Good morning everyone. This week's fun fact is all about your highest and lowest elevation for a cache found. This is in keeping with Cache The Line's live feed he did earlier this week where he went to the top of a 100ft fire tower to celebrate one thousand subscribers to his YouTube channel. You can see the replay here > Cache The Line's video. My highest cache found is 7,215ft above sea level. I found this one four years ago on Sulphur Mountain (GC134E), just outside of Banff, Alberta.
(me at Sulphur Mountain. Smoke from forest fires in Washington State blew in that morning, hence the cloudy look behind me.)
My lowest is tt-Toronto Queens Quay (GCA2AA). I got that one two years ago while in Toronto for a union convention. It's elevation is 174ft above sea level.
(what do you do when on a lunch break? Find geocaches of course)
It's been another crazy busy week for me as I have started the process of settling in after moving. I still have a lot of unpacking to do, so it'll be a busy weekend for me. I like to refer to my current location as 'Parts Unknown', since I keep moving every year. It is such a relief to be out of my last place that could be considered home, although I started referring to it as the pit of hell towards the end. It was the basement of a house that belonged to a now former friend. The foundation is cracked and when it rained (or snow melted), the water leaked into the basement. I'm not talking a little seepage, but a full, carpet totally soaked, soggy mess. I lost count how many times I've had to deal with this in the past twelve months. There was other issues as well but I won't get into that. I'm just glad to be out of that dump.
(My rescuers. First time hiring movers. I've always done it on my own. I wanted out as fast as I could)
(My stuff waiting to be unpacked)
Needless to say, I haven't done any geocaching since the beginning of August. I did do a virtual with my boys since then, but haven't submitted the answers. With that said, I didn't complete the Mystery at the Museum promotion or the Streak Week. I was excited about the Museum promotion at first. It sounded like fun and had a different spin to it compared to previous promotions. I liked the fact that it incorporated the search feature as you needed to find out which caches had the clues you needed next. After that, it became just like any of the previous promotions. My issue with that is; what if you have your area cached out? In order to complete these promotions, you have to make plans and find the time to travel to an area with plenty of unfound caches. That's me and I know that others have the same issue. I love travelling, but if you're short on time, life is too busy for a day trip or weekend get away, then you feel discouraged. I did find some of the clues, but I was nowhere near completing the mystery.
I look back at some of the previous promotions and how I completed them. Planetary Pursuit: I did a portion of a geo-art power trail that's over an hour away with two other geocachers to complete that promotion. Hidden Creatures: I went back to the same geo-art power trail and completed both the trail and the promotion. Cache Carnival: never completed. Mystery at the Museum: as mentioned, not completed. Streak Week: never even attempted. I don't have to drive an hour away to find caches. There are geocaches closer to home, but some driving is involved as I have the radius around my home 95% cached out. That's not enough to do any promotion.
I'm also feeling very disinterested in geocaching. I think there's many factors at play there. Lack of time, lack of geocaches nearby, tired of the local politics and drama. I haven't logged a find since August 4th. It's now September 7th. When you consider that I did a daily streak of 1,010 days, going over a month without a find and not being bothered by it says something. I'm tired of searching for a nano or micro hidden in a spruce tree or a fallen log by a river bank. Basically, I'm tired of searching for caches in the city. Some of the best ones are in the rural areas where the cache will most likely not be muggled. Where are some of the oldest active caches in your area? Are they in an urban center, or out in the country? Being a cache owner, I know full well the time and effort that goes into maintaining an urban cache. How disinterested am I with geocaching at the moment? I have a new phone and I haven't put the geocaching app on it yet. I even unclicked the button to get notifications on certain geocaches I was following. More specifically, the older caches. All it was doing is clogging up my inbox, which I still have to clean out when I have time. Almost 2,000 unread e-mails.
I did a blog a couple of months back asking if geocaching is cliquish or not. I tried to be neutral and present both sides fairly. Honestly; I think it is cliquish. That takes the fun out of geocaching as well. People have their own agendas and they don't care who they step on. I was part of the local geocaching association, but I was basically ousted from my spot. In a way, I'm happy with that. It has allowed me to see the bigger picture and I don't really like the picture I'm seeing. While I was with the association, I made it a point of promoting local cachers that did a video, wrote a blog, was featured in a news article, or recognized somehow. Since I'm no longer part of that group, they no longer promote local cachers. That's sad. Promoting your own encourages others to do something noteworthy and be recognized for their efforts. I even find that the chat rooms during live podcasts are a little cliquish. You have your regulars that banter back and forth, but comments from someone like myself don't get acknowledged. I think I'll wait for the replay and watch the podcast then. Podcasts are a good source for blog ideas.
I know there are other geocachers out there that still geocache, but not as much and have turned to other games such as Pokémon Go, Munzee, or Harry Potter. You don't have to drive long distances to play these games if you don't want to. I was doing Munzee in the Spring, but have stopped for no real reason. I should get back to it as I have a bunch of Munzees to deploy. With Munzee, I can 'capture' the same Munzee over and over if that Munzee becomes a time limited special. I have been doing more Pokémon. Even though I've topped out at the highest level, I'm busy doing gym raids in the immediate area in hopes of converting those gyms to 'Gold' status (amount of times battling a gym + time spent occupying gym + berries fed add up the points needed). I currently have 100 gyms at gold status and looking to add more over the next few months. The gyms I have targeted are nearby and don't require me to drive an hour or more to get to. Add in the events that Pokémon Go put out on a regular basis, I don't have to leave my neighborhood to do any of that. I haven't even looked at the Harry Potter game yet. I may not at all. Hard to say.
As I was composing all of this in my head while at work, I read the newest blog from GeoJangie. It sort of struck home for me. You can find it here > Angie's blog. The past four years since I separated and moved out has been a sprint for me when it comes to geocaching. I was somewhere around 900 finds at the time I became single again. I'm currently at over 5,600 finds. Almost five thousand finds in just over four years. I was dashing out and finding all the geocaches I could because I could. You could call it burn out. Time to slow down the pace and not worry about the numbers for now. I will go out and find a geocache if one is available where I've travelled to or make plans for a day trip somewhere new. In the mean time, I will watch some geocaching videos and read blogs to hopefully get me inspired again. I will also hit the reset button so that I can enjoy this crazy game called geocaching again. There are some awesome people that play this game and I hope to meet someday.
I will also continue to blog as that helps inspire me to get out and find something to write about. I could also touch on different topics as well. Maybe incorporate a new feature to replace the monthly goal I would set for myself each month. The options are endless. Anyone who knows me personally knows I love music. I have a fondness for one hit wonders. Artists that had one major hit song and never achieved another hit song after that. What is classified as a one hit wonder is somewhat subjective. A good example of this is Norwegian band A-ha. They had one #1 hit in the U.S. in 1985 with 'Take On Me'. https://youtu.be/djV11Xbc914 A one hit wonder around here, but back in Norway and other parts of Europe, they had more top ten hits.
That's it for my rambling this week. Be happy, be safe, hug your loved ones (geo-pets included), enjoy life, and most of all, have fun. Happy geocaching. Peace out.
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