MIGO Winter Social 2017

Blue-haloo! It's winter time, and I'm suffering from cabin fever! The perfect medication is a jaunt to Lansing with ShelleyJean and afishoutawater for the 2017 MIGO Winter Social! I've been told for years this was the social event of the year so early Saturday morning we found ourselves bundled into fish's new SUV and heading west.

First stop: The Flash for Auction flash mob. WOW! Was it cold! Only insane people (and geocachers) hang out in a vacant shopping plaza in February for a group photo.

Source: Cache Page (Periwinkle128, I think)

To warm ourselves, a little caching.  Ah, the joys of caching in winter!

Luckily ShelleyJean and I found it! (Thanks, afishoutawater, for the photo!)

The coolest part is this cache (and several more to follow) were part of the North American Wildlife Series -- each their own unique diorama!

Eventually, time ran down, and we headed to the social (2017 MIGO Winter Social GC6WNBH).

Mrs Grundalow and RayQix striking the 'TaGeez Look"

In actually, Ray and Amanda may've been contemplating, "Who donated the SheWee to the auction?" I know, right? I wonder who bought it?!?

But there were two amazing contributions to the Live Auction. The first was the Geo-opoly game handcrafted by Kneel More (Neil Moore) and bought by Team TopKat. Phenomenal!

The other is the fabulous quilt made by Mrs. Goldfinch (with an assist from the Mister) and purchased by Allenite. It contains replicas of the 10 commemorative path tags from past winter socials.

The coolest part is my sister, WikidKriket's, path tag! She won a path tag design contest several years ago. Awesome!

'The GPS says we're close"

The best moment worth getting up early for was to see Othum again. He's been undergoing so many serious treatments lately and has been sorely missed from our gatherings. Love you, my friend! So glad Yeti brought you across the border and to our capital!

Othum and Signal

Ok, enough seriousness. WINNER!

Prize for Geocacher's Bingo - woot!

And then onto the caching. ShelleyJean just nailed the caches in the cemeteries! Afishoutawater and I were SO glad she nabbed this tricky puzzle final!

I loved the views and assortment of hides. I think fish was just thrilled with the automatic front gates - Every cemetery should have these! Pull up within 2 feet of the gate, and it opens automatically to let you out.

Mount Hope Cemetery

This was my favorite oddity for the day - a fire call box in the middle of the cemetery. As you get closer you realize it's a memorial for the fallen fire fighters.

And then we wrapped the day with a stop at the Cracker Barrel. 

Yes, a very good day.

Thank you, afishoutawater, for driving.

Thank you, ShelleyJean, for finding.

Thank you, MIGO Members, for two fun events.

I still used a GPSr.... well, sort of.

TaGeez broke his leg.

Now, that sounds like the ending of an epic adventure. But it is not. It has been our reality for almost two weeks now. So, today found me out running errands by myself. A little bit of groceries and then my cache-a-day. I'm less than 6 weeks from realizing my goal of cache-a-day streaking for 5 years straight.

Five years of streaking is within my reach!

In this time, I went a month without a car, dealt with -26 degree temps, and cached on my way home from the hospital. But TaGeez laid up has not been enjoyable, especially dealing with... da da DA! MY PHONE!

I love my iPhone, but more often than not lately it's a paperweight (and not a paperweight I can afford to replace). My iPhone 5 has the dreaded 'battery issue' (my diagnosis - according to Apple there is nothing wrong with it). I could be sitting a 74% battery with no apps running, no background refresh, Bluetooth off, and drop in seconds to 1% - CRASH! Shuts down completely. But when I plug it in, I'm at 53% battery. Heaven help me if I don't have a power source nearby.

Hey! Any of you know... is it worth paying to replacing the battery?

I'm getting mixed answers, but there's nothing otherwise wrong with it.

So imagine today... I'm exiting the grocery store to see my battery at 4% (WTH?!?! It was almost charged when I entered. Damn potatoes! They are the culprits! Those eyes always watching!)

Source: Unknown

Crap. Ok, time to reach for an alternate power source because TaGeez will be waking from his nap, and I need to be home. I plugged my phone into my car charger - nada. Sigh - the Ford Sync system. And I only have one external battery with me... and it's dead, too. 

Well, Hell.

Trek all the way home, grab a battery and back out today? It's getting late. Grrrrr!!!!! It's been a long week.

As I pulled out of the lot, I recalled a cache belonging to afishoutawater that I had to skip earlier in the week. On Wednesday, as I pulled up near the GZ, a construction crew renovating a nearby hotel exited for the day and caught sight of me. Thinking about it today, can I remember how to get back there? Not on my normal side of town and in an area I frequent. Risk it not being there? Or revisited by the crew? Could the gates be locked?

I made it back to Telegraph and then was a little lost. Where is this place? Last time I had approached from the backside. Surely there can't be THAT MANY hotels under construction??? Looking up at my car GPSr, which is always on, I broke out into a smile. Breadcrumb trails.

The little blue line on my screen led me back to the spot from whence I came once before. This time the gates were open and the lot empty. I headed to the North side of the lot. Eagerly, I pulled up to the general area, got out and started my search. After a few minutes I came up empty. DRAT! So darn close! 

Pulling out of the lot, I looked over my right shoulder to make sure all was clear, and what did I see about 20 feet away? 

That's right. I had left last time without getting a close look at the GZ. And now I have a log in hand. Sweet! The things we do for a smiley.

Now, how do I get home?

Tacos and Cocoa?

I thought this a nice touch. Tuesday afishoutawater hosted the monthly Taco Tuesday meet.

As part of the Loco for Cocoa and Tacos event, she gave out cocoa goodies bags. YUM!

We love tasty swag!

Labor Day Adventure: US 23 Heritage Trail I

SOUTHFIELD TO BAY CITY

Summer is waning, and TaGeez & I needed an adventure. All summer long we've been watching our friends visit the US 23 Heritage Tour along Lake Huron. That seemed a perfect antidote for cabin fever. 

Sunshine, geocaching, siteseeing over the Labor Day weekend. We reached out to afishoutawater and then lassoed ShelleyJean as our fourth. Time for a road trip!  There's too much fabulousness to contain it into one post! Site back and share our adventure with us!

US 23 Discovery Tour Geocaches

And, boy! What an adventure it turned out to be! With very little pre-planning (we booked hotels and such - we're not fools), we met after work on Friday and headed (with trillions of our friends) North. Can you guess that we cached all the way?

TCO Pure Evil No Rest for the Wicked GC4TCX1
afishoutawater, ShelleyJean, TaGeez and Scrapcat

Here's ShelleyJean with her first traveling cache, ABC's. Remember it? Last you saw it, it was an ammo can. Rude surprise for the CO. Shelley hid it up in Mackinaw City two days later.

ShelleyJean with ABC's GCCD54

After a few Virtuals and park-and-grabs, we moseyed into the Bay Valley Hotel & Resort before dinner at Lucky's Steakhouse.

Poor, TaGeez. Waiting for the relaxing part to start.

It was a pretty hotel set alongside a river that ran through a golf course.

After dinner, afishoutawater suggested this really cool cache on the river. It's within site of a ship museum. I have vowed to return to Bay City one day to see this behemoth in daylight! The nearby caches were pretty cool.

Search and Destroy GC4DVK7

For an unplanned adventure, we packed so much into it! And as we rolled into a lighted downtown (oh, so pretty!), we came across our first discovery of the weekend... 

...the Bay City Chalk Walk!

Not sure why, but I feel an affinity for this one

I didn't drive him to this! Oh, wait... guess I was driving. Glad we did the u-turn and stopped for a visit.

SOURCE: ShelleyJean --Shelley, let me apologize 
now if I forget to credit you for a photo.

Final stop for the night was the Friendship Fountain (GC6GPPR). Jimmy Fallon called it "The Toilet Seat"! Can you guess why? 

afishoutofwater, scrapcat, and ShelleyJean

Bay City was such a cute town. They were showing Mamma Mia! outdoors on the big screen behind the Ring and the plaza was jammed with locals enjoying the gorgeous weather. This was a wonderful start to an amazing weekend.