Finally... a cache fix!

We were finally able to find a cache a few weeks ago. I was so excited! The first we attempted was Ai caduti di Motta which was a virtual of a WWII memorial statue. Tony stayed in the car with sleeping Lil Sunshine and I braved the walk up to the monument. I say braved because it is highly unusual to see a girl walking in the neighborhoods of Italy on her own. I wish I had taken my camera with me to take a few pictures, but I didn't want to walk back to the car and back to the cache again as all the town's men who were sitting outside their businesses were watching me. Although, it probably would have helped make me just look more of a tourist. hehe... Afterwards, we went to find WWII - Motta S. Anastasia Pillboxes which is an area that we drive near at least once a month, but for some reason, we couldn't figure out which road to take to get to the cache! So we kept ending up on the autostrada (highway) and had to drive 6 miles before we could turn around! lol... we ended up doing that about 3 times until we Tony finally noticed a bridge we hadn't tried going over... and what do ya know? hehe... so we found the cache fairly easy. It is located near a German Pillbox that was used in the war. Looking at the beautiful surroundings, it's hard to imagine war going on in the area:

So, those are the two caches that we've been able to do since getting here. There aren't many around our area. It's a big geocaching shock since we just moved from Jacksonville... lol. But we're hoping to hide some soon. The only problem is that almost all of the land around here is owned by someone. It's all crop land. We hardly go into the cities yet either, but hopefully as we learn more of the language and learn where the parks and site seeing places are we'll get some caches hidden.

One Degree of Separation Geocaching Project

Here's some more info on the ODS project:

ODS forum

ODS Prime's Profile

ODS Prime Cache

This project is so cool, I'm looking foward to following it. I can't wait to hide our seed pod when we get to Italy. :D

Terracaching

Yesterday, we joined Terracaching.com. I would love to do more challenging caches, but they will probably be few and far between since we tote the one year old around. :) We did our first one today while out getting a few caches in Lampasas. Both MrCC and I spent a few years there in our early childhood, so it was awesome driving around town again. The terracache was a virtual at the fire department. It was a memorial to 9/11 and its victims and heroes. It was sad but I appreciated the cache because it made me stop, remember, and reflect.

There is another terracache at Enchanted Rock Park about an hour from where we're staying now. I went to E-Rock with my grandparents back when I was a kid, and even then we only climbed one of the mountains. To claim this terracache, you have to climb all 6! I think I read that it's an 8 mile hike and 2000 feet total ascension. We might try to get a sitter for Lil Sunshine one day and attempt it. Don't know for sure yet though, but it would be a blast.

Lil' Sunshine recently got her 200th cache! It was ODS: TKtrekker-Abbe-Kefer on June 6. This cache is part of a really cool idea brought up by Snoogans. It's putting into practice the concept of the Small World Theory. We are also taking a container of seed pods to Italy when we go. So, we'll be a part of this caching history. :D

Geowoodstock 4

Originally we thought that we weren't going to be able to make it to GW4 this year. We would be flying home to Texas anyway, so it was a bummer to know we were going to miss it. Then we got tickets to Austin on Thursday night, which would give us all day Friday to rest up. That was going to be perfect for a drive out to Dallas to go! So we did! woohoo! I didn't tell Caraloopy that I might be able to go because we wanted to surprise her, and boy was she! I will never forget her reaction when she saw us walking up, and that made the drive worth it. :) The event was a lot of fun too. We met so many awesome people and geohounds. It was a blast!

CacherCrashers and Lil' Sunshine with the Original Can of Beans from the very first geocache! How cool is that?
We found a lot of NEFGA folks hanging out at GW4 also, so we had to take one more picture! It was great seeing all our friends one more time before we head out to Italy next month. It was kind of weird seeing all of them in our home state though, lol. :D
I convinced my mom, Spanish Rose, to come out with us. This was right before we left. We left right before the food was served, Lil' Sunshine was quite fussy and it was time for us to go. We had a blast.

Wings Over Orlando

This was our very last cache find in Florida. We had to drive down to Orlando to drop the car off at the shippers to be sent to Italy. We arrived with plenty of time and gas to spare. We actually had to waste about a quarter of a tank of gas because it could only have 1/4 left in it. So we found 3 caches: Where Shopping is a Pleasure 2, Have You Seen My Mother?, and Wings Over Orlando. They were all very cool and worthwhile. The second was especially special since our good friends November Babies + 1 hid it, and we got to visit her parents. So that was cool. It was definately a fun way to waste gas... Caching always is. lol...

Pics

Stress made this for the event's cache page. :D

Pranzo D'addio Per I Crashers del Nascondiglio

The event was so awesome. To have all of my close friends together to see me off was just great. And I cried... a lot. lol. I was presented with a Farewell card signed by everyone (that made me cry), a journal of messages from the group (that made me cry), a speech by Stress (that made me cry).. lol, I was crying the whole time. hehe... Stress even gave me an ammo box filled with some of his camo creations. So, the Italians will get a taste of "the Camo Factory" and the factory will soon have international precense. lol (It might already, not sure)

I've had so many great geocaching adventures here in NEFGA territory. StressMaster and Caraloopy are family to me now. They were there for me when MrCC was deployed and throughout my pregnancy. They are both there when I need to talk, when I need a shoulder to cry on, when I need a babysitter, and especially when there's a new cache in my neighborhood and I just don't want to go to by myself. :) One more time guys, thanks so much. I love you guys, and I already miss ya'll.

Farewell pics

where did my milestones list go?

I realized last night that I lost it... somewhere between transferring from my old caching webpage to this nifty so easy to update blog. :( So, last night I went through all of my caches found and tracked down all my milestones and FTFs. Boy did that take a while! lol... but it was worth it. I thought about making a blog entry for it, but decided to use the fairly new bookmark feature on geocaching.com so here they are:

Our Milestones
Our FTFs

I was also searching for caches in Italy, near where we'll be living pretty soon. Liquid Earth is a cache in Sicily. The cache owner is an American that is in Sicily 1-2 weeks out of every month. So, I'm thinking I will try to contact him when we get there. Geocachers are always cool.