, & I do not want to disappoint.

My friends Jeff & Michelle came up from Boston on Sunday, & we were proud to show them around Portsmouth & show off our cute little town - you know, right before we vacate it. I took another food photo because after 15 months in New England, I finally ate my first lobster roll - & let me tell you, it did not suck. Thanks to The River House for selling "lob dogs," four-inch lobster rolls that aren't too overwhelming for first-timers like me. And for having a sweet deck overlooking the Piscataqua River that was perfect for a sunny Sunday.

And then we had the best cream ever in the history of ever and took awkward pictures in front of some shark graffiti.


On Monday - BONUS WEEKEND! - Nate & I decided to walk downtown, which is about a two-mile walk. Not far, but just far enough that we don't do it very often, mostly because I am the absolute definition of an indoor kid. We neglected to consider the fact that it was a holiday & that there might be a parade happening (& honestly, what parade happens at 1pm?) but alas, a parade was about to begin just as we reached the square. A couple hundred people lined the streets, anxiously awaiting... an ambulance, two bands, MacGruff the crime dog, & assorted other city folk. The whole parade was exactly the length of one James Brown song - specifically "Get Up Offa That Thing," which I know because we watched the parade from inside a pizza place, & that's what was playing as it went by.

 

Nathan recently described Portsmouth as "white people run amok," & nothing says that quite like a Segway tour. What were they even touring?! What is there to say?! This is just, like, a side street in suburbia. "On your left, folks, you'll see a parking deck to the left, with some spacious metered spots to the right, and a bank up ahead. Enjoy the sites!"

On our way home, we stopped to look for a cache in a cemetery near our apartment. In the process, we were thrilled to find a hidden little precipice overlooking the river, where Nathan capitalized on the opportunity to skip a few rocks. I would totally want to have a picnic here sometime, if we weren't leaving town in four weeks.

 

I found the cache & subsequently marveled over this photo of me looking much, much skinnier than I actually am:

On our way home, we spotted this headstone. Did I feel bad giggling about someone's grave marker on Memorial day? Unequivocally yes. Could I resist? Clearly not.

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If You See Something, Say Something

If You See Something, Say Something

Sunday, May 20, 2012

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My pal Joey & I went geocaching on Friday evening, in search of a cache near my mom's house that Nathan & I couldn't locate last summer. This particular cache is in a very public area, right at the corner of the entrance to my neighborhood & a busy, highly trafficked main street, so we knew we would probably look like crazy people in our attempt to unearth said cache, but we went for it anyway. I'm not afraid of looking like a crazy person, in case you hadn't caught on to that yet.

For 15 minutes, we upturned rocks & scoured street signs, looking for any possible place that an "easy to find" cache might be hiding. Admitting defeat, we were just about to throw in the towel when it occurred to me that someone's comment about the cache, "It was lit up like daylight," could be a clue. Sure enough, there it was: a teeny, tiny canister Velcroed to the back of an electrical box. Victory!

Just as we began to sign our names to the log, a police car pulled up. BUSTED. "Can I ask what you're doing?" the officer inquired, & I tried not to look too embarrassed when I told him we were geocaching. "You're what?" he asked, flummoxed, & I tried to explain: "It's... like a scavenger hunt... on the Internet..." (So much for not being embarrassed.) I guess that was a convincingly nerdy explanation, because the cop just said, "OK. I got a call that someone was messing with the box," & then drove away.

Dude. How often do guys in madras shorts & gals with Zooey Deschanel bangs hack electrical boxes in broad daylight? Good looking out, neighborhood watch!

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Caching In On the Great Outdoors

Caching In On the Great Outdoors

Sunday, April 3, 2011

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On my list of Things I Really Want to Do Because I Don't Have Any Hobbies & I Think I Should (this list exists solely in my mind) is geocaching, an activity that combines two of my least favorite things: directions & the wilderness. I have distressingly terrible directional capabilities, & as a result, I am always, always lost, forever wearing down the battery on my phone because I require the use of my map app so much.

Still, I like scavenger hunts, & geocaching is basically a GPS-assisted scavenger hunt with strangers. So today, with the weather practically tropical at a balmy 50 degrees, Nathan & I set out geocaching near our apartment. We downloaded a handy app called Geocaching.com Intro, which looks like a distant relative of Geocities (may it rest in peace) & provides a vague visual guide to finding nearby caches. After eating a hearty brunch & choosing a little totem to leave behind once we found the cache, we began our adventure.

(A note: I thought about touching up these photos a bit, maybe hipsterizing them with one of the many popular iPhone apps that makes everyday pictures look trendy & artsy & like I'm a real photographer. Instead, I chose to keep them as they are - I think they're pretty impressive alone.)

This is where we started:

And this is where we wandered:

And this is how excited we were about it:

(This is where Nathan would like me to point out that he doesn't have a weird trash-'stache; it's just an unfortunate trick of light.)

And then we kept wandering...

...and wandering.

We knew we were close when the app blinked & told us, "YOU'RE CLOSE!" because we're smart like that. Don't I look excited? And not at all cold? I told you it was tropical out today!

And finally, after just .28 miles, THERE IT WAS, hidden between two big rocks, weathering the elements & just waiting to be found!

Naturally, Nathan claimed victory...

...& dove in to retrieve the hidden treasure.

We started digging through the sundry items left behind by the geocachers who came before us.

I confess to being slightly disappointed that the booty wasn't cooler (TWSS?). It mostly consisted of the kind of plastic crap you get from quarter machines outside grocery stores - a bendable alien, a baseball beanbag, a kazoo.

We debated what to leave behind & decided upon a small plastic penguin, in keeping with the rest of the cache's treasures. Perhaps we'll save the Coast Guard coin for something a bit fancier.

The log book was nearly full, listing all the folks who'd adventured there in the past. Including... someone else who was there today? We were more than a little bit weirded out to realize that the cache had only been found a few times in the past year - and that one of them stopped by hours before we got to it.

And finally, we left our mark. Can you read it? It says, "4/3/11, Nate & Kate - our first cache!"

And then we packaged it up, stuck it back in the crevice, & headed along our merry way.

Did I mention it's pretty beautiful here?

And then we went shopping & saw the new Jake Gyllenhaal movie, which is a little bit like "Panic Room" meets "Groundhog Day" without the violence or the humor. So, you know, not everything I did today was terribly out of character.

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