Blog Template Musings about Geocaching: The Yuma Event provided great fun for two days!

Musings about Geocaching

Monday, February 12, 2007

The Yuma Event provided great fun for two days!

On our way out to the Yuma Event, Team Adelos, Toby's Gang, and I stopped at a cache hidden in the end of a vehicle barrier located at the edge of the sand dunes. Toby's Gang made the find and after we put the cache back, we noticed a Border Patrol vehicle across the way. We didn't think anything of that until a while later on the freeway, Team Adelos said he was being pulled over by the Border Patrol. One of the officers was ready to pull his gun as he walked towards the truck. Although we told them all about our innocent little game, they said they don't like people messing around the vehicle barriers . . .

Our next stop along the drive was at the "Center of the World" Virtual. I misread the information in my Palm, so we got a bit dizzy counting the steps, before we made it to the place where we were actually supposed to be to count "Ceremonial Steps." This place was really interesting and worthy of another visit . . . in the late fall, winter, or early spring when it isn't over 100° there . . .

This spiral staircase came from the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.


There was the most unusual sundial at the "Center of the World."





Just outside of Yuma, we found the "Stomp" cache. There was an interesting, abandoned building across the street from the hiding place for the ammo can. Only the pigeons were making use of it now.




In the background, there was this beautiful, Spanish-style church building.



As we headed off to the next cache, I realized I didn't have it in my GSPr. Good thing I was caching with Toby's Gang and Team Adelos because I had filtered out the caches that had a difficulty rating of more than '3' and the caches that had DNFs as the last two logs. I won't do that again when I am caching with other people . . .

After finding that cache, we headed off for one called "Hi Mom." That one was confusing because it was listed as a "Traditional," but it was really a Multi-cache, and a "Web cam cache." We didn't find out there was actually a container at the final location until later.

Another of the "Old Town" caches was "offset." Since we aren't used to those kinds of caches, and since we were caching "paperless" and not reading the descriptions in detail, it was difficult for us to find. Finally, with the observant eyes of another cacher, we were able to find it and sign the logbook.

When we first drove into town, I saw the sign for Lutes Casino. I learned about this interesting place on a KPBS TV show with Heull Howser. I wanted to go there, and in order to find the next cache, I got to walk through the restaurant where I took a few pictures of the murals, artwork, and signs.





Several of the Yuma cachers are creative with their hides and their cammo. One cache was giving us a hard time. We had given up and were walking away when the other cachers who had arrived on the scene after us found it and let us share the find. If we had parked on the other side of the vegetation "island," we might have figured this one out more quickly, and wouldn't have smelled like an Italian Restaurant after the search was over . . .

We worked our way through town and got to one at this interesting location.



Even though the coordinates were right on, this little cache took us quite a bit of time to find. Then it took a bit of effort to extract the tiny, breath-strip container from its hiding place.

One of the caches we found was at the location of a "Drive-in" that was built in 1930. Too bad the place doesn't exist anymore.



Down the main street in town, we found a couple more caches, the largest I have ever found. One was in this non-working ATM.



From there, where we ran into several other cachers, we continued caching on through the afternoon and long into the night. At one of the caches, we found this tiny hummingbird sitting on her nest.



The next day the Event was a great success. I saw people I had not seen for a few months, saw people I had only heard of before, and met some new people.

One of the "highlights" of the Event was the revealing of the Original Can of Beans, the OCB, being watched over by 360 . . .


After eating great food and visiting with new and old friends, it was time to head home. Before leaving the area, we wanted to get the information for the "Ocean to Ocean Highway" Virtual cache at a wonderful, old, one-lane bridge. I really enjoyed walking across this historic bridge where I watched a train, full of rocks, go by on the other bridge.



Along the drive home, the wind really picked up, and before we got home, we drove through clouds and rain, which was quite a contrast to the great weather we had while in Yuma.


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