Geocaching Update

Well, the coin I dropped off in Vienna a couple of weeks ago has migrated north to the Czech Republic. That's pretty neat -- a coin I own is some place I've never been. Its first stop was the ruins of a castle. It's currently location...well, I don't read Czech, so I'm not quite clear where it is now. I'm also not clear on how this is contributing towards its goal of getting back to Maryland. Whoa...as I'm writing this, I just got notification that someone retrieved it. We'll see where it ends up next...

Its sibling coin remains stuck where I left it in England; nobody has found that cache since I did.

I've really enjoyed moving around these geocoins and travel bugs. One travel bug I found in Vienna was trying to get to Montreal, so I thought dropping it off near Frederick last weekend was a good start. I also picked up a coin in Vienna, which I dropped off earlier today on the University of Maryland campus. I've been moving a few other things around Maryland, too.



The map progress I've made recently consists of adding Frederick county to my "counties cached in" map.

Geocaching Update

Well, I've found one more geocache since my last update. As you can see from the map, that brings my total number of countries cached in to 3. The one cache I found was a departure from my usual preference for caches in parks. This one was in the middle of a busy Vienna street, a few hundred feet from where the Pope had been the previous day. Unlike most urban caches, this one was huge! It was a great example of "hiding things in plain sight," but I suppose I shouldn't give away its secret.





While there, I dropped off the brick geocoin I picked up in Bristol, along with Free State Mover #2, my second geocoin whose goal it is to get back to Maryland.

The Vienna cache is a very active one. Within hours of my visit, someone had picked up the brick coin. Two days later, a Czech picked up Free State Mover #2 with the note "North!" So I guess it's going to the Czech Republic on its way back here.

If it ever makes its way back here, that is. Over the less than six months I've been caching, I've noticed a disturbing number of trackable items go missing. It's possible they are on somebody's shelf and will return to the cache world, but I have to wonder if they're permanently MIA.

Pope's in Town

Apparently I'm not the only one who decided this would be a good weekend to visit Vienna. His Holiness is here, which I discovered yesterday when I saw a sign at Stephansdom indicating he'd be performing mass there Sunday (today). His visit presumably explains the sparsely attended concert in front of the cathedral, consisting of what I can only assume is Christian rock. Enjoy the snippet below. (Or not.)