Good morning everyone. When I put together the fun fact for each blog, I don't know what it might be until almost last minute. Sometimes it might have a connection to the blog itself, or as the case for this week, no connection at all. Sometimes even I'm surprised by what I find as in the case for this week's fun fact. The geocacher with the most hidden caches are: In Canada it's geowhacker with 3,415 hides and by the looks of things, all on Prince Edward Island. Interesting side note to this, geowhacker has found zero caches. None, Zip, Zilch. A great big goose egg. Across the border, top American is Team SageBrushers with 24,004 caches hidden. Interesting side note to them, they have found 44 caches, with 14 of those being events. With so many caches hidden, these people are probably too busy hiding and doing maintenance and no time to find caches.
This week is my return to the zoo, four weeks later. When I was there at the beginning of September, it was to grab the caches that were inside the zoo before they got archived to make way for the next zoo event at the end of the month. They were archived two days after I had found them with Auntie Mo.
This year marks the tenth year that there has been an event at the zoo. Sadly, I've never attended any of these zoo events. For one reason or another, I'm not available to go. When it was announced that this year's zoo event was on September 29th, I do what I always do, check my calendar to see if I have my boys that weekend. That's not my weekend to have them so it looks like I might be able to attend my first zoo event. Why wouldn't I take them to the zoo? They really don't care for geocaching and find events boring (although my oldest d-2-002 has expressed an interest again to find a geocache or two) and they also find the zoo boring (my oldest was doing some volunteer work there this past Spring through his school). The event is hosted by local cacher Skoki, along with help from other geocachers who either contributed to the creation of a cache or helped organize and place the cache itself. It was a team effort and I would soon see why it takes a team of geocachers to put on a successful event such as this.
I arrived early and met up with Hakliva, Jesterphox and JAB007. One of the newer caches was a multi stage that requires you to go around the outside of the zoo, gathering information needed to get the final coordinates. With enough time before the zoo opens at 9am, we squeezed into JAB007's car and did a quick drive around. Back in time for the zoo to open. Brand new caches means first to finds are available. At the beginning, it's sort of like opening time for a Black Friday sale. A mad dash to find that ultimate sale item, or in this case the FTF. Hakliva asked where we should start. I made a suggestion, she liked that idea and off we went. We were following one half of Sweethearts14 and her dad Revel Dogs. When we arrived at the first GZ, other geocachers had caught up to us. It was a group effort and the FTF was ours (looking back at the log, there was at least eight of us). On to the next cache. Another FTF for our group, which has grown to nine cachers now. By the time we arrived at the third cache, I saw it had been signed already and another group of geocachers coming from the opposite direction was catching up to us. All the FTFs had been claimed at this point. After that, it was a slower pace as we made our way to the remaining caches. Along with Hakliva and myself, we were also joined by Jesterotr from Western Manitoba (Brandon). With all the excitement of getting FTFs, and chatting with other geocachers, I totally forgot to take pictures.
There were a few temporary caches set up just for the event. You signed a square (battleship style grid) for a chance to win prizes later. Looking back at the event page, 53 logged "attended". That doesn't include the family members. Geocachers from all over came in for this event. For the ones that I know of, Awol and JAB007 from the Winkler/Morden area in Southern Manitoba (I think there was a few more from this area), Jesterotr from Brandon, Revel Dogs from BC, gloworm77, her mom Butterfly_77 and the rest of their gang from Bismarck, North Dakota, just to name a few. These caches will remain in place until next year when the next event is held. I'm looking forward to next year's event. Hopefully I'll be able to attend, and for others who didn't attend, I highly recommend going. If events could get favorite points, this event certainly deserves one.
With the event done, geocachers scattered to do their own thing. For myself, I headed across the street into Assiniboine Forest with Hakliva and MightyStrongValiant. We all had unfound caches in the forest somewhere. Not always the same cache was needed, so we took turns. The forest is split up into two sections. The North section between that is across the street from the park and bordered by Grant avenue to the South, and the South section which is on the South side of Grant avenue. The three of us tackled the North section, a couple of traditionals, a puzzle final (I think I was the only one that needed the puzzle) and an evil multi stage cache. Surprisingly, we were able to locate stage one and figure out how to get the log sheet at stage two.
It was shortly after this that MightyStrongValiant departed, leaving just Hakliva and myself to work the South section of forest. More caches were found, some I had found a couple of years ago, some we both needed.
With this section almost complete, we took a much needed nourishment break before returning for a night cache. When you're caching in Assiniboine forest, there is a good chance you will come across a deer or two or a buck.
This week is my return to the zoo, four weeks later. When I was there at the beginning of September, it was to grab the caches that were inside the zoo before they got archived to make way for the next zoo event at the end of the month. They were archived two days after I had found them with Auntie Mo.
This year marks the tenth year that there has been an event at the zoo. Sadly, I've never attended any of these zoo events. For one reason or another, I'm not available to go. When it was announced that this year's zoo event was on September 29th, I do what I always do, check my calendar to see if I have my boys that weekend. That's not my weekend to have them so it looks like I might be able to attend my first zoo event. Why wouldn't I take them to the zoo? They really don't care for geocaching and find events boring (although my oldest d-2-002 has expressed an interest again to find a geocache or two) and they also find the zoo boring (my oldest was doing some volunteer work there this past Spring through his school). The event is hosted by local cacher Skoki, along with help from other geocachers who either contributed to the creation of a cache or helped organize and place the cache itself. It was a team effort and I would soon see why it takes a team of geocachers to put on a successful event such as this.
I arrived early and met up with Hakliva, Jesterphox and JAB007. One of the newer caches was a multi stage that requires you to go around the outside of the zoo, gathering information needed to get the final coordinates. With enough time before the zoo opens at 9am, we squeezed into JAB007's car and did a quick drive around. Back in time for the zoo to open. Brand new caches means first to finds are available. At the beginning, it's sort of like opening time for a Black Friday sale. A mad dash to find that ultimate sale item, or in this case the FTF. Hakliva asked where we should start. I made a suggestion, she liked that idea and off we went. We were following one half of Sweethearts14 and her dad Revel Dogs. When we arrived at the first GZ, other geocachers had caught up to us. It was a group effort and the FTF was ours (looking back at the log, there was at least eight of us). On to the next cache. Another FTF for our group, which has grown to nine cachers now. By the time we arrived at the third cache, I saw it had been signed already and another group of geocachers coming from the opposite direction was catching up to us. All the FTFs had been claimed at this point. After that, it was a slower pace as we made our way to the remaining caches. Along with Hakliva and myself, we were also joined by Jesterotr from Western Manitoba (Brandon). With all the excitement of getting FTFs, and chatting with other geocachers, I totally forgot to take pictures.
(me, signing everyone in on one of the many caches we found that morning)
There were a few temporary caches set up just for the event. You signed a square (battleship style grid) for a chance to win prizes later. Looking back at the event page, 53 logged "attended". That doesn't include the family members. Geocachers from all over came in for this event. For the ones that I know of, Awol and JAB007 from the Winkler/Morden area in Southern Manitoba (I think there was a few more from this area), Jesterotr from Brandon, Revel Dogs from BC, gloworm77, her mom Butterfly_77 and the rest of their gang from Bismarck, North Dakota, just to name a few. These caches will remain in place until next year when the next event is held. I'm looking forward to next year's event. Hopefully I'll be able to attend, and for others who didn't attend, I highly recommend going. If events could get favorite points, this event certainly deserves one.
(Skoki)
(an idea of how well attended this event was)
(dani_carriere talking about next year's geowoodstock, she's an ambassador for that event for this area)
With the event done, geocachers scattered to do their own thing. For myself, I headed across the street into Assiniboine Forest with Hakliva and MightyStrongValiant. We all had unfound caches in the forest somewhere. Not always the same cache was needed, so we took turns. The forest is split up into two sections. The North section between that is across the street from the park and bordered by Grant avenue to the South, and the South section which is on the South side of Grant avenue. The three of us tackled the North section, a couple of traditionals, a puzzle final (I think I was the only one that needed the puzzle) and an evil multi stage cache. Surprisingly, we were able to locate stage one and figure out how to get the log sheet at stage two.
(there's a little Lego dude in the bottom right corner. He's behind bars. LOL)
What would turn into a case of deja vu, a pivotal point in the night cache brought us to a bench that we had taken a break at earlier in the afternoon. If only we had known. The final was soon spotted and found. A few more caches after that before calling it a day. After a full day and evening of walking around, I was tired.
That was this year's zoo event and caching afterwards. I still have a couple of caches still to be found in the forest. I'm hearing that a ladder is required for one of them. Until then, be safe, enjoy, peace out, and have fun.
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