A couple months ago we sent an e-mail to Podcacher, explaining that we were going to be in the San Diego area on vacation and asking if there was any chance we could meet Sandy and Sonny, maybe take the out for dinner or something. And we were quite delighted when they wrote back saying that if their schedules permitted, we could.
After a few more e-mails back and forth we confirmed that they’d be back from Costa Rica a few days before we arrived in Carlsbad and that because their Bible study group was on Easter break, it looked like getting together for a couple hours the evening of Thursday, March 27 would be possible.
We spent Thursday morning at Legoland and then decided that it might be nice to try to find at least one cache hidden by iTrax and FoxTail before we met them that evening. (NOTE – we had previously logged GCXA12 – The Podcacher Treasure Cache, but that was by permission after sending our signature item in to the Podcacher show.)
So off we went, to a large urban park where the main features are Lake Calavera and Mount Calavera (an extinct volcano). We had our FSRs along, so for part of the afternoon we split into pairs, which allowed us to cover more ground and find more geocaches! Over the next few hours we managed one DNF and about a dozen smileys, of which 3 were iTrax and FoxTail hides: GC1167H – The Big Backyard, GCP1G6 – Not of This World and GC146W4 – Sandy’s Birthday Cache. But we’re not accustomed to the heat and we had to do a lot of walking to get a dozen caches, so by 5 o’clock we were hot, tired and pretty dusty.
Off we headed to the Old Spaghetti Factory, our pre-arranged meeting place. Of course we’d heard all about the Old Spaghetti Factory on previous episodes of the Podcacher podcast, so we were looking forward to seeing it in person. We washed up and had some ice water and then Sandy and Sonny arrived!
After everyone introduced themselves we abandoned our table and headed back out the door to do a little more geocaching (apologies to our server). We followed Sonny and Sandy to another nearby park where we went for a short walk and found two more geocaches. The first was GC10A6Y – Jack’s Pond Cache, which was notable for its side-hinged lid ammo can; we’d never seen one like that before. The second was GC18ZWW – Catch This, which had clearly been muggled. The container was still there, but empty. Between us, we managed to come up with a new log sheet and some small swag items to re-supply the cache.
Of course we were chatting all the way, talking about cameras, GPSrs, tripods and more. Mr. GeoK and Sonny are both really into photography, so they had lots to talk about! Then we all sat down and had a longer talk, which turned into a bit of an interview. Since Mrs. GeoK and the GeoKids had plenty to say in our Cache-A-Maniacs interview last summer, we let Mr. GeoK take the lead for this one, and he had a few interesting stories to tell!
The sun was pretty much down and dusk was fast approaching by the time we finished up. Since we didn’t want to get locked into the parking lot for the night we headed back to the Old Spaghetti Factory where we were lucky enough to sit at one of the tables in the train caboose! The food was good and the company was excellent. Around 9 o’clock, when our youngest GeoKid was so tired he accidentally tipped the dregs of his vanilla ice cream into his lap, we knew it was time to say good-bye.
Thanks, Sonny and Sandy, for taking time out of your busy lives to meet us and take us out for a bit of geocaching. We enjoyed the chance to contribute our two cents to an upcoming episode of the Podcacher podcast. And we especially appreciated hearing all about how you plan & organize, create and produce the Podcacher podcast.
BTW – now that we’ve met you, and since we hosted a WWFM event last fall and Alberta is the only Canadian province that doesn’t yet have a WWFM III event, guess we’d better get busy and get one organized for Calgary for May 10th. Stay tuned…