07/06/03 13:53:45

Some folks were going to go geocaching with me, but apparently something else came up. I’ve found one cache so far today, but they are all just so far away that I really need wheels, and I can’t justify spending $25 each way for cab fare. And none of the rental places seem to be open. Annoying. I need to get out to at least one other cache in order to drop off these travel bugs I have. And it would be a great shame to only find one cache the whole time I’m out here. So perhaps I can get a car tomorrow afternoon, if I can’t find a rental place open today.

Just got back from my hike. I am worn out. The trip back was a little more direct, and all downhill. I am having the breakfast buffett, and am determined to get my money’s worth! Just saw gnat + family, and Uri + family.

Sunday is becoming my cache day, which is just fine with me.

Three caches today, two finds, one no-find.

The no -find: This morning, I went to the Preston’s Cave Spring cache, where I surprised a young reprobate smoking some of that *other* Kentucky agricultural produce. I suspect that I looked rather like law enforcement in my getup – cowboy hat, black shirt with ASF logo emblazoned on the pocket area, hiking boots, and a binoculars case that probably looked like a holster. The kid saw me, got a terrified expression, and bolted into the woods like a scared deer. The aroma was unmistakable.

The other two were rather more out of the way – one at Shaker Village, and one in a park in Danville. It was a gorgeous day for driving with the top down, and I contributed to the terrorist cause by driving my SUV more than 50 miles today.

Listened to about 3 hours of Dean Koontz in the process, which I don’t recommend to the uninitiated. He’s annoying me more than usual in this particular book. Can’t he just say “It was dark” without 5 minutes of analogies? Sheesh.

So this guy amputating his arm, and a variety of other things, got me thinking about the role of technology in outdoorsy stuff. Given sufficient budget, technology enables us to (almost) never be out of contact with other people, and made it (almost) impossible to get lost.

Whenever I go hiking or climbing, I carry a cell phone, and I carry a GPSr. The cell phone, most of the time, allows me to call anyone in the world from anywhere I happen to be. If I were to get injured, I could call the local police, and give them my exact coordinates.

The GPSr, on the other hand, makes it almost impossible to get lost. Now, it is very possible to be out of view of the satelites, but usually if you wait long enough, you can see them again. So, whenever I go hiking in unfamiliar territory, I put a waypoint marker in the GPSr called “JEEP”. Thus, no matter how lost I get, I can always press “Go”, select “JEEP”, and know exactly what direction I need to go, and for how far, before returning to where I started. So even when I get completely turned around, as I did on Sunday afternoon, I simply *can’t* get lost.

Now, perhaps this removes some of the thrill of exploring, and perhaps it dulls some of the instincts that hikers work hard to cultivate. But, should I ever get stuck on a ledge, or under a boulder, or just lost in the woods, the danger is largely removed. And, given my tendency to go hiking alone – hiking is usually about getting away from everything, anyway – this is a great comfort to me.

So, while I tend to think that technology makes us dumber, and that it is usually pretty hard to find emerging technology that genuinely makes life better, in the arena of outdoorsy stuff, I think that we’ve got a winner.

I found a cache today that was truly devious. It took more than an hour to find it, and when I found it, I simply could not believe how evil it was. It humbles me to think of my pathetic attempt to hide caches, when people put this much time and effort into hiding caches and making it a real challenge.

No, of course, I’m not going to tell you, and ruin it for anyone. Sheesh.

In fact, I was leaving, after 45 minutesof looking, when another cacher showed up, so I decided to stick around. One feels slightly less silly wandering around when there’s someone else there wandering around too.

I attended the Cache-in Trash-out event at Veteran’s Park this weekend. Although we were not able to stay very long, I did get some pictures, and we did take out a bag of trash. By the end, we had filled up an entire dump truck with trash. I have a picture of that too, but it just hasn’t made it up onto the web site yet.

As promised I finally got my photos up on the web site. Yes, only two of them. Sorry.

http://buglet.rcbowen.com/photos/2003/Apr/tracks/

Got my first Woohoo – meaning I was the first person to find a new cache.

The Bridge is Out

I am exhausted.

This evening I took a l’ill walk in stonewall woods, which was a load of fun, but very very tiring. When I was just a few yards from the final goal, I got a phone call, and had to go take care of a crisis. (While I will note that, for some folks, everything is a crisis, I suppose I won’t elaborate any further than that, to protect the innocent.) Then, 30 minutes later, I was back for the final step.

Right now, I think I will probably fall asleep as soon as I lay down, so I’ll make one more remark before I do that.

I spoke with Denise today (owner, manager, etc, Chrisman Mill Winery), and it seems that I might have an opportunity to make their web site a little less … how shall I put this … painful? She gave me a pound of their exclusive Cabernet/Chocolate flavored coffee as incentive, and I’ll take a look at it tomorrow, and hopefully get TCG to contribute an hour or two to a good cause.