Thursday, August 7, 2014

San Marcos Night-Caching

Yesterday Jamie and I had planned to go geocaching around San Marcos. And I would say it was a very successful geocaching trip since we found 10! We started off in the Albertsons parking lot off Rancho Santa Fe and San Marcos Blvd since we had a quick dinner at Banh Mi San Marcos in the plaza across the street.

This first geocache was very clever! It was placed in plain sight but I doubt anybody who didn't know what it was wouldn't touch it because it looks like a giant booger! Grabbed and signed this one real quick but had a good laugh about it afterwards.

The next one we were excited about because it was right by a new brewery off of Las Posas and Linda Vista. The brewery is called Dos Desperados and I always drive by it when going to work on Saturdays. We were being pretty awkward with this one at first because my gps led us inside the brewery. We were staring at posters on a wall and thought okay, maybe this one is outside not inside. But we felt so awkward so we decided to grab a beer first before looking for it. When we got our beers, we talked to the owner, Steve, and explained what we were doing. He ended up giving us a clue since he knows about the geocache and we couldn't figure out the riddle that was given in the geocache's hint. So we grabbed the geocache as soon as we walked outside.



Next stop was a quick and typical park n' grab under the light in the Grand Plaza. Tried to be stealthy since it was near the plaza exit to the street.

Geocache number 4 was close by, just behind Petco. We liked this geocache, it was very clever and well camouflaged! We were looking in the wrong area at first then when I realized the right place to look, I made the find!

Our friend Alex hit us up and wanted to hang out so we met him at Penny Lane since there was supposedly a geocache there. He thinks geocaching is lame but he came because we told him we were at a brewery lol. The geocache was supposed to be inside the phone booth but we think it may not even be there anymore because it looks like they're doing renovations. So we decided to skip it and move on to the next one.

We all went to another park n' grab under the light in front of Fry's. It took us a while to grab the geocache since there were lots of muggles around even though we were there at 9pm! We also tried to find another one at the end of the parking lot by the Fry's sign but no luck :(

We then made our way to Denny's since there was a geocache by the statues! This one was quick since Jamie knew exactly where to look.

This next geocache was one of our favorites. It was a magnetic ammo box that "you can see from San Marcos Blvd" but it is definitely well camouflaged! You would think it was just part of the thing it was attached to! When we found it we couldn't pull it off lol. You definitely need some muscle to get this one so we had Alex get it for us.

Made our way to Furniture Row where there was a small geocache near the Harley-Davidson store. This one was quick and luckily we went at night so there were no muggles around. It'd definitely be harder to get this one during business hours since it's right by the entrance!

We made another brewery find over at Rip Current Brewing off Las Posas and Grand. This took us the longest to find but I made the find! It was well camouflaged and it was harder to find since it was dark too. Unfortunately we came here about an hour after the brewery had already closed so no more beer for us :(

We dropped Alex back off to his car then Jamie and I made a quick stop at the church next to Palomar College before we went back to her house and called it a night. In the geocache's description, it said it was in a bush. So we walked through the foliage looking in the bushes but we kept finding so many spider webs and almost walked into them! We freaked out and turned around then I saw the geocache in a bush right behind us! This geocache was a cute one. It was placed by an art class of 2nd-4th graders so they can learn about geography (specifically lattitude and longitude). So there were lots of children's stuff in the geocache. I took the foreign coins left behind.

Now I currently have 8 different foreign coins I found while geocaching! The coins are from Denmark, Australia, the British Virgin Islands, Barbados, Ghana, and then I'm not really sure about the others.

When Jamie and I got back to her house, we decided that we would set a goal to accomplish before we start school in a week and a half. Our goal is to hit 75 geocaches and place our travel bugs before we go back to school! When we set our goal, we were at 48. After work today, I stopped by several geocaches by myself around Encinitas and San Marcos and now we are at 54!

The ones I found today were all in "high-muggle" areas. The ones in Encinitas were all in parking lots. The ones in San Marcos were all close to my house. I stopped by the geocache by Froyo Love again, since Stacy and I weren't able to find it on Tuesday. After talking to my friend Christa who also geocaches, I was able to find it this time! Swung by the bank to deposit a check then made my way down the stairwell in front of Starbucks to find the geocache over there. I felt really stupid trying to find this one though lol. I was in plain view of the Barham/Twin Oaks intersection so I sat there by myself trying to look for the geocache while trying to look casual at the same time haha. But I found this one as well! Then I made one more stop in the industrial park on Barham for my last find of the day. Thankfully I didn't have to worry about people seeing me trying to find this one.

So I made a total of 6 finds today! It would have been 8 but one of the geocaches was in a high-muggle area so I felt like I looked super suspicious trying to find the geocache. Then the other one I just really couldn't find. But I still got quite a few! Getting closer! I think 75 is definitely doable by the time school starts. We will be taking another team geocaching trip on Sunday afternoon and hopefully at least another couple times next week as well.

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