Geocaching and encounters with animals of the fake kind.

Good morning everyone.  Welcome to blog #6.  Before I start with this week's topic, here is today's geocaching fun fact:  The province of Ontario has the most active Earthcaches with 500.  Manitoba ranks 7th in Canada with 63.  By comparison, California has 974 while Delaware and District of Columbia have 11 each.  Personally, I have only done 29 so far and hope to increase that total this year.

This week's topic is encounters with animals of the fake kind.  These would be mostly crows, spiders, rats and snakes of the plastic, rubber type.  I'm sure we've found our fair share of these.  They're always fun to find and certainly are a break from film canisters in pine trees.  How many of these made you jump when you found it before you knew it was a geocache?  Most of these give me a good chuckle although I will have to admit that one did make me jump back initially.  More on that one in a bit.  If I was in a tropical locale, then my reaction to some of these might be different.  But when I found this spider in March, in Winnipeg a couple of years ago, I had more of a chuckle and thought of my oldest boy who hates these, real or fake.  We don't grow them this big around here, unless it escaped from a pet store.  I have found my fair share of fake spider caches.  Rule of thumb, poke it with a stick.  If it moves on it's own, it's not the cache.  This one has been archived as the bridge it was hiding under was rebuilt.

There's the old expression "when pigs fly".  If they could, they'd probably get stuck in a tree somewhere like this one did south of Winnipeg.

I have found a variety of fake feathered critters.  Good thing they couldn't fly away or I wouldn't have been able to sign the log sheet.  I found this one in Alberta.

I think this one is in the Interlake area of Manitoba.  

I do have to feel sorry for some of these creatures.  It can't be very comfortable having a preform container stuck in your butt.  This one I found in the Whiteshell Provincial Park area of Manitoba

Sometimes we go a little batty when it comes to geocaching.  Particularly when it comes to solving puzzles.  That's another topic for another day.  I found this bat just hanging out in Brandon, Manitoba.

We all know that geocaching is all the buzz.  This one is just north of Winnipeg but may be missing.  :(

We all love to crow about our stats and accomplishments.  I have found a few crows/ravens over time.  One was even a final to a puzzle that was connected to Edgar Allen Poe's poem 'The Raven'.  Quoth the Raven "Nevermore!"

We may be slow as turtles sometimes.  Found this one while introducing a friend to the hobby and wanted to find an interesting cache.  She has since found 500 caches.  :)  I believe this particular cache has been archived.

And of course, there's the rat.  I have come across a few rat caches in my time.  This one is in the Riding Mountain area, heading towards the city of Dauphin.  You'd have that expression too if a container was shoved up your butt.

As mentioned, one did make me jump back a bit on initial discovery.  I was in Toronto this past October for a union convention.  My focus while there was Earth Caches and Virtuals.  I did manage to find a couple of traditional caches as well.  Our hotel was right in the downtown area of Toronto.  If you love people watching, that's the place to be.  Myself and a co-worker would sit in the patio area in front of the hotel and be entertained.  While sitting there, I spotted something down the street (this would be late in the evening).  Oh, it's a mouse.  Wait a sec...  That's a really big mouse.  It was a sewer rat.  Almost as big as the one in the picture.  Anyway, next day I'm wandering around Toronto and went to find a particular cache.  It was in an alley.  I'm a little leery to begin with, being a visitor to the "big city" and going into a downtown alley.  In I went, did a quick search which didn't produce anything.  I noticed a hole in the wall, big enough for me to stick my hand in.  I'm not sticking my hand in that.  No way.  I may not have a hand after that.  I turn on the 'torch' (flashlight) on my phone and shine it in.  I saw a set of red eyes looking back at me and I jumped back.  Then I realized that it was fake rat, not like the real one I saw the night before.  I had a good laugh, signed the log sheet and placed it back the way I found it.  I didn't get a picture of this particular rat but it did look something like this one.

That's it for this week.  Hopefully you'll be lucky enough to find a fake creature this week.  I will try to get a blog in next Sunday as I'm in the midst of moving....again.  :P  Peace out (so says my oldest boy, Duesenberg 2002), enjoy, and remember, geocaching is meant to be fun.