Who are we? We are two wacky artists from either side of the country who have discovered that we are kindred spirits- in fact, elf sisters. We both like to be outdoors and exploring, so we've created the blog to share our adventures!
Note: Here be spoilers. Well, sometimes, but you may find photos or info about the location or description of a cache. You've been warned!

Getting ready to geocache!

Blog post by Meri Greenleaf
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 | | 1 Comment »


I worked on some crocheted hemp jewelry today and a lot of what I made are these bracelets. I think I made about 10 or 11, but I lost count as I was making them, lol. I'm going to be leaving these when I go geocaching- well, I might not leave them everywhere; I may just leave them in places with decent swag that's worthy of my handmade stuff. ;)

I stuck them in little baggies labeling what they were and signed them with "Taurandirath" and a link to this blog, so if you happen to find the blog that way, hello!

The weather has been cold and rainy so I haven't been able to go out geocaching yet, so I figured now would be a good time to make these. It's supposed to be warm and sunny this weekend, though, so hopefully Josh and I will be able to look for our first caches this weekend. :)

Paper Tiger Coffee Roasters

Blog post by Live, Love, Laugh, Write!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 | | 0 Comments »

I went out with my Mother in Law today with two goals. One, buy some fun specialty cheeses for my hubbies birthday tomorrow, two, go geocaching. Well the weather is rather icky so we decided to skip the geocaching today, but we had passed a fun little coffee shop on our way to the store, so we decided to stop in and investigate. I'm so glad we did! It's called Paper Tiger Coffee Roasters and if you live in Vancouver you can click on the link to get directions to go check it out for yourselves.

Isn't the old cash machine adorable?
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They roast their own beans - look - you can see the machine!

And their barista's are artists! Look at Mom and I's coffee's :)


AND to top it all off, I found out how to link to the artist community in our area, more networking opportunities! Woohoo! And maybe more sales as well? We'll see :)

Hazel Dell Park

Blog post by Live, Love, Laugh, Write!
Monday, March 29, 2010 | | 1 Comment »

Saturday my brother and I went out geocaching in Hazel Dell Park! My two main geocaching partners will probably be my brother and my hubby. My brother really likes geocaching, and my hubby, well I'll drag him along whenever I can :P Saturday it was just Gordon and I though because he wanted to spend some time with just me. You can barely see him in this first picture, he's in the bottom right, a dark blur with an orange hat.


There are three cache's in Hazel Dell park. HD Park, Daniel#1, and Bird: Steller. We had planned on looking for all three, but there were a bunch of people hanging out in the area where Daniel #1 was (as far as we could tell) so we didn't get a chance to look for it. That's ok though, it gives us a good reason to go back again, and we didn't find the other two either, so maybe a second look will be more profitable!
It was the perfect day to be out in the park. Sunny, but not too warm, with clear skies. Amazing! We hiked around and searched for about an hour, which means I got a good work out! The picture below is my legs/feet as I'm leaning against a tree. I was out of breath and letting Gordon explore the upper hill to see if he could find anything. You can see my back pack, the gps (Gordon was fed up with it lol), and the bag hanging from my belt loop. I made sure I had a bag with me to grab trash and we picked up a few pieces. Not too many though. it was a well maintained park.

And I just thought this stump was cool :D


Hello from the newbie!

Blog post by Meri Greenleaf
| | 2 Comments »

I'm a complete newbie here, but I've been doing a lot of research on geocaching and letterboxing. Go figure- I'm becoming so obsessed but the weather has been too rainy and cold to go out adventuring! The weather is supposed to be nice this weekend, so maybe I'll get out then. :)

Anyway, I think I may have heard about geocaching a while ago, but what really piqued my interest was an article in the daily paper a week or so ago talking about geocaching and how it was like a grown-up's version of Easter egg hunting. Since I always loved Easter egg hunts and scavenger hunts as a kid, I figured this would be perfect for me. Plus it means I'll be able to get outside and do some walking. (The only think I'm not looking forward to? Ticks. There are a lot of ticks in my area.)

I currently don't have the best health so to start I'll just be looking for letterboxes and caches that are on easy terrain and are of the "park and grab" variety. As I get healthier, I'll start upping the difficulty level. I'm planning on searching in Pennsylvania and maybe some of Delaware to start, but I'll check New Jersey on my way to (and while I'm at) the shore. Oddly enough, I think I'll be able to find the ones at the shore more easily because I've done a lot more walking and tourist stuff there than in my own backyard.

I'll be out searching with my dad and/or my fiance Josh. I picked "Taurandirath" as our group name because all three of us love Tolkien; the name means "forest wanderers" in Elvish. I don't have a GPS so I'll be borrowing my mom's car GPS system when I go with my dad, or Josh's dad's car GPS when I go with Josh. If I find that I'm able to do a lot of geocaching/letterboxing, I may ask for an outdoor GPS for my birthday this summer. ;)

I also made an account on waymarking.com; I don't think I'm going to actively look for locations (at least not to start), but if I happen to pass near one on my adventures, I'll snap a picture of it. :)

Oh- and my posts are going to have the wrong time on them because this blog is set to Ruthie's Pacific time and I'm in Eastern (so add 3 hours to my post time, if you're curious). (Although at the moment I'm having timestamp issues with this blog...)

My Geocaching Story

Blog post by Live, Love, Laugh, Write!
Saturday, March 27, 2010 | | 0 Comments »

I first started Geocaching 6 or 7 years ago because of a good friend of mine named Erik. His entire family loves to geocache, and they've logged cache's all around the world! I went on some interesting adventures with him looking for caches, including one where we got chased by someone with a flashlight... Um, yeah, he got an earful for that one!


I'm pretty sure I've actually been to more cache's than what I have logged on the web-site, I think there may have been some with Erik I didn't log. And I may not have logged some of my failures with my brothers.

Now the difficult part for me with geocaching begins before we even leave to search for the cache - I don't own a gps! My adventures have been sporadic enough that I haven't ever gotten one (that and a lack of money...) I've always either resorted to hunting with out a gps or borrowing one from some one.

Well, I'm still borrowing a gps, but I'm hoping to make geocaching much more of a regular thing! ( might buy one if I do) I've had some severe health problems over the last two years and as a result I'm way overweight and out of shape. I'm going for walks every day I can, but I figure this is a fun way to go out and get some exercise. I have more motivation and I tend to walk longer when I have a goal other than just "walk through the neighborhood."

~ Ruthie ~