Aero-caching!

It's been a long wet spring of work, baseball and lousy weather, so I figured it was time for a trip!

The lovely wife has become a bit addicted to geocaching. She has her own Garmin and an online forum like this one to locate geo-caches.
So I figured if i could find an airport with some caches nearby and a place to get a bite to eat, we might have a trip to further enhance marital bliss. I went on line and found the place. 30 min away by RV, crossing runways, lots of caches, and a quirky little place to eat.



I pitched the idea mid-week and got a thumbs up from the wife, Andi - of course the next day my EMS went south and needed to go back to Dynon for some CPR (by the way, the Dynon guys are great to work with). So I thought I was stuck - but took a chance and put out a call to the local RV crew to see if I could borrow an EMS for a few days. Took about 2 hours to get an offer from Brad Benson - a local RV-6 builder. I bought him some lunch on Friday and walked away with an EMS for the weekend (RV guys are the best!) Plastic left on for protection!



We planned to be wheels up at 9am and at 9:02 just prior to engine start, hangar-mate and RV-7/9 builder Bernie Weiss rolls up with a travel mug of coffee for Andi, making me look like a Schmutz, but making her completely happy!(See, RV guys are great!)

The flight down was smooth and cool, with light fog in the valley of the Mighty Mississip.



Soon enough, we were turning final for 30 over the river, and parked on a quiet ramp.



Off to find the caches!! We quickly realized 2 things: 1) the water was very high around the river and might make access hard, and 2) the mosquitoes were swarming. The first cache was a pretty easy find and a real life saver. Ammo box in the crook of a tree.



It contained GOLD.....or better yet bug dope!



We applied the OFF! and went on to walk several miles and find a bunch of caches. You trade trinkets and sign the finders list - it is all based on the thrill of the hunt!



The honeysuckle was blooming and the smell as we walked was heavenly!



On the way back to the airport, we stopped to grab a bite at the world famous? Penguin Zesto (think Dairy Delight). The cheeseburgers and a root beer float really hit the spot.



We loaded up and had slightly bumpy ride home - Andi slept of course.



Not sure it will ever be a sanctioned sport, but Aero-caching makes for a pretty dang good day in the RV!!

That looks like a great way to spend a day with your wife! Thumbs up!

aero caching

...and a good time was had by all.

Great post and pics Pete. Thanks for sharing your story.

Cool! Thanks for sharing!

That looks like you had an awesome time!

What is aero/geo-caching?

It looks like fun but I don't understand how this works and how to get started. It looks like a sort of Easter egg hunt but no eggs are harmed.

Bill Near

www.geocaching.com

Bill,

checkout www.geocaching.com - it should answer any questions!

I too am a big geocaching nut. Cool!

Aerocaching

I explored geocaching a few months back after reading about a Florida family using it as a family activity that they all enjoyed doing together. However, after looking in my local area for caches, it dawned on me that this is an activity for people with time to kill. I don't generally have that, so I dropped the notion.

However, now that I have an RV, I often find myself complaining that I have nowhere to go. I go up, circle the house a couple of times, do a few rolls, burn gas and squash some bugs, then go back and land. It gets kinda boring.

Maybe "Aerocaching" is something to consider. Beats squashing bugs for no reason ...

Try Earthcache

Being a geologist and an academic type, I prefer the Earthcache program (http://www.earthcache.org/). Instead of exchanging trinkets (and arguably littering wild areas), you take a picture that you post on the Earthcache website when you sign the virtual logbook and gain some interesting education information. The program is international, so everyone can play. (There are 127 sites in Minnesota, Pete.) When I retire, I've thought of contributing a aerial-specific version to the program. But, any of us with geology experience could start contributing any time!

I like it!

We will check it out! Thanks Louise!

For the real geeks, you can also go geoHashing, but while actually in the air. Easiest to repost something I wrote elsewhere from a few years ago...

DCat22 said:

Got my first aerial geohash last night! (Well, almost...)

Now, those that read XKCD are probably laughing at me...for everyone else, a brief explanation is in order: Imagine, a $100 hamburger trip, except to a specific set of lat/long coordinates. And that those coordinates are based on an algorithm that uses the previous close of the Dow as its source for a random seed.

Still with me?

The points repeat, as the output of the algorithm is just the minutes and seconds -- so there is a repeating point in every 1x1 degree lat/long grid (called a graticule).

Here is the source of all this: http://xkcd.com/426/

(XKCD the source of people playing chess on rollercoasters, the bottom of pools...and guitar in the shower...and one of my favorite webcomics.)

The basic premise is go to that point. ...and the "official" time where you may run into other geohashers is 4PM on Saturdays. (You just need a picture of you and your GPS. Not many people active around Houston though...)

The site which has all the detail, trip reports, etc, is here: http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing

And the mapping utility (click in the map to show the point for each graticule): http://irc.peeron.com/xkcd/map/

The first Air Geohash: http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/2008-06-11_31_-84

And my post: http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/2009-06-27_30_-95

(So far, seems there are only 2 other pilots that have gotten hashes. And not many of these "awards" have been claimed: http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Air_Geohash )

Laughing at me yet, now? Hey, there are worse reasons to spend money...

...the hash point was in the southeast corner of the DWH delta, and pretty close to the Bravo. I was taking my passenger "hash manager and photographer" on a quick "downtown" trip, so on the way back, got through the Bravo on FF...so the point was lined up with a downwind entry to Hooks. Difficulty with that is that both numbers were moving at the same time...ideally I would get one direction right, and fly a straight line until the other matched...as you can see, I didn't nail it exactly...and unfortunately the picture wasn't taken when I was within 10 seconds of the location, so it technically doesn't count...N30°01'09.33", W95°30'49.17" vs my N30°01'07", W95°30'23".

So...thoughts? (/hides under rock/)

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