Geocaching Recap - 1st Quarter 2011

I'm in a writing mood, and we are on the last day of the quarter, so I might as well review my geocaching progress so far this year. I have mixed feelings looking back at what I have been able to accomplish. On the one hand, with all the snow and rain we have had, it feels like it has been a total washout. I just don't feel like I have been able to get out and do much at all. On the other hand, when I look back at the actual numbers, I haven't done that badly. The main difference, I suppose, is that in the latter part of 2010 I was more worried about keeping my daily streak alive, and had a whole bunch of days where I was finding one or two caches. In 2011, there have been a multitude of weather issues, so there haven't been many days that I have done anything, but I have had a number of bigger single days to help make up for it.

From a pure numbers standpoint, I have made 167 finds in the 3 months, or 56.5 per month. This is down from my 65.1 last year, but is actually better than I expected to average this year. So far so good. Earning some additional badges this year was a goal, in the sense that if I kept up my activity level, the badges would come. In reality, it is hard to say whether I have made much progress on this front or not, because a new version of the badge generation macro put out in the early March time frame changed the achievement levels on many of the badges. What I do know is this: I have found a bunch more virtual caches, I bagged another rare web cam cache on my Richmond VA trip, and I hid three more caches to get a badge for 10 hides. So those are a few achievements regardless of what the badges say.

Miscellaneous stats and numbers are captured here for me to look back at later, but nothing major has changed. It is interesting to note that by virtue of Florida and Virginia trips, my total cache-to-cache-to-cache distance has increased to over 15,000 miles (from just under 12,000). That's a lot of miles...

Work on filling in my difficulty/terrain grid and my calendar hasn't been great. I started the year with 46 out of 81 D/T combos, and am only up to 48 now. Calendar progress is a little better. By virtue of finding a cache on 46 of the possible 90 days in Q1 (mostly in January), I am up to 228 out of the 366 possible calendar dates (62.2%), from a starting point of 182. There are 93 open dates left in 2011, and it would be nice to fill half of them. This would get me to about 274 by the end of the year. 250 is probably more reasonable.

Progress on geography-based goals has also felt slow, but when I look back at what I thought was reasonable and what I hoped to accomplish, I haven't done too badly. I hoped to add a half dozen states this year, and have already added two: Virginia and Florida. The Dakotas hiking and camping trip with the boys could add another 5 or 6 states by itself. I have added one New Jersey and three Maryland counties. I have two days of fun with some friends in Gettysburg planned for next weekend, and with a little planning should be able to add about three new PA counties. So I am doing about as well as planned on that.

So all whining aside, I am on pace for what I expected to reasonably be able to do this year given the commitments of work and family. But most of all... it's still fun, so I will keep following the arrow.