Geocaching and Random Thoughts/Odds and Ends

Good morning everyone.  Top finder of geocaches in the U.S. for the month of November is HIKAMTN from Michigan with 4,298 finds.  In North Dakota, MinotRanger found the most with 62.  Back on this side of the border, LEBTF from Ontario is the top Canadian with 1,293 finds in November.  Locally, bergmannfamily found 333.  According to my list, I found 57 in November with 55 of those coming from powertrails.

It's Sunday morning and I sit here in the front room watching the sun come up, geo-dog is laying on the couch in a very not lady like position, having a snooze, and I don't have a blog to publish.  In fact, I have nothing prepared.  Normally I would have something near completion at the very least.  Not this time.  As I had hinted in last week's blog, I was hoping for something to arrive in the mail and I was going to write about it.  Guess what didn't show up?  My blog topic.  Honestly, I felt like Charlie Brown checking his mailbox and not finding any Christmas cards in it.  I shout into the mailbox "Hello!!" and I hear my echo come back.  Wouldn't it be something if it showed up tomorrow?  I do have some blogs that are in various stages of being worked on, but I'm saving those for when the geocaching adventures are few and far between because of the cold and snow.

(watching the sun come up this morning)

Later today is the 4th annual Podcast of Hope, hosted by Geocache Talk podcast.  Eight hours of geocaching talk with a variety of guests with the goal of raising money for St. Jude's Childrens Research Hospital.  There will be some Canadian representation with Cache Canada and Cache The Line being on the show.  You can find out more about the podcast here Podcast of Hope.  

Also making an appearance on the show is GeoJangie along with the rest of the Geocache Talk 'network'.  Hopefully the hosts of the podcast will give Angie a moment to talk about The Geocaching Guild FB page that she looks after.  That page has come a long way and has given many bloggers, including myself, a larger audience.  What would be more ideal is if they dedicated an entire show to blogging and have Angie as one of the guests.  They have done that before, but that was before the creation of The Geocaching Guild.

Many geocachers have made their vehicles a mobile trackable.  I have one on my car and has yet to be discovered.  How many have personalized licence plates on their vehicle?  I know of a few local cachers that do.  It was suggested to me that I should do the same.  I wouldn't be able to fit Geocacher Ken on a plate, but my initials would certainly fit.  One afternoon as I was waiting to pick up my oldest, d-2002, from school, I spotted a parked car with a personalized plate.  Two letters is all it contained.  G was the first letter and it looked like K was the other letter.  Someone has my initials as a plate already?  How dare they!!  I did manage to get a pic of the plate as they drove away.  So much for using that as a personalized plate.  Some muggle has it.

(some muggle has taken my initials)

As mentioned above, I did manage to do some caching this month.  The Letterbox trail that I wrote about a few weeks ago made up for 45 of my finds this month.  A couple of weeks ago, I did a small portion of another powertrail that leads from the city of Portage La Prairie (about an hour West of Winnipeg) North to the shores of Lake Manitoba.  That was another ten finds.  I did get two other finds a couple of days prior to that.  After meeting up with my ex-wife in Portage La Prairie so the boys can spend the weekend with her, I grabbed a couple more caches after the sun had gone down.

(finding caches on trains can be difficult at times, even more difficult in the dark, but this had to be the easiest one I've found)

One thing that I haven't blogged about yet was my camping trip in September with sm66 to Nutimik Lake in the Whiteshell Provincial Park.  It rained, thundered, lightning, and poured for most of the time there.  Not much to write about when you're stuck in a trailer.  Thankfully we were in a trailer with electrical hookup.  I had my laptop and we were able to watch TV shows from a hard drive.  We did get one nice day in and we were able to go for a hike along a path that also happen to have a geocache at the very end of the trail.  'Where The Sturgeons Fall' GC31P1J.  I haven't logged this one yet (along with the 70+ I still have to log), but looks like I'll be the last to find until maybe Spring time.

(a view of the rapids between Nutimik Lake and Numao Lake)

(the geocache looking towards Nutimik Lake)

Another thing I have noticed on social media (couldn't help but notice as it was everywhere it seemed) was this year's GIFF events.  Geocaching International Film Fesitval.  Did you attend a GIFF event?  I didn't.  As I got to thinking about it, I haven't been to a GIFF event since 2016.  I didn't stay for the full event either.  I had my boys with me and the plan was to order pizza and watch the films.  That GIFF event was held at a restaurant and guess what they didn't have on the menu?  Pizza.  With two unhappy boys, we ended up leaving early and picked up pizza on the way home.  The plan is to find this year's GIFF entries on YouTube and maybe blog about it if I can.  We shall see.

Geocaching HQ announced more souvenirs for the month of December.  One is sort of a challenge.  Find caches on six days between December 11, 2019 and January 1st, 2020.  This one is called 3, 2, 1 GO!  It's another souvenir that I don't really care about.  Along with the Goodbye 2019/Hello 2020 souvenirs.  Why am I so negative towards souvenirs?  It's not like you can show them off at events to all your friends.  They're virtual.  Who looks at other geocacher's souvenirs?  Do you even look at your own souvenirs?  I don't even look at my own souvenirs.

I noticed this morning that a few local geocachers have been awarded Adventure Lab caches.  Not sure how these were awarded.  Clearly I missed the memo on this one.  Hopefully, when I have time, I will attempt these new Adventure Lab caches and write about them.  As a blogger, I'm always on the lookout for topics and adventures to write about.  I haven't even attempted any of the newer Virtual caches that came out.  There's at least two in the city that I know of.  

It's almost 10am.  I've been sitting here since 8:30am putting something together and I'm getting hungry.  I do have a blog for next week that's very nearly completed.  Why didn't I use that one for this week?  Because it's sort of a special blog that I have been working on for a few weeks now.  If what I've been expecting does show up in the mail tomorrow, it'll have to wait until the week after next before it can appear in a blog.  The upside to coming up with blog topics is talking to potential topics, such as Cache Canada (last week's blog topic).  He was very eager to help and I'm glad the blog itself turned out as well as it did.  I am my own worst critic.  I did reach out to someone else back in October for a blog topic, but they have yet to get back to me.  Oh well.  It would be a great topic and a look at a different perspective of the game.  Maybe I can find someone else that's in the same position?  We shall see.  Anyway.....  It's time for some breakfast.  Until next week, be happy, be safe, hug your geo-pets, enjoy life, and most of all, have fun.  Peace out.

(I can be good, now give me that darn cookie!!)