We weren't sure it was going to happen, but Midwest GeoBash 2021 kicked off in Wauseon, OH last week. To go or not to go? It's been a Hell of a year, and TaGeez & I seriously needed an escape. But, with no antibodies, can we stay safe? With a last minute hotel booking, strategizing, and the support of our friends, the answer was YES!
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| Midwest GeoBash 2021 GC88QKK |
Midwest GeoBash runs from Wednesday through Sunday morning, and TaGeez and I were able to score a few of those days off. Relaxing early Thursday morning, TaGeez asked when shall we leave? Looking forward to a drive with the sun roof open and Pandora blaring, I thought we'd make a lazy start until we realized the Spy Game was kicking off at 10am. With an arched brow to TaGeez, my crazy partners sighed, slumped his shoulders, and said, "I'll go pack the car."
SPY GAMES
The Spy Game is new this year, and what a hoot! With game card in hand, you have to use your Spy Games trading cards, path tags, and our special gadget geocoin to solve the location of 10 Letterboxes. Oh, we readily admit we totally had help from friends for the solve, and then we spent an enjoyable afternoon tooling around the towns encircling Wauseon for the finds.
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| And we made new friends! No idea who they are! |
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| Stopping by a favorite old haunt |
And we did it! 10 found in 3.5 hours, and we earned our special Spy Games geocoin! This was one of the most fun activities in my 9 years of Bash!
GPS MAZE
This was a BIG highlight for our weekend - the GPS Maze came to Wauseon! 10 years ago, when it came to Dayton, I had barely known TaGeez, and not enough to invite him along on a family trip. Lo! We didn't understand how rare this event was! But 10 years later, we're here! And, with our Flamingo Club passes, we were the first in!
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| GC8FYA6 - GPS Maze |
It was very well done, and, unlike Dayton, there was no activity to undertake - just stroll through the aisles and learn about geocaching.
WAIT! What is this?!? That's me! I'm in the exhibit with Mr & Mrs Yellowjeeperman! What a hoot!
Poker Run
Have you ever done the Poker Run? You visit pre-selected local businesses and restaurants to acquire bar-coded stickers for your Poker Card. Once you've completed your card, you return it to the fairground where a scanner lets you know if you have a winning or losing hand (so far, we're 0-9).
But it's a hoot! Ice cream shops, bakeries, our favorite goat cheese creamery. We enjoy the best the area has to offer, and we help to boost the local economy, too! We typically keep track of where we stop and have returned to favorite spots year after year 💗
This year there were less stops to allow people to linger. Many lingered at the Winery, but we detoured to the local quilt shop. Added bonus this year was the Poker Run Adventure Lab - a twofer!
Caching Locally
I don't think I express this enough - how amazing the local cachers are! They put out new, themed caches every year, and they are a blast!
I always unload a ton of Favorite Points each year!
But the best part of Bash is friends. With the pandemic, my Father's passing, and then my cancer, it's been well over a year since we've seen most of them. So great to see their amazing smiling faces - so happy to see us, too! And, amazingly, they respected social distancing and our masks.
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| Howdy, Team Lareau! |
Speaking of good friends, TaGeez spend quite a bit of time catching up with friends over my diagnosis. On his tour of the fairgrounds he crossed paths with ACLCoordinator who made him one of his special walking sticks! And this one has the Team Free Range Lobsters mascot!
Oh, here is a favorite! Team Doxie always excels! This lovely TB Hotel is in downtown Wauseon, and, when we arrived (there were always crowds here) a nice cacher was unloading a bucket of trackables into the cache. We now have a dozen of them here at our "Another Guardrail Cache".
Our last morning kicked off with a new Adventure Lab in Napoleon. This was a fun stroll around downtown before the day started on the fairgrounds. All in all, we ended up completing 55 Adventure Labs over the weekend - 30 on the fairground, 10 in Napoleon, and 5 in Wauseon.
And, joy oh joy! A local favorite with 78 Favorite points just down the road. It took a good half hour, but TaGeez for the win!
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| Twisted GC787H8 |
Treasure Hunt
You can't wrap a weekend without the annual Treasure Hunt. Each ticket gets you a trip into the horse arena with a metal detector, and everyone is a winner! T-shirt trackables for everyone! Again, we were very lucky to be almost first in-first out and avoiding the crowds.
Signal Locationless Cache - GC8FR0G
Besides the Maze, this locationless cache was a biggie for me! In celebration of 20 years of Geocaching, HQ released this locationless cache. You can only claim it if you take your picture with the official banner or with the big guy himself! As the weekend was winding down, I was disappointed that we would have to settle for the banner - the only thing jarring in a perfect weekend. But, again! Luck on our side! As things were wrapping in Spangler, Signal appeared, and I quickly got my picture before the crowds assembled. Admittedly, this was the one time this weekend we broke social distancing, but I felt it was okay as we were both masked!
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| Signal Locationless Cache - GC8FR0G |
Time quickly came to an end here. A final adventure lab in Wauseon (during Homecoming! Oy!)....
... and then finding the final Golden cache as we headed out of town, back to Michigan, and straight into a tornado. But that's another story.
As they say in the spy world, "Mission Accomplished!" Tired, sweaty, sore, but satisfied. It truly was the best time, and we're looking forward to returning next year (and, hopefully, hugging everyone we missed this time!).
