July 2023 - An Trip to Midwest GeoBash

 

It's that time of year! Road trip to Fulton County Fairgrounds for Midwest GeoBash 2023 (GC9WDWW)! This year's theme is videogames.

TaGeez and I had commitments so we could only attend Friday and Saturday, so we arrived bright & early! The weather was stunning - a good day for a geo-adventure!

Did I mention video games? TeamPhoenix421 did a brilliant job with the fairground caches! I could fill screens and screens of photos of these fabulous caches! We were lucky enough to see them intact - shortly afterwards, they were replaced with more common containers. 

We made a point of grabbing all the accessible fairground caches and adventure labs. So peaceful cruising up and down the fields, running into old friends, for a bit of relaxing caching. 

Then onto the poker run! And this is one of my new favorite spots! The Richard Allan Studios!

And we brought home 2 of these cuties! There was no way I was leaving without them!

Back to the fairgrounds for the traditional photo and, of course, more of the fabulously fun geocaches and food trucks!

I'm ridiculously proud of this one! This was a stage in one of the Adventure Labs. There was a group of cachers who had been struggling for a long time to put this together and eventually gave up. I sat down and BAM! Less than a minute! 

We wrapped the day by grabbing some of Team Doxie's EGG Challenge caches and then a delicious dinner at Outlaw Smokehouse in Napoleon. Have you been? Add it to your itinerary!

Saturday morning involved more challenge caches, fairground caches, and TREASURE HUNT! That never gets old. 

Buy a ticket (in advance, is best). Go to the horse ring early Saturday morning (the earlier the better). For each ticket, you search and find a t-shirt trackable. Everyone is a winner!

We bought extra tickets this year because Bash made a change. Instead of 1, they buried 3 different trackable t-shirts for finding. We almost had 2 complete sets (one of each), but we were one off. Luckily our new friend from Lansing was willing to make a swap with us!

It's been a full two days, and time for a wrap. After a final trip to the food trucks (and a lovely picnic in the shade), we headed to Spangler for the closing ceremonies. Needless to say, TaGeez's shirt was a hit!

Midwest GeoBash 2023 - Closing Ceremony GCAA9KM 

Next year is a birthday theme (20th annual), and we've already marking our calendars for July 24-28, 2024. Hopefully the swag will be as fabulous! I bought the Flamingo Package, again. Scored 2 t-shirts (1 trackable), several trackable t-shirts and event coins. Loved the path tags, too. 

My favorite one, was this amazing videogame geocoin! That "display" is a custom-shaped path tag, and I have 5 other path tags I can swap it out with!

There ain't no other mega like Midwest GeoBash!