Geocaching with the Boys

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It's official - I have become one of the nerdiest people I know. I just got back from a two day trip, a trip where all we did was geocache. I can already hear the snickers and see the finger pointing. Still, it was the only way I could accomplish a couple of goals: finish finding a cache in every county in Utah, and work on finding a cache in all 50 states (Colorado and New Mexico). Go ahead, laugh already.

Now that we've gotten that out the way here's what happened. Ross, Mitchell, and I started planning this trip around March. We knew there was going to be a lot of time in the car and we needed to keep the trip as short as possible. Try explaining to your wife and kids that you're going on a two-day geocaching trip. We used Google Maps to plan out every twist and turn along the way and our route was ready (BTW - if you're not using Google Maps, you should be). Rather than give you every detail here are some of the highlights based upon the states we visited.

Wyoming: We stopped outside of the little town called Urie where we encountered a couple of interesting folks. The first was a farmer from Green River who was selling watermelons on the side of the road. He immediately stopped and followed us around to see why three guys were looking around a Tuff Shed. Later, an older woman came out from a nearby retirement center to see why were looking at her tree. Sometimes, it's easier to make something up than tell the truth. We ended up giving them the geocaching run down and then we were off. Caches in Wyoming - 6...

Colorado: This was my first time caching in Colorado. Truthfully, it looked a lot like Eastern Utah. Until we got to Ouray that is. I've never been through Ouray before, but I would certainly like to go back. We all loved the Million Dollar Highway (well, Ross liked it a bit less since he drove around the tight curves and past the sheer drop offs) and the mountain scenery was awesome. It was the prettiest part of our drive and the only time the temperature dropped to my kinda level. We left the state with food from the Durango Taco Bell and 10 caches to our credit.

New Mexico: We didn't really have a destination while in the Land of Enchantment. As we poured over the map Farmington, New Mexico was the largest city in the NW corner of the state (that and the fact that there was a Holiday Inn Express didn't hurt - free breakfast). I had to laugh when the front clerk at the hotel asked where we were going and we said "Here." He asked, "Why?" I guess that sums up Farmington, NM. We woke up early and got back out on the road. I think my favorite cache of the trip was off the highway outside of Shiprock. We found a pretty cool petroglyph. Whether it's real or not - you decide!

Utah: Our two day odyssey led us back into the Beehive State around 2 in the afternoon. In order to finish off our Cache Across Utah we drove North through San Juan, Grand, Emery, and Carbon counties. As the afternoon wore on you could certainly tell we were back out of the hills. I think it was over 100 degrees in Moab. Our final cache led us up the canyon just out of Helper. We originally thought we'd drive all the way to Roosevelt, but as soon as we saw a sign for Duchesne county we pulled off the road and found a cache in our final county of Utah.

After 1100 miles and the better part of two days we arrived home with 39 cache finds, two additional states, and the final five counties of Utah. I'm really glad we made our marathon trip and even happier to be out of the rental car. Thanks to Ross and Mitchell for a good time and a well named road trip.