Thanks to Ed Price and Boondocking USA.
... roam the US with Bob and Michelle Hazlett in their Keystone Cougar High Country Fifth Wheel
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
A Geocaching, Letterboxing, Munzee Triple Play
Doyle Carlton Pavilion
Kiwanis Island Park
951 Kiwanis Island Park Rd
Merritt Island, FL 32952
GPS: 28.361102, -080.677363
Michelle and I had a nice day out and about running some errands and playing games. All of our activities were in the Merritt Island area and that minimized mileage. We started with a stop at Camping World. There we usually drop big bucks, but today we just picked up a cartridge for our fresh water filter. We had a coupon, so the filter which normally costs about $27 only set us back $2. Of course we spent time browsing the store looking for things we couldn't live without and didn't find a thing.
East under the highway to Sam's Club for a few grocery items and then continued east several miles to Kiwanis Island Park, interrupted by a lunch stop at a Five Guys burger joint.
As we found each letterbox, we noticed a Munzee very close by, so we picked up Munzee points along with each letterbox. I used my smartphone App to see if there were any more Munzees in the area. Foolish me! Of course there were. Munzees are like mosquitos – they are everywhere. I grabbed a few nearby.
Continuing our exploration, we found GC3PPDA -- Kaelyn's Kache, a geocache placed by DalenBarb. There is a sad but very informative story described in this geocache. Even if you don't search for the cache, you should look this one up on the website and read the story. We did find the cache however. We were having a successful afternoon even before the main event started.
We still had some time to kill before the appointed dinner hour, so we returned to our truck to relax a spell and recharge our phone batteries. While sitting there, we noticed a growing group of people assembling near the pavilion. We later learned that these were the "Castaway Cachers". Geocachers who were arriving to leave tomorrow morning on a nine day geocaching cruise of the islands in the Caribbean. Tonight's trivia event was arranged for them by Dale and Barb Swinehart of Space Coast Geocaching Store as a pre–cruise event. What a neat idea.
Time for dinner and the main event.
Dinner was a pulled pork sandwich with baked beans, coleslaw, and a beverage. Simple but good and thanks to PsjKids for preparing it.
It's All Just Trivial: A Geocaching Trivia Event
The game was hosted by the team of Hoosiersunshine (+Chris Decker) and FailedApparatus. These two folks put on a very professional show. Learn about them at geocachingtrivia.com
We formed into teams of 2-6 people. There were seven rounds of trivia questions, mostly geocaching related. Between each round hoosiersunshine gave out prizes for such things as "Who is the oldest geocacher here?". "Who has the shortest geocaching handle?" (RonC won that one) and many others. It was a lot of fun.
This is a traveling trophy. It appears at all events hosted by this dynamic duo. The winning team gets their name on the trophy and their picture on the Geocaching Trivia website. How cool is that? And of course the trophy is trackable (TB4ZX88). At the very beginning I got scared thinking that the winner was going to have to take this monster home.
Tonight's winner was Team Feeble Film Canisters. Congratulations to them. I do not know, but am curious to learn, how many years of geocaching and how many Finds are represented on that team. Maybe they can tell me.
Trivia Teams
My information on the teams is incomplete and probably contains errors. I would appreciate comments from anyone who can fill out or correct this data.Team Feeble Film Canisters (Trivia Winner)
a2arnold, gatorman83
Team WJAR
All Hat, WLSnowbirds, jerann, RonC
Team TriWeiner
lisa22b, Wadonga, FloridaJim
Team Trouble
HTBob, ???
Team Geo Pups
RetiredGirl, RetiredGuy, CuteLilFuzzyMonkey, ???
Team TGO
flyfishercacher, wd4kaq
Other teams???
What is the lowest/smallest five digit prime number?
That was one of the trivia questions in the category What does that have to do with geocaching? That was a piece of cake for us math wonks. 10,001 of course. (Hear buzzer scream) What??? Then it has to be 10,003. (Hear buzzer scream loudly again). Sheepishly How about 10,005? (Hear buzzer scream louder and longer). Totally humbled, I crawled under a nearby rock.First, the definition: a prime number is a positive integer that is not divisible without remainder by any integer except itself and 1.
Correct answer: Lowest 5 digit prime number is 10,007
What about 10,001? RetiredGuy found factors of 10,001 to be 73 and 137 (73x137=10,001). So it is not a prime number.
How about 10,003? No 7x1,429 = 10,003. Not a prime number either.
How about 10,005? Nope 3x5x23x29 = 10,005. No cigar here.
I don't know how Retired Guy (+Doug Macrae) found his answer. Maybe he will respond with a comment to this blog post.
I got the answer for 10,003 and 10,005 the old fashion way. I cheated. Check out this neat website Math Warehouse
I don't want to play anymore.
Here are a few pictures from the evening
This evening I met Julio (CuteLilFuzzyMonkey). He claims to have found 532 geocaches in one day (22 Feb 2015) and over 10,000 in less than one year of geocaching – and he has a full time job. I checked his profile and his current total of geocaches and trackables is 11,409. He joined on 23 Dec 2013. Congratulations to him and sympathies to his wife.
Our Score for The Day
Geocaches -- 2GC3PPDA -- "Kaelyn's Kache"
GC5HYBP -- "Castaway Cachers Trivia Night on the Space Coast"
Letterboxes -- 5
AQ238337 "Kiwanis Island Park: Get Out There and Play"
Trackables we discovered -- 4
TB4ZX88 -- Trophy: The Golden Geopile - It's All Just Trivial Event Trophy. This trophy is awarded to the winner of It's All Just Trivial - Geocaching Trivia Events. As a perpetual trophy, the winning team's name is added with each event along with the event location and date. The trophy makes an appearance at every trivia event put on by these folks.
TB71D9W – RetiredGirl's Nametag
TB2QHJ9 – Madquilter-Sherwood Nametag
TB2QHNE – Madquilter-Dawn Nametag
Our trackables discovered by others
TB5TTXO – Michelle's Nametag – 4
TB5RDPR – Bob's Nametag – 4
TB66JKA – Ram Bug (the decal on our truck) – 4
Munzees -- 19
Attendees
Here is my count of those that attended. If you didn't log the event as "Attended", I didn't get you.| a2arnold | all hat | beemerdon | Betyboop1249 |
| Bootscootin70 | c&s 143 | Caching NIC | Coolj72 |
| Crescent Trekkers | CuteLilFuzzyMonkey | Dale n Barb | db3034 |
| FailedApparatus | floridajim | FloridaPanther | FLtravelers |
| flyfishercacher | freebill | Fridge01 | gabby0200 |
| gatorman83 | hoosiersunshine | HTBob | IsqubaAndNawty |
| jerann | kim--possible | Lighthouse Nut | lisa22b |
| Mike&Marcia | MommaDirtClod-MDC | monkeys4ever | Mr&MrsGrizz |
| Mr. & Mrs. Magic | normasgirl | PelicansArePelicans | RetiredGirl |
| RetiredGuy | RonC | rwillow | seastar255 |
| Sequoia | ShabbyDo | thebige88 | Tilbury Seekers |
| WaDonga | wd4kaq | WLSnowbird | Young Money Girl |
| pattytracker | altair1 | resqgirl | MadQuilter |
| figgment | dfay1165 |
It was a great evening. What a way to start a carribean cruise. Thanks to all who made it happen. Your work is appreciated.
I appreciate comments of all kinds from one and all. I prefer that they be entered as comments on the blog rather that replies on the email.
Please feel free to forward this to those who might not have received it. I don't have email addresses for everyone.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
End of Happy Homelessness
Michelle's New House
538 Fairways Drive
Titusville, FL 32780
(The Great Outdoors RV, Golf, and Nature Resort)
GPS: 28.513530, -080.859973
Today we closed on a new house. I refer to it as Michelle's house because I have reached the point in my life where all the obligations and nuisances of home ownership far outweigh the benefits. I don't need a house; I don't want a house. A house is the classic example of the statement "You don't own your stuff, your stuff owns you". I'll stop there. So she picked the house on her own – and did a fine job.
We are now homeowners in The Great Outdoors RV, Golf, and Nature Resort. That takes some explaining. In reverse order. Nature. We are very conscious of nature here. While we spray for insects and weeds and bulldoze away habitat for more houses, we dutifully stop our cars on the streets to let turtles cross.
Golf. I'm not a golfer but I am not anti-golf. The golf course winds its way among the houses and contributes greatly to the ambiance of the place. This past year the community purchased the golf course from the private owner. That was a wise move for the benefit of the community – golfers and non-golfers alike.
RV. In terms of housing, that really takes some explaining. Every property here must be able to house an RV. That has created quite a diversity. In one sentence, that requirement is met by pads (with or without buildings), ports (with or without buildings), park models, houses. We have every conceivable configuration of each. Sometime ago I did a blog post on TGO Property, so I won't repeat myself here.
Ours was the typical migration. Our first winter here, we rented a port with a small building. Our second and third winter we rented a pad with a larger building. During our third winter (this winter 2014/2015), Michelle got her house. So the Cougar went ...
from here ...
... to here ...
... to here
Michelle has her house ...
... and the Cougar has a den
Picture Gallery of the House
Sunday, February 15, 2015
A Prize Winner
Titusville, Florida
Space Coast Quilters, the quilt club in Titusville, held their annual quilt show this weekend. Michelle along with several other quilters from our RV park are active in this club. So they were all occupied full time hosting and participating in the show.
There were 230 quilts entered in the show; Michelle entered three. Her quilt Scrappy Split won 3rd place in the 'Medium Size Quilts' division.
Name "Scrappy Split"
Pattern: Split Rail
Here is an interesting quilt made from the container bags for Crown Royal Canadian Whiskey.
Crown Royal, a blended Canadian whisky, is the top-selling Canadian whisky in the United States. The reigning monarch King George VI, and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, visited Canada in 1939. Crown Royal was introduced that year by Samuel Bronfman, President of Seagram as a tribute to the royal visit. It was available only in Canada until 1964.
I wonder who got to drink all that good whiskey? I'm pretty sure it wasn't the quilters ... although I don't know what really happens when those ladies get together in private. Sometimes their corners don't match ... hmmmmm.
Michelle is glad to be back in our winter home and back to her favorite pastime. She is happiest with her quilting buddies. That's a good thing.
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