Geocaching with Geocacher Ken

Good morning everyone.  The top finders of caches by a Manitoba geocacher on Christmas Day, as of this writing, was Peter and Gloria with eight finds logged.  TRAG and Geocacher Ken (that's me) found seven each.  For North Dakota, it was greeninfargo with thirty and MinotRanger with fourteen finds. How was everyone's Christmas?  Do you sneak in a find or two between opening presents and being with family?  Do you plan a big adventure?  For me, it was the latter.  Knowing that this year I'd be on my own, I wasn't about to sit at home alone.  I could binge watch TV show after TV show, but I'm not really a TV watcher.  I can almost guarantee that I'll be sound asleep before the second episode is done.  Unless it's your cup of tea, being alone on Christmas is not fun.  The first year I was separated, I spent Christmas alone and it wasn't fun at all.  Having experienced that and knowing that I'm on my own this year, the wheels were set in motion to plan

Good morning everyone.  The top three areas in Manitoba for favorite points on caches are:  Winnipeg -18,588  Dauphin - 3,718  Pembina Valley - 2,417.  Manitoba ranks sixth in Canada for favorite points on caches with 41,217.  Top three areas in North Dakota are: Grand Forks county - 4,100  Cass County - 1,793  Burleigh County - 921.  North Dakota ranks fifty first in the States with a total of 13,149 favorite points given on it's geocaches. This week I want to look at Power Trails.  Some people love them, others loathe them.  There's nothing really creative about the hides on a power trail in general.  Usually a film canister or a preform attached to a telephone pole, and spaced out approximately 160 - 180 meters or .1 of a mile.  There's no limit to how many caches make up a power trail.  Some stretch for hundreds of caches, even a thousand or more.  Some find doing power trails to be mind numbing tedium.  Larger power trails have a tendency to not be maintained by the

Good morning everyone.  This week's fun fact is all about the souvenirs.  Top collector of souvenirs in Manitoba is dani_carriere with 198 as of this writing.  k5cents is the top Canadian with 286.  Top North Dakotan is gnies with 143 and top American is RetiredGuy with 277. The past four months saw Geocaching HQ roll out another souvenir promotion.  You Might Be A...  Once again, the friend league wasn't used for this promo, other than to draw comparison to the people on your friend list.  Honestly, I hardly check my friend list.  I'd sooner see the friend league put to use and everyone try to achieve a common goal like the Mary Hyde challenge in 2017. September was You might be an Adrenaline Junkie if...  I wasn't even sure what the scoring system was.  Hakliva tried to explain it on an outing when this one started.  As I started to log my finds when I got home, I got the pop up saying I got the latest souvenir.  That was after logging the third cache found that d

Good morning everyone.  This week's fun fact is all about trackables.  The Manitoba geocacher who has discovered the most trackables is =GeoJoe= with 2,781 discoveries.  In North Dakota, that honor goes to WhiskeySowers with 688 trackables discovered. Earlier this year, I did a blog about being a cache owner and asked the question, when is it a good time to archive your own caches?  Today I'm going to take you with me as I, a cache owner, archive some of my caches.  I will reflect on why I hid a container in that particular spot.  Majority of the caches I archived were still in good shape.  Only three that I checked on were missing.  The reasons for archiving vary slightly, but for the most part, it's the inability to maintain the caches.  Why can't I maintain these hides?  That's quite simple.  I had all my geocaching gear stolen out of my car.  Yup.  Gone.  Flashlight, i-pod, my custom made caching bag with my caching name on it (a gift from sm66) with everythin

Good morning everyone.  This week's fun fact has to do with today's topic.  At it's peak, there was 22 geocaches located within the Beausejour area.  Two are owned by Muz and Girlie, two by 3Woloskis, two by WpgAdventures, and one each by paintball assassin and crackerjackie.  The other fourteen were owned by me. This week I'm pointing the spotlight at a town that I called home for seven months; Beausejour.  Beausejour is located 46 kilometers (28.5 miles) Northeast from Winnipeg, or about a 47 minute drive, with a population of just over three thousand residents.  The town name is French, meaning "nice stay".  How it came to be known as such varies with the most suggested saying it was given by the railway officials who found high, dry ground compared to low-lying, wetter areas surrounding the area.  Originally, the area was called "Stoney Prairie", and then renamed "Burgoyne Station".  It was in 1877 that the area became known as Beause