RIP Geocaching Classic

7,434 geocaches found in 6 years

5 years of cache-a-day streaking

26 states/provinces

5 Mega Events

1 JASMER

Rest in Peace, my Geocaching Buddy

Laminating TB Mission Cards

I bought myself a new toy!

Admittedly, I've wanted a laminator for ages! And I am so tired of paying good money having the print services desk at Office Depot or Staples laminate AIR BUBBLES! Bought a nice Scotch laminator plus laminating pouches from Amazon for about $35. My first attempt went flawlessly!

I think I will use it for TB mission cards and, possibly, send out a few proxy coins. I can laminate information sheets or game pieces for inside caches. Poor TaGeez is fearful I'm going to laminate him!

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Free Travel Bug Mission Cards

Click the image below to access a free PDF created by Sparrowhawk. The blue fields can be filled in with your trackable's details before printing.

#geocache4michael

Joshua, the Geocaching Vlogger, shared a story about young Michael. Michael was a geocacher who lost his life recently due to a congenital heart disease. Today would've been Michael's birthday.

To honor this young soul, who used geocaching to improve his stamina, Joshua suggested a National Geocaching Day for Michael. Geocachers all over the country went out and found a cache in Michael's honor. TaGeez and I trekked into Detroit for ours today.

I Seem to Have Lost My Phone GC4BANJ

Afterwards we rolled towards Detroit Eastern Market area and then down to the Detroit River.

Wonderful ice flows on a sunny, blue day. TaGeez said he watched seagulls land on ice blocks and then ride them towards the Ambassador Bridge!

God gave Michael such a lovely day to celebrate life.

#geocache4michael

Ah! Caching in Michigan!

Left work on Friday to find my car was slowly being engulfed by a late-winter blizzard! Oh, what fun slipping and sliding to the cache location!

Then You Might Be A Geocacher If.... date night means a trip to The Container Store. 

We had some luck in our shopping expedition but nothing going out into elements. Still looking for 3 special containers for a new mystery series... coming soon!

Dream Big - Bees in the D!

We were lucky enough to win one of the #DreamBig trackables from Groundspeak. Before releasing into the wild, TaGeez, and I spent an afternoon taking pictures with it at the Whitcomb Conservatory on Belle Isle.

Scrapcat's Dream Big Bee Trackable wants to visit Gardens and Conservatories, spreading the word about the bee situation.

Bananas growing in Detroit? Cool!

Want to feel inspired? Visit one of my favorite causes, Bees in the D! http://beesinthed.com/ There mission is to PROMOTE, EDUCATE, AND BUILD A NETWORK OF URBAN BEEKEEPING THROUGHOUT THE CITY OF DETROIT.  They have bee hives atop a bar on Atwood right up the road! 

Seneca County GeoTrail

Strep throat has knocked me on my butt, but I don't regret the adventure we had a little over a week ago.

ShelleyJean and I were perusing the latest lists of GeoTrails with rewards when Shelley discovered one just a hundred miles away offering trackable walking sticks as a reward! I shouted out the good news to TaGeez, and he, with a great sigh, replied, "Ok, let me get my pants." 

Seneca County GeoTrail

I'm glad TaGeez is such a sport. Otherwise he would've missed so much! Giant heads on front lawns. A headstone proclaiming the occupant was at Walmart. Totem Poles and tiny driving paths. The look on ShelleyJean's face when the Shake Shak cashier passed the walking sticks (broomsticks with wrist straps) out the drive-thru window and into Shelley's car! That was priceless!

Trackable Seneca County Walking Stick

We earned the last two walking sticks available. We also visited a half dozen cemeteries and checked off several new Ohio counties on our map. Ah, the memories made with friends! Another geotrail under our belts. Where to next?

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Geotour versus Geotrail?

I was recently corrected online. In simplified terms, a Geotour is an official tour through Geocaching HQ; a Geotrail is an unofficial tour.  

Finding geotrails is not as simple as it would seem. Below are two valuable resources, but we found many, many geotrails (offering geocoins, path tags, t-shirts) simply by Googling local counties. 

• GeocachersCompass.com
• Google Fusion Tables

Before planning your trip, make sure to contact the CO or Visitors Bureau to ensure they still have rewards available (they don't always update their cache pages and websites) and confirm their open days/times for pick-up, where necessary.

Cache-a-Day: Five Times Around the Sun

It all started on March 2nd, 2012. During a birthday adventure with my sister, WikidKriket, I found Almost Diagon Alley GC2QVWX -- the first cache in a 1,825 day odyssey! On Wednesday, I celebrated the 5th anniversary of my Cache-a-Day streak!

The timing was perfect for an awesome event - my milestone falls on the day after TaGeez's Birthday, the day before my birthday, and the scheduled Livonia event. With great fanfare, TaGeez and I created the Livonia Traveling Meet #58 - The Celebrations event GC6ZWYB for March 1st. 

With the help of RayQix, we hid three event caches, printed up souvenir labels to wrap Hershey Bars, printed out our signs and gathered raffle prizes. Completing a 5-year streak doesn't happen every day, and we were going to party! 

The night of the event was awesome! The weather cleared enough for friends to arrive from Down River and Flint and everywhere in between. Reports came in that Panera filled with many cachers in high spirits. The only person missing? The host. I was diagnosed with strep throat, and the doctor said I was contagious.

TaGeez, RayQix and WikidKriket

Luckily, with only two hours notice, my sister WikidKriket stepped into the breach and stood in for me. From all accounts, she and TaGeez did an amazing job! They even accepted my Golden PBN award from SCOOK and CITOcacher!

Thank you, SCOOK and CITOcacher, for my golden PBN

Thank you to everyone who attended the event!

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EVIL, EVIL TEAM GATES

So, the first question everyone asks, "Are you ending your streak?" And, honestly, I was thinking maybe it's time. My five years included 7,132 finds in 26 states/provinces, from -26 degree snowstorms and 110 degree heat waves, 5 Megas, completing my JASMER, and 433 first-to-finds. It's been five years, the caches in the area are drying out, and I have proven to myself I could do it.

And then Team Gates released his caches!

He said he would. The day after my milestone party he was going to release brand new caches right on my doorstep. DRAT! How could I resist? They were signature Gates puzzles! So I ran for them - getting two FTF's with WK. 

Hey, it's no big deal. As TaGeez said, it's only 175 more days until the big 2000 days. That's a nice round number, and it will be summer!