Picnicaching/Treocaching/Bicyclaching

I made up three new words Saturday during our annual picnic in Rochester. I know they’re new because they all returned 0 hits in Google, which I wasn’t even sure was possible. Right now a server at Google HQ is probably flogging itself for failing in it’s role to return at least one paid ad search result.

Anyways, at last year’s picnic, we made a beeline towards the nearest cache, which turned out to be a futile effort because we were not bees, and therefore could not easily avoid the various ravines that were in our way. This year, we decided to bring our bicycles with us to allow us more mobility around Mendon Ponds park, where this picnic is held every year.

So, during the post-lunch lull, we unstrapped the bikes from the car, mounted the GPS to the handlebar mount on my bike, and went off in search of our first cache. After about a half mile ride, we pulled off the road and parked the bikes about 300′ away from the cache. We trudged through a wooded area, fighting poor GPS reception, but were able to locate Mendon Ponds Deer after catching a glimpse of it from a different approach angle.

It was only a short ride from there to the Mendon Liar’s Cache, where of course we started from the wrong trailhead. That added a bit of extra distance, both laterally and vertically, as we decided to cut across the hill instead of backtracking and starting over. Luckily, Amanda spotted this one while I was wandering around aimlessly trying to get a fix on the position. Deep woods caching in the middle of summer can be quite the feat for a little GPS. Luckily, though, my Treo wasn’t having much trouble getting a signal, which is good since when we’re Treocaching (see also paperless caching) we have no details about the cache we’re looking for unless I can pull it up on my Treo.

Having scored two on our picnicaching/bicyclaching adventure, we decided to head back towards the picnic, as volleyball was likely to have started and it’s one of the two or three times a year that I still play (see also ACL reconstruction surgery). We made a quick run at the first leg of the two part multi J&R’s Outdoor Store Cache, but the coordinates for the final were quite a distance away. Those were saved for another day.

It was, of course, a perfect day for a picnic, and for picnicaching. We had a great time chatting, eating, and of course, playing volleyball. With the two caches we found, my total is now up to 60!