Geocaching Update: Busier May

I found nine geocaches in May, which makes it my busiest month since November.

Last month, I described geocaching "souvenirs". Another date-based souvenir was on offer on May 2nd, to celebrate the 17th anniversary of increased GPS accuracy, which made geocaching possible. I happened to be driving by one that was easy to find to claim the souvenir.

Next, I happened to be driving through Davidsonville, which I don't usually do. There was a cache there in a lovely outdoor church. As a bonus, it was my first January 2014 cache, which put me back at 72 missing months (after adding in May).

Next up was an LPC near a Best Buy. I was in the shopping center to visit another store, and well, it was my first February 2011 cache, so down to 71 missing months.

My fourth find of the month was one hidden by a Girl Scout troop outside a library. It ended up being an LPC too, although the container itself was nice. It was a May 2017 cache, dropping my missing months to 70.

Later that day I found a micro cache outside a Wawa. At least it wasn't an LPC, but it wasn't exciting other than being my first April 2013 cache. Down to 69 missing months.

The sixth cache of the month got me back in the FTF game. It was a pill bottle (boo) in a nice little park (yay). It was my eleventh First-to-Find overall, and my first FTF in Montgomery County. It was also my first cache in W77° 07', giving me 24 out of the 60 minutes for the West 77 Longitude Challenge.

I finished off the month with a deliberate caching expedition. First I found one which was "just" a cache in a nice area.

It was tucked in the bridge under one of the rails.

The second cache of the day was chosen specifically to get me W77° 27'. That's my 25th minute in West 77. I have 24 of the 28 from 0-27, and one other. This cache was along Route 50 in Chantilly. A pretty good strategy for filling in missing minutes is probably to find an east/west road like that with a lot of caches and work your way through it. I can probably make it to minute 33 on Route 50 with this strategy before the cache density gets too low. Also, the cache was my 250th. And crawling with ants!

Finally, I found one in a guardrail in a nearby shopping center. It was my first July 2006 cache, dropping me to 68 missing months.

So now I have one month missing in each of 2006, 2015 and 2016. When I finished 2002 last year, I thought I'd soon have more completed years. But not yet! I would like to clear out some more "easy" months, so I just have to think about the rare, early months and where they are located.