More numbers caching?

After my big geocaching day with Ada last week, you'd think I would have had enough of numbers-style caching, that is going on cache runs solely for reaching some number of finds. And I kind of was, but once again got lured into another day of numbers by some geocaching challenges. Way back at the beginning of the year, I did a trail run out in the New Mexico Deserts finding a bunch of challenge caches (see my Why? post). There were 37 challenge caches in all and I barely qualified for any of them, but according to the current geocaching guidelines, you are allowed to sign your name on challenge caches and then count it as a find later once you qualify, so I keep an eye on my statistics and every now and again, I find that I qualify for another one. After Ada and I found 100 caches in a day, I reviewed the list and two other challenges jumped out at me. One was to have at least two calendar days in a month with triple digit finds, noting that they don't need to be in the same year. The other was to have any month with over 150 finds. With the recent 103 day find, I was close to both of these challenges. I was already at 130 finds for the month. And as it happened, my geocaching calendar already had 80 finds on October 28. So all I would need to do was to find 20 caches on the 28th. This is still a lot of caches for me, but seemed like it would allow for Ada, Sasha and I to have a little more fun and relaxation than our last geocaching numbers exploit. I checked the geocaching map to see where there was a good spot to pick up a score of caches, and settled on the town of Kingston. Ample caches to find, some good parks to visit, a handful of earthcaches by the river, sounded like a good day.

So not even a week after our last big day, Ada, Sasha and I headed out for yet another geocaching numbers run, albeit a much smaller one. We dropped Levin off at school, then motored south to Kingston, stopping for a few quick park and grabs in Harriman along the way. Our first destination was Fort Southwest Point park. We didn't go straight there but stopped at a few river side parks along the way picking up easy caches. Ada delighted in trading toys in several of these, and was generally in high spirits. The Fort has some interesting history and cool reconstructed buildings to show what it must have looked like over 200 years ago. We wandered around, found a few geocaches, ate a snack and enjoyed having the place pretty much to ourselves.

Confluence of the Tennessee and Clinch rivers

We had already found over 10 caches and were well on our way to reach our goal as we drove to our second destination, Ladd Landing greenway. Here we found a 2+ mile paved hiking and biking trail with several geocaches alongside it. We didn't encounter another person at all, while walking (Ada road in the backpack this time) along the trail and looking for caches. And the caches here are good ones, mostly large sizes and stuffed with kid toys to trade for. While the scenery wasn't spectacular, it was good exercise and a great way to reach our goal. Numbers caching isn't always tedious, we found 26 caches total, visited a few new parks and towns, had a great walk and traded lots of toys.

Confluence of the Clinch and Emory rivers

Nice greenway bridge

Smooshed snake along the greenway