Alberta Trip, and caching with my new TOTT!!

Caching with a TOTT

I always carry some simple TOTT's (Tools Of The Trade) such as tweezers, magnets, string, pens, paper, flashlights, knife, and even some specialty items like UV lights, and mirrors.

For this puzzle cache (Conway Conundrum) near my place, the TOTT needed was a telescoping pole (Painters pole) with a hook on the end of it.

The pole fully extended is about 10 feet, and as you can see we just made the reach. Since I noticed there are more and more caches like this, I went to a golfing store and bought a 16' pole. I will also be able to use this pole in a magic trick....shhhhhh

Weekend Caching with Sansue

This is one of the oldest bridges in BC. It goes over to Westham Island and is a one lane bridge, and they have workers stopping traffic when others are coming across from the other side.

The Westham Island Bridge is a partially single-lane, wood-deck truss bridge located in Ladner, British Columbia. The bridge passes over Canoe Pass in the Fraser River Estuary and connects Ladner with Westham Island. The bridge's length is approximately 325 m (1066 feet). The bridge was constructed between 1909 and 1912 and has undergone extensive refitting over the years.

We did a Adventure Lab over there that was basically a driving lab as we didn't have to get out of the car to get the info. We only got 1 cache on the island, as the other 8 we planned to do were in the Alaksen National Wildlife area. We found out, it is only open during the week and not on weekends. Those will have to wait for another trip over there. 

The Iron Cow

This was a cool structure in Tsawwassen with a hidden in plain sight cache called, "Disguise is Crying (2.0)"

The rusty parts were all welded together to make up the cow.

I milked the cow, but there was too much iron in the milk. lol

International Geocaching Day

This year is the 10th Anniversary of International Geocaching Day. Starting in 2011, every year on the third Saturday of August is our day to celebrate geocaching and geocachers worldwide!!

Of course, I made sure to get a cache on that day to receive my souvenir!!!

NOTE: The highlighted or underlined words in my blog can be clicked on as they are links to other cool stuff!! Also if you click on any of the pictures they become bigger!!!

Grabbing a couple more caches that are up in a tree, and a pole is needed. One we found today, I even had to attach my 10 foot pole to the base of my new 16 foot pole to reach it as you can see in the pic below. 

Sansue wanted to give this one a try!! Took her a little bit as it was up there quite high, but she got it!

Alberta Trip

Oliver and I flew to Alberta for 5 days, to visit with Family. Of course, I searched out some cool caches to grab while there of course. The first cache we got on the way to our destination for the evening on route from the Airport was a library cache. It was for the Geochalllenge of the month. Back at home I have got all the library caches in my area, so it was important that we grab one while here. We actually ended up getting 2 while here.

The first one we grabbed was inside a book, and very nicely made, while the other one we got was just a nano cache inside the free library.

 

We also got some really cool gadget caches that were all in a row along a rural country road. Most of them were in birdhouses attached to a fence, and out in plain view.

The toughest one to do that's pictured above, was a cache called 

"Lock picking 101 Birdhouse"

They had it padlocked with a see thru lock and the picks available to pick the lock. Being a magician, when I was the President of the Fraser Valley Magic Circle, I arranged a lecture about lock picking, and had a locksmith come in to teach us how to do that. I even purchased the same see thru lock and picks that were in this cache. Even with the training it took me a little bit to get into this cache. But persistence prevailed. 

The Heart Lock had the key with it, but you had to make sure it wasn't all the way in to open the lock. Another one had blocks to add up to the code for the lock.

This cache had a sealed tube full of small beads, and you had to shake it to find the 4 discs with numbers on them for the lock code to get at the Logbook.

Lots of fun and creativity went into these caches. I prefer these type of caches that make you think instead of a bunch of pill bottles or bison tubes on a trail.

PS: On the right hand side of this webpage is where you can find my YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, links. Please feel free to check them out and follow or subscribe!!!

I also had two Challenge caches targeted that I needed to get. The challenge for these caches, was a harder challenge to complete. The owner had 100 geocoins made for prizes to the first 99 cachers to complete this challenge. I looked at my stats, and was glad to see that I met the requirements. One of the challenges was called "XXXTREME Challenge-Triple Crown of Geocaching"

This cache was Extremely well hidden, we even had to bushwack to get to it. On our way to this cache we saw a structure that someone built, that looks like someone lives in it from time to time. 

I contacted the CO to set up a day and time to pick up my geocoin, and headed downtown to meet up with him. Here is a pic of my new coin....

Thanx again Scavengermonkeys.

On the way to the airport on our last day there, we stopped and grabbed 4 caches, one was a puzzle called "K is for Kids"
I did the puzzle before coming to Alberta, and it was a Dot to Dot puzzle, so I wanted to make sure I got it before heading home.
We only got 18 caches while there, but we did stay busy doing other things also.

International Earthcache day is coming up in October........

I will write more about this in my next blog. Until then, Stay Safe, Get Vaccinated, Wear your Mask, and Wash your Hands!!

Well that's it for this month,

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65