Two More Geocaches

I've found two more geocaches this month, bringing my total for the year to 3.  Not too impressive, but it matches my total from 2009.  (Of course, last year, I did them in three consecutive days in two countries, which was a bit cooler.)

On Veterans Day, I took a bike ride around my usual 8.5-mile loop of the immediate area.  There are at least 4 geocaches on that loop, one of which was the first of my 2009 finds.  With the aid of a USB charger that takes AA batteries, I powered my phone for the drive and took off after one of these caches.  It was a nice combination of having my Garmin GPS receiver loaded with the coordinates and being able to use the Android phone app to get details once I got to the cache.  As much as I'd like an "all-in-one" solution, this method works pretty darn well.

Spoiler alert: the cache was located just off the trail in the tree stump pictured.  I dropped off Free State Generic #3, my latest geocoin and picked up Montana Plata, a similarly state-themed trackable.


Yesterday, while on my way to pick up our Thanksgiving Turkey from a Frederick County farm, I had a rare opportunity to add a new Maryland county to my list.  There is a virtual geocache in Mount Airy, based around the town 9/11 memorial.  Below is a picture of the memorial plaque, cropped to remove the information needed to log the cache. 

Mount Airy is in Carroll County, which gives me my 9th Maryland county, as shown on the map below.  In July 2008, I noted that I had 122 virtuals (and similar) within 70 miles of home left to find.  Mainly due to the addition of earthcaches, that number is now up to 137.  I may have to reconsider my goal, given my reduced time for traveling up to 70 miles and the news that virtual geocaches may be reintroduced in some form.