Stat Bar Update

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Caching with Monkeys and a Piggy

Whenever Team LANMonkey goes caching anywhere dog friendly, our Golden, "Piggy" comes with. Although he'd much rather run, swim, and just about do anything but help us sniff out a cache, he sure does enjoy himself.




It doesn't seem to matter where we are, he always seems to find something interesting to pose with. And if there isn't something interesting to pose with, he just works hard at looking good, and makes a great centerpiece for the photos we take of some of the beautiful locations where we cache.


So, caching can certainly be a full family affair with the LANMonkey crew; monkeys and a Piggy, enjoying this fun new hobby. So if you're caching, and you see some other cachers who call their Golden "Piggy" say hi - he's really friendly!

200 and Turkey

This long weekend Mrs. LANMonkey and I found our 200th cache. We enjoyed a great walk around Tynehead park in Surrey.
Highly recommended as a pleasant walk and lots of moderate effort caching.

Then on our way to Thanksgiving Dinner the next afternoon we picked up a few more in the Coquitlam / Mary Hill area. And then enjoyed a really nice family evening with an outstanding turkey dinner prepared by Mrs. LANMonkey's sister.

All in all, quite the weekend!


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Nailing the Niggling Ones...

This cannot be a unique experience... Having an "easy find" cache that after multiple visits to GZ you still can't find? And all the while, other cachers continue to log the find with "quick find, TFTC" and you just stew more about where on Earth it could be...

Well, we slayed a personal tormentor tonight. One of those niggling easy caches that you just couldn't seem able to find... And it was easy. And that just makes us shake our heads further!

Anyhow, now it's found.
Nameless Park in Cloverdale is behind us, and we move on.

So what was your most frustrating cache?

Where Do You Gear Up?

Being relatively new to the geocaching community, Mrs. LANMonkey & I weren't sure where to start, and certainly struggled a bit until we read through the Geocaching.com site "getting started" sections. That was a big help.

So slowly, by trial and error, we've been piecing together our "caching kit" we take with us each time we go out, and I'll talk about our kit itself in an upcoming post.

But the other question we had was "we want to start hiding some caches - where do we get the gear?"

So again, Geocaching.com to the rescue, there's tons of online shopping options. But we kind of like the "personal" touch - at least while we're still getting our feet wet here. So I searched to see what stores there were in the Greater Vancouver area. Honestly, the site wasn't terribly intuitive for figuring that out, until by way of checking phone numbers & URLs I narrowed it down to WorldCaching.

I reached out to the purveyor there, and was welcomed to visit their store (by appointment only). And I must say, while it wasn't an extensive or expensive shopping adventure, the amount of information shared, and number of our questions patiently answered were fantastic.

So, if you live in the GVRD, need caching supplies, please check out WorldCaching! They come with the LANMonkey "seal of approval."

That all said, I'd really like to learn from you other cachers where you get your supplies, and what recommendations you have. So feel free to add your comments and let us all know who gets YOUR seal of approval, and why?

The Willows Series Instructions

Good Morning World!

As our first blog post, we'll include our detailed instructions for our first "series" of geocaches we are placing around the Lower Mainland of beautiful British Columbia.

So I'll get right into it...

The series is called "the Willow Series" therefore each cache will have something to do with "Willows."  I'm guessing that was self-explanatory, but we've certainly noticed that some cache series aren't quite that obvious..

The first hide (the aptly named "Willow Series #1") is in Vancouver, and as of now, holds the first clue to the over-all puzzle (check the inside lid of the cache container).

The object is to collect all of the clues, solve each of them, then combine them to determine the "magic phrase." Once you have the magic phrase, you'll know what to do with it by applying instructions found in one of the caches, and that will lead you to the final cache of the series.

Note, that there WILL be some travelling required with this series - we wouldn't want to make it too quick and easy!

Locations that will be included in this puzzle series are:
Vancouver, Langley, Surrey... and more!