CITOs in Southeastern

What a huge difference between Saturday's downpour at Belle Isle and Monday's sunshine at River Rouge Park!

But we enjoyed ourselves at both!

Brummelbear's Letterbox - the Big Day!

It's finally here!

Sunny skies greeted us on Saturday as we gathered in Royal Oak to celebrate Brummelbear! It's like he was smiling down on us as 70+ friends gathered at First Presbyterian. 

First we setup his Letterbox containers - 23 cachers went home with a complete kit including stamp, ink, logbook, golf pencils, trademark Brummelbear pencil sharpeners and swag. Will they take the 1-year Brummelbear challenge? We already heard that 1 has been hidden/submitted and two are in the works!

The other side of the awesome fireplace (why didn't I take pictures of the fireplace?!?!) were the raffle prizes! Stamp journal & ink pads, rubber stamp-making kit, Tiger goods, rooster steampunk geocoin, and...

Michigan State Park guides and stickers! We have the geotour coming this summer!

So much fun! We had lines of people even before the event began - LINES OF FRIENDS joining us for fun, and TaGeez checked them all in!

Look at our cool logbook! It's a letterboxing event so, anyone who checked in with a stamp received an extra raffle ticket! Quite a few of them are home made! And we had an event stamp for their books, too!

And for the first 48 through the door (we had over 70!), we gave out these cool packets! I wrote this newsletter about hiding & finding letterboxes, items to carry in your letterboxing pack, and the top 10 letterboxes in Michigan. After the event, there were groups who went out and found some of the local ones! I LOVED reading those logs.

Packets had the newsletter, a stamp journal, packet of Wet Ones plus a raffle ticket.

And much love from the family! My brother & sister-in-law secured the room for us, set out coffee & water, and were just awesome in their support. Little sister, WikidKriket, came to share the love, too!

TaGeez, WikidKriket and Scrapcat

And they came! We counted over 70 friends joined us for the celebration!

Including his wife (Diana), sister (Harriet) and one of our speakers (Bruce of Bapman Crew)! Bruce kicked off the presentations with a great history of letterboxing wherein warship would notify the supply ships of battle victories and destinations by leaving messages behind in rock piles. As with the other presenters, Bruce also shared some of his favorite letterbox stories, too.

Looks like a lot of happy faces! 

After Bruce, Tim (Rattrak) spoke of his favorite letterboxes and tips for hiding letterboxes, too.

In between the presenters, I energized the crowds with a little audience participation (rewarding raffle tickets) and letterboxing tales, too.

Roger (South Lyon Trekkers) rounded off the presentations with letterbox stamps. As he started his presentation, Roger said, "Everything I need for this presentation is in my clothes." And the rest was just as fun! It was a good 20 minutes of pre-made stamps, custom stamps and (woo hoo!) handmade stamps. 

Success! Victory dance with Caching Fire afterwards!

Speaking of which, I put together a letterbox journal with a trackable attached, and its already made its way to Alaska!

The Triangle Stamp is our event stamp!

It was a beautiful event, and I really think we would've made Brummelbear proud.  Tired, happy... TaGeez and I relaxed afterwards in Atwood at the Park while our friends enjoyed the Letterboxes nearby. We're keeping our eyes open to see how many new letterboxes appear in the next year.

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Detroit / Belle Isle XIV – Brummelbear Tribute

WOWZA!

It's been a whirlwind month of events! At 15 points an event, Southeastern Michigan cachers will have no problem making the 500 points needed for Cache Carnival souvenirs.

One of the biggest events in the area is the Detroit / Belle Isle XIV – Brummelbear Tribute GC825EA the first Saturday in April. Over a hundred cachers from Michigan, Ohio, Windsor, and Oregon converged on Detroit's gem for a day of caching and commemorating dear Leo (Brummelbear).

I look forward to this day every year. Friends come out of hibernation, and it's a day of pure caching. We meet at the pavilion, drop off food for the luncheon potluck, get our GPS units loaded, and then head off onto the Isle, running into fellow cachers as we mark up the fresh logs. And the Isle has everything - caches in the rocks along the shoreline, near the trails in the wooded marshland, tucked in & around historic Albert Kahn structures, in the hollows of trees. 

Early Saturday morning, ShelleyJean picked up myself and TaGeez on the way to the Isle. We arrived early enough to grab a few caches left over from last year (remember the frigid monsoon?).  Mother Nature took pity on us this year, and it was truly the first Spring day of the year.

Look at these amazing early-morning view at the Blue Heron Lagoon.

Boding well for the day, ShelleyJean, Scrapcat, and TaGeez (SST or "Super Sexy Trio) headed for the pavilion where we won a chance at a first-to-find on a puzzle and one of Brummelbear's geocoins. 

With TaGeez waiting for the end of the raffle, ShelleyJean and I tore off to solve an onsite puzzle for our FTF. After a quick solve at the Zoo, we headed to the final -- pure marsh -- to look for a cache with a clean log. Failure on my part - I wore short boots so SJ (and eventually TaGeez) had to wade in for the find. Four more arrived before the find was made by SJ so we shared the glory. We were told later that many others opted to skip this final due to all the flooding - lucky us, right?

So, we found water in a marshland. Suspicious.

All the caches this year were based on previous Brummelbear hides, and some of the caches were the original containers. The Belle Isle Cachers did a fabulous job sharing their memories of Leo on the custom cache pages.

Now, I'm sharing this picture even if SJ hates it. Why? Because this is one of the reason I love caching with her. No nonsense - no drama. There's a cache sitting in the Detroit River so she just went for it. This photo doesn't do justice to the cold and the speed of the current.

Lunch time came around, wherein we visited with old friends, made new friends and avoided wayward trackables.  This bad boy was a "gift" from Frito Bandito so I, of course, made it a trackable with a mission to have it's photo taken with Frito any chance it can! Somehow, SCOOK and CITOcacher befriended it.

CITOcacher made a friend

What is it about grilled hot dogs at a potluck cooked on the first beautiful day of Spring? Lordy, I was weak. I had two, with a lovely bit of kraut. Leo used to man the grill every year, and he would always cook mine for a little longer. He must've passed on his technique to Mark Rumble - the dogs were perfect!

After lunch, Tabby of Redbud's Family joined us for a few finds. 

This goose was pissed! He didn't like TaGeez crossing his turf

We ran into friends everywhere!

And found really cool swag and calling cards in the caches!

The Aardvark snacks are plastic ants

Tabby from Redbud's Family

So, what do YOU normally do in the back woods?

We ended our day on the back trails where we ran into more friends.

And some wildlife.

Human wildlife, too!

TaGeez and KacheHuntr

It was another amazing experience on Detroit's gem. Thank you, Belle Isle Cachers, and looking forward to next year!

This was a bit of a surprise....

We weren't expecting this 400 ft into the woods.

Creation Celebration: Brummelbear’s Letterboxes

FIVE DAYS TO GO!

Join us in Royal Oak for Brummelbear's Letterbox - hiding or finding Letterbox Hybrid geocaches and all-about-stamps! Learn how-to from Rattrak, Bapman Crew and South Lyon Trekkers!

Swag bags for the first 48 attendees, dozens of giveaways from Brummelbear's private stash, five larger raffle prizes, plus the Creation Celebration souvenir! Sign the log with your Letterbox stamp to receive an extra ticket in the raffles!

Saturday, April 13th from 12:30 to 2:30.

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