We were rather excited when "it appeared" that two great events were about to culminate, and if we timed it correctly, they would happen at the same time at the same cache. The first was our son's travel bug, which he started in Australia in 2006. Matt was a United States Navy Chief Petty Officer at the time so he named the TB "The Chief". Its goal was to get to us, Frogwarts & Bearfr in Montana. We had received word a few weeks before that the TB was in Wilcox, Arizona in the hands of OldRanger1. We contacted him and asked if he would let us know when he dropped it and we'd try to get to it. He said he would and we waited. On Sunday morning, March 29, we received the notification that he dropped it in TMP TB Hotel, just west of Tucson, only 20 miles from us.

The second event about to culminate was our 1000th cache find. We were sitting, we thought, at 997 caches and had been discussing what we were going to do for our 1000th cache. Milestone cache finds should be marked with a special cache, and picking up The Chief was special. We checked Geocaching.com for other nearby caches, planned how we would do it and headed out.
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In our rush to find the first one, "Found Tall Saguaro By Webstar", we managed to approach it view the scenic route, taking much longer than we had planned.

[log] Took the scenic route down the wash before climbing out to find the cache.

On "Bryce's Cache" we found the correct trail right off and then, after spotting numerous blooming cactus, realized we didn't bring a camera to record this auspicious event we were working our way toward. Drat!

[log] Nice nature trail walk on the way to the cache. Hedgehog's were in bloom everywhere.

And then it was on to our goal, our "1000th" cache & "The Chief". We found the cache straight off. As Penny opened it and started digging around I realized thatI had my camera phone. Here is the resulting picture and the log entry.

[log] We had gotten word from OldRanger1 that he placed a TB here that our son started while on Navy duty in Australia, with the goal to get back to his Dad, Frogwarts in the States. So we thought; this would be a great way to celebrate our 1000th cache by picking up the bug. Imagine our surprise when we realized that another set of cachers had beat us to our prize; they had picked it up the day before, but not yet logged it. So Frogwarts took a picture of Bearfr as she looked in vain for The Chief; maybe some day it will make it's way back home to Arizona again. We discovered another TB and a geocoin, but left them for others to move on.

Needless to say, we were bummed. We went home, dejected. By the time we made contact with the party that picked up the "The Chief", they were in Montana, of all places, and had dropped it in Bozeman. Its goal, after all, was to reach us, Frogwarts & Bearfr, in Montana. We had never thought to have Matt change its goal when we moved to Southern Arizona.

It was some time in the following week that I came up with the idea to start an online memoir/journal of our geocaching adventures and began building the skeleton of pages and navigation. In the process we started looking at a discrepancy at Geocaching.com. They had our cache count listed differently in two different places. We had discovered this discrepancy a few months before, but had decided at the time that it wasn't worth pursuing. Now, suddenly, it became important, especially when we realized that what we thought was our 1000th cache, was not. Now we had to know. Penny took on the task, spread-sheeting it all and then going through it one-by-one.

A half day later, she had the answer. It seemed that on that morning when we thought we were within 3 caches of 1000, we were actually at exactly 1000. Unknowingly we hit it the evening before at the 14th annual Music in the Canyon Festival in the Sabino Canyon Recreation Area. Knowing we were going to the festival, which started early on that Saturday evening, we dialed up Geocaching.com and searched up 4 caches to grab along the way. The first three, Pink, The Green Machine, and Do You Know Jack Too? we found reasonably quickly, the third one being a bit more unique. Don't want to give away what made it unique as we wouldn't want to be the spoilers for the next finder.

[log] Nice to have a simple puzzle. And the walk was worth the cache hide - great one and so appropriate. Loved it.

Then it was on to the music festival, though we weren't done caching just yet. The fourth cache as near the parking for Sabino Canyon. The parking lot was packed full so we were redirected to a school parking lot down the road. We read later that 1,200 people showed for this event. It was a fund raiser co-hosted by the Coronado National Forest and the Friends of Sabino Canyon, the latter being an organization dedicated to enhancing and protecting Sabino Canyon plant and wildlife. The fund raiser consisted of live music, silent auctions, stories and star gazing - a number of amateur astronomers were on hand with their telescopes. It was not dark yet so they were just standing around talking to people who paused near them. Candle luminaries were lined up along the trail leading up to where musicians were already performing, their music flowed down the canyon. Though drawn by the sounds of fiddle and guitar, we turned instead in the direction of our GPS pointer and El Tour de Tucson: Mile 050, knowing it would be much easier to find this fourth and last cache of the day while we still had a little daylight. We had done a number of El Tour de Tucson caches before and knew they could be a little tricky, if for no other reason than that they were always at busy intersections. We wandered through the parking lot, through the trees and out to the corner of E. Sunrise Dr. and N. Sabino Canyon Rd., a very busy 4-way stop. We knew that people driving by intent on their own lives would pay little attention to an older looking couple standing on the corner looking around like they dropped their last quarter. After a minute of searching we found the cache, signed the log, and headed for the Sabino Canyon trail. We never did find the quarter.

[log] Picked up this one on our way to the Friends of Sabino Canyon Music Festival.

The Fiddlin' Foresters - Through lively and entertaining musical performance, we provide conservation education, enhance employee morale and communicate the value of public service and federal land management in a new century of service.

The walk up the trail was a couple tenths of a mile; people chatting, kids running, the low lying sun warm on our backs. Even though the temperature was in the mid 70s, we carried jackets. Even in Southern Arizona, darkness in March can drop desert temperatures 10° to 15° in short order. The music was no longer a nice sound off in the distance. As we got closer and passed through the money takers, the music became a great sound with speakers set up all around. We perused the vendors, picked up some literature about Sabino Canyon, looked over the silent auction and then rooted through the nearly full bleachers until we found a spot wide enough for two, and settled in to watch and listen to the Fiddlin' Foresters. This was a nationally recognized music group is made up of Forest Service employees. They performed songs that carried messages about conservation, the dangers of wildfires and other public land topics. They were humorous and plain old fun to listen to.

In the end we weren't quite so bummed out. We wanted our 1000th cache to be something special and attending the music festival at Sabino Canyon certainly was that even if it did take us until May, better than a month later, to figure it out. After The Fiddlin' Foresters took their encore and their last bows, we waited and watched as the Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus set up for their performance. What we discovered during this waiting process, and as the night settled in, was that we should have brought heavier jackets and our own comfortable chairs. We were freezing and our butts were sore. We listened to several pieces by the world famous Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus who had been performing for some 70 years (not the same boys of course), then took our leave and shivered our way past the luminaries, past the star gazers, past El Tour de Tucson: Mile 050, and headed home. It was a great 1000!

We had the honor of being invited to a hummingbird banding by some new friends in our Sonora neighborhood, Moe and Cris. It was at the San Pedro House in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, just east of Sierra Vista. Being in the middle of the week, we declined, but after taking a closer look and realizing we'd only have to take a half day vacation, we called them back and accepted. Of course, we had to check out the Geocaches in the area, however, as Moe and Cris were hosting us in their van, we couldn't exactly tell them that we needed to run around here and there. We decided to choose only one cache, just off the highway only a half mile from the San Pedro House, and since we arrived early it was easy to suggest.

We parked as close as we could resonably get to where the GPS pointed to Mammoth's Trunk and then walked down a dry rain-rutted road. I handed the GPS to Moe, hoping it would spark a bit of excitement in this game that Penny and I love. He found it mildly interesting. Oh well, Geocaching, we have found over the years, is not for everyone. It would have helped if the cache was in a real cool place, with a captivating challenge to it. Instead it was a quick find in a rather drab, litter strewn area just off the highway. Such as the way it goes. We logged it and headed on to see the hummingbirds. That cool event can be read about on our Hummingbird Banding page.

[log] Logged this one on the way to the San Pedro hummingbird banding.