Good morning everyone. Who was busy in 2019 finding geocaches? Locally, that would be 4elements5senses with 2,276 finds. Across Canada, Troqueurs32 with 11,071. South of the border, mondou2 led all American geocachers with 18,933. In North Dakota, Tick_Magnet had 2,084 finds and next door in Minnesota, Lalang had 4,512 found geocaches.
It's that time of year again where we say goodbye to the year that's over and hello to a new year. Time to reflect and reminisce about the highs and lows. My favorite at this time of year are the sports plays and misplays. Those are always fun to watch. For the sake of this blog, I'll stick to my year in geocaching and to a certain extent, my personal life.
It was an interesting year to say the least. While some doors closed, others opened. The year started with me stepping away from the local caching association where I was the treasurer and stats person. These were positions that I loved and enjoyed doing. I was also promoting local geocaching creator's content on the association's FB page. They don't promote local creators anymore since I stepped away. The reasons for my stepping down are personal and it allowed me to get a different view of things. According to one current executive, I'm still a part of the local association because I still live within it's borders. Maybe so, but that doesn't mean that I have to go along with what they do. I march to the beat of my own drum.
As one door closes, another opens. With time on my hands and I'm looking for a new project, I went back to an existing project that was started by GeoJangie. That would be The Geocaching Guild FB page. I loved Angie's idea of promoting bloggers and giving them a home of sorts so people can find and read their stories. Angie started the page in the summer of 2018, but it wasn't getting any traction and was left for dead. I contacted Angie about breathing new life into this project. Together, we took this comatose FB page and watched it grow into a success. From maybe 15 page likes in March, to 122 by mid-January. Over 100 page likes in a ten month period. Wow! I expanded the page over to the Twitter world as well. I haven't been as active with the page of late as I would like to be. It is the same reason that I haven't been as active for most of my geocaching activity. I'll touch on that in a bit. Angie has everything under control and is doing an awesome job with the scheduling of the posts. That is one of my highlights for the year and probably the one I'm most proud of.
Another highlight would be attending the annual North Dakota Caching and Camping event. This year, it was hosted in Dickinson, which is in the Southwest corner of the State. I made this a five day adventure where I would accomplish my geocaching challenges for the year. Those challenges were to attend three events in North Dakota. I actually attended four if you include the one I hosted in Williston. I wanted to double the counties in North Dakota that I found caches in. My county count was nine before the caching and camping event. That means adding nine new counties for a total of eighteen. By the time I got home from my five day adventure, I picked up a whopping seventeen new counties, for a total of 26 North Dakota counties. Almost half way done the North Dakota county challenge. My other challenge was to reach 200 caches found in North Dakota. I needed to find 75 geocaches in my five day adventure. My final count is 221. I also completed an older challenge when I found a cache in Montana and therefor claiming a new State to my map.
As I look back on that five day adventure, there is one regret. That would be not taking in and appreciating where I was. It was all about numbers. If I could do it again, I wouldn't be so consumed about the numbers and just enjoy myself. That corner of the State is very beautiful. I want to go back there and back to Williston as a tourist and be less consumed by geocaching.
There was something that happened that I still haven't been able to pinpoint the cause. I became disinterested in geocaching. Did I go overboard finding caches on my five day trek into North Dakota? Maybe it's the local drama? Since the end of June, I have found very few caches within city limits. There are plenty to be found, but that doesn't interest me. Being consumed by numbers and the need to find them all burned me out. There was a time if I went a week without finding a geocache, then I must have been sick and incapacitated. Today; I can go weeks (and I have), without finding one and I'm ok with that. As I publish this, I have yet to find a geocache or attend an event this month. I want to focus more on the adventure and where geocaching is taking me that day instead of finding them all. One thing that hasn't changed is my love for writing and coming up with new stuff to write about in my blog. I honestly think if it wasn't for this blog, I may have quit geocaching all together. I think that will be my plan moving forward. Plan outings that hopefully I can write about. Also enjoying the trips, the locations, and other touristy things to do besides being consumed with geocaching.
Personally was another tough year. The loss of my boys geo-dog suddenly was heartbreaking. We still miss that crazy dog to this day. With that loss comes a new addition. The 'puppy' you see at the end of my blogs is the newest addition to the family. She is a husky mix and a handful. Just like the previous dog, she was adopted from a shelter. Because she is a puppy still (just turned 2 years old), she does get into trouble from time to time. It's easy to give up on her and send her back to the shelter because she is a handful, but that's not going to happen. She deserves to be in a good loving home and we want our home to be just that for her. You should have seen her when my boys came back home from spending some time at their mom's for Christmas. They were gone for five days and she was sooooo happy to see them. To see a dog act like that says they know they are loved and are very happy.
What has become a running joke between my boys and myself, I have yet to spend two Christmas holidays in a row living in the same place. Starting with 2014, this was my sixth Christmas in a different location. This year is no different as I moved yet again. This time I really needed to get out of where I was living. What started out as a good situation, renting the basement of a house from a friend, turned into a nightmare. It was a shared kitchen, but the kitchen was a constant mess from her youngest son, (he's 22). The foundation developed cracks. When any significant moisture occurred (rain or melting snow), it seeped into the basement and basically made the entire carpet wet and soggy. I think I spent more time away from there this past summer, staying wherever I could, so I wouldn't have to live with stinky wet carpet. I got out at a good time as September became one of the wettest months on record. I don't even want to think about the possible mould that was building down there. Near the end I discovered that the same youngest son was stealing from me. Like I do every year, here's to hoping I can last in my current location for another Christmas.
A couple more personal notes to wrap up the year, my divorce became final in early September. I'm glad to have that over with. With that said, I went from being separated and single to being divorced and a single parent to two teenage boys and a dog. That is a big factor in my lack of time to do anything geocaching. Finally, sm66 and myself are back together again. That makes me even happier. I ended the year by attending a concert at Club Regent Casino with sm66, her sister and husband. It was an awesome show featuring Canadian rock icons Chilliwack and headlining the show, Kim Mitchell.
The first half of 2019 saw me get very active with Munzee. I was finding and placing them. One day I stopped. No reason why. I have found a few since the summer and I have a whole bunch to place. Maybe when the weather warms up. Munzee never really caught on here. There are some of us who tried by placing a power trail of Munzees, but it still hasn't caught on. I'm still very active with Pokémon Go. I hit the highest level in the game (level 40) in the Spring. What do you do when you reach the top? For me, it's all about gym battles and having my pokemon spend enough time in a pokegym to get gold status (the highest level for a gym). I'm currently at 125 gold status gyms and looking to increase that total this year. I wonder if I can reach 200 before this year is done?
One thing I've never mentioned in any blog is that I do like to read. I'm not a prolific reader. I can read a couple of pages, put the book down and not pick it up again for a couple of weeks. I did manage to complete a few books over the past year. 'Evel. The high-flying life of Evel Knievel: American showman, Daredevil, and Legend' was an interesting read. For those old enough will remember Evel Knievel, a 1970's pop culture icon. 'Controversy Creates Cash' the Eric Bischoff story was another interesting read for those who follow the world of professional wrestling. 'American Woman: The story of The Guess Who' is about local Canadian and Winnipeg rock legends The Guess Who and their rise to the top of the Billboard charts (first Canadian band to do so) and the decline of the band. Finally, 'The Hot Line'. This is a look at the Winnipeg Jets in the 1970's and the days in the old World Hockey Association and how the team and three players in particular (Anders Hedberg, Ulf Nilsson, and Bobby Hull) changed the way hockey was being played at the time. My newest read is "Just Between You and Me" a Myles Goodwyn memoir. Myles Goodwyn is a Canadian rock icon and founder/lead singer of the band April Wine. I'm just getting started and it looks like a good read so far.
Getting back to geocaching, the one thing that's inevitable is the comparing of stats from the previous year. Because I went into a slump in the summer, my numbers will show a decline. That decline could continue into 2020. Who knows. All I know is that I'll be looking for the adventure, even if only one geocache was found, or maybe none at all. Moving forward, it'll be about the memories, the pictures of interesting places, and new experiences. Geocaching will creep in there somewhere.
As for the numbers, in the seven years that I have been geocaching, 2019 was my fifth highest for total caches found. In other words, third fewest. I was still finding at a rate of 1.3 per day. Like most geocacher's numbers, the traditional cache leads the way with over half of the caches I found being traditional. The breakdown looks like this: Traditional - 362, Mystery (puzzle) - 94, Letterbox - 59, Adventure Lab or Lab caches - 10, basic events - 10, Earthcaches - 5, Multistage - 4, CITO events - 2, Wherigo - 1, Virtual - 1, and this doesn't show up in the stats but Benchmark - 1. I also spent 89 days in 2019 finding a geocache. Fifteen of those days was from the start of September to the end of December. Six of those fifteen was doing the 3-2-1 Go! promotion. Last year was the first time that I had fewer than 100 days of caching since my first year in 2013.
What plans do I have for 2020? I don't even know myself. I would like to attend a Mega event as I have never experienced one yet. GeoWoodstock in Abbotsford, BC is an option. I can see my total finds for 2020 decreasing possibly. I can also see the number of events that I attend to also decrease. I don't attend local events for a couple of reasons. Time, or the lack of time being one of the reasons. One event I have my eye on again is the North Dakota Camping and Caching event. This year it will be in Minot. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I will be able to attend. I'm getting the itch to hide geocaches again. This has to do with getting the stuff needed to set up a night cache in a Cache Advance Cache Crate. Chances are I will be putting out more puzzles and all will have a theme. Let's see what the future has for me.
That concludes my look back at the previous year. Here's to a better and brighter 2020. Until next week, be happy, be safe, enjoy life, hug your geo-pets, and most of all, have fun. Peace out.
It's that time of year again where we say goodbye to the year that's over and hello to a new year. Time to reflect and reminisce about the highs and lows. My favorite at this time of year are the sports plays and misplays. Those are always fun to watch. For the sake of this blog, I'll stick to my year in geocaching and to a certain extent, my personal life.
It was an interesting year to say the least. While some doors closed, others opened. The year started with me stepping away from the local caching association where I was the treasurer and stats person. These were positions that I loved and enjoyed doing. I was also promoting local geocaching creator's content on the association's FB page. They don't promote local creators anymore since I stepped away. The reasons for my stepping down are personal and it allowed me to get a different view of things. According to one current executive, I'm still a part of the local association because I still live within it's borders. Maybe so, but that doesn't mean that I have to go along with what they do. I march to the beat of my own drum.
As one door closes, another opens. With time on my hands and I'm looking for a new project, I went back to an existing project that was started by GeoJangie. That would be The Geocaching Guild FB page. I loved Angie's idea of promoting bloggers and giving them a home of sorts so people can find and read their stories. Angie started the page in the summer of 2018, but it wasn't getting any traction and was left for dead. I contacted Angie about breathing new life into this project. Together, we took this comatose FB page and watched it grow into a success. From maybe 15 page likes in March, to 122 by mid-January. Over 100 page likes in a ten month period. Wow! I expanded the page over to the Twitter world as well. I haven't been as active with the page of late as I would like to be. It is the same reason that I haven't been as active for most of my geocaching activity. I'll touch on that in a bit. Angie has everything under control and is doing an awesome job with the scheduling of the posts. That is one of my highlights for the year and probably the one I'm most proud of.
(The Geocaching Guild logo)
Another highlight would be attending the annual North Dakota Caching and Camping event. This year, it was hosted in Dickinson, which is in the Southwest corner of the State. I made this a five day adventure where I would accomplish my geocaching challenges for the year. Those challenges were to attend three events in North Dakota. I actually attended four if you include the one I hosted in Williston. I wanted to double the counties in North Dakota that I found caches in. My county count was nine before the caching and camping event. That means adding nine new counties for a total of eighteen. By the time I got home from my five day adventure, I picked up a whopping seventeen new counties, for a total of 26 North Dakota counties. Almost half way done the North Dakota county challenge. My other challenge was to reach 200 caches found in North Dakota. I needed to find 75 geocaches in my five day adventure. My final count is 221. I also completed an older challenge when I found a cache in Montana and therefor claiming a new State to my map.
(a view of Painted Rock Canyon. I wish I had more time to spend here)
As I look back on that five day adventure, there is one regret. That would be not taking in and appreciating where I was. It was all about numbers. If I could do it again, I wouldn't be so consumed about the numbers and just enjoy myself. That corner of the State is very beautiful. I want to go back there and back to Williston as a tourist and be less consumed by geocaching.
There was something that happened that I still haven't been able to pinpoint the cause. I became disinterested in geocaching. Did I go overboard finding caches on my five day trek into North Dakota? Maybe it's the local drama? Since the end of June, I have found very few caches within city limits. There are plenty to be found, but that doesn't interest me. Being consumed by numbers and the need to find them all burned me out. There was a time if I went a week without finding a geocache, then I must have been sick and incapacitated. Today; I can go weeks (and I have), without finding one and I'm ok with that. As I publish this, I have yet to find a geocache or attend an event this month. I want to focus more on the adventure and where geocaching is taking me that day instead of finding them all. One thing that hasn't changed is my love for writing and coming up with new stuff to write about in my blog. I honestly think if it wasn't for this blog, I may have quit geocaching all together. I think that will be my plan moving forward. Plan outings that hopefully I can write about. Also enjoying the trips, the locations, and other touristy things to do besides being consumed with geocaching.
Personally was another tough year. The loss of my boys geo-dog suddenly was heartbreaking. We still miss that crazy dog to this day. With that loss comes a new addition. The 'puppy' you see at the end of my blogs is the newest addition to the family. She is a husky mix and a handful. Just like the previous dog, she was adopted from a shelter. Because she is a puppy still (just turned 2 years old), she does get into trouble from time to time. It's easy to give up on her and send her back to the shelter because she is a handful, but that's not going to happen. She deserves to be in a good loving home and we want our home to be just that for her. You should have seen her when my boys came back home from spending some time at their mom's for Christmas. They were gone for five days and she was sooooo happy to see them. To see a dog act like that says they know they are loved and are very happy.
(Rest in Peace Dexter.)
What has become a running joke between my boys and myself, I have yet to spend two Christmas holidays in a row living in the same place. Starting with 2014, this was my sixth Christmas in a different location. This year is no different as I moved yet again. This time I really needed to get out of where I was living. What started out as a good situation, renting the basement of a house from a friend, turned into a nightmare. It was a shared kitchen, but the kitchen was a constant mess from her youngest son, (he's 22). The foundation developed cracks. When any significant moisture occurred (rain or melting snow), it seeped into the basement and basically made the entire carpet wet and soggy. I think I spent more time away from there this past summer, staying wherever I could, so I wouldn't have to live with stinky wet carpet. I got out at a good time as September became one of the wettest months on record. I don't even want to think about the possible mould that was building down there. Near the end I discovered that the same youngest son was stealing from me. Like I do every year, here's to hoping I can last in my current location for another Christmas.
A couple more personal notes to wrap up the year, my divorce became final in early September. I'm glad to have that over with. With that said, I went from being separated and single to being divorced and a single parent to two teenage boys and a dog. That is a big factor in my lack of time to do anything geocaching. Finally, sm66 and myself are back together again. That makes me even happier. I ended the year by attending a concert at Club Regent Casino with sm66, her sister and husband. It was an awesome show featuring Canadian rock icons Chilliwack and headlining the show, Kim Mitchell.
(My view of the stage and big screen with Kim Mitchell performing)
(Kim Mitchell performing one of his many hits. Maybe you have heard of 'Patio Lanterns', 'Go For A Soda', 'Rock and Roll Duty', 'Lager and Ale'?)
The first half of 2019 saw me get very active with Munzee. I was finding and placing them. One day I stopped. No reason why. I have found a few since the summer and I have a whole bunch to place. Maybe when the weather warms up. Munzee never really caught on here. There are some of us who tried by placing a power trail of Munzees, but it still hasn't caught on. I'm still very active with Pokémon Go. I hit the highest level in the game (level 40) in the Spring. What do you do when you reach the top? For me, it's all about gym battles and having my pokemon spend enough time in a pokegym to get gold status (the highest level for a gym). I'm currently at 125 gold status gyms and looking to increase that total this year. I wonder if I can reach 200 before this year is done?
One thing I've never mentioned in any blog is that I do like to read. I'm not a prolific reader. I can read a couple of pages, put the book down and not pick it up again for a couple of weeks. I did manage to complete a few books over the past year. 'Evel. The high-flying life of Evel Knievel: American showman, Daredevil, and Legend' was an interesting read. For those old enough will remember Evel Knievel, a 1970's pop culture icon. 'Controversy Creates Cash' the Eric Bischoff story was another interesting read for those who follow the world of professional wrestling. 'American Woman: The story of The Guess Who' is about local Canadian and Winnipeg rock legends The Guess Who and their rise to the top of the Billboard charts (first Canadian band to do so) and the decline of the band. Finally, 'The Hot Line'. This is a look at the Winnipeg Jets in the 1970's and the days in the old World Hockey Association and how the team and three players in particular (Anders Hedberg, Ulf Nilsson, and Bobby Hull) changed the way hockey was being played at the time. My newest read is "Just Between You and Me" a Myles Goodwyn memoir. Myles Goodwyn is a Canadian rock icon and founder/lead singer of the band April Wine. I'm just getting started and it looks like a good read so far.
(The books I have read in 2019)
Getting back to geocaching, the one thing that's inevitable is the comparing of stats from the previous year. Because I went into a slump in the summer, my numbers will show a decline. That decline could continue into 2020. Who knows. All I know is that I'll be looking for the adventure, even if only one geocache was found, or maybe none at all. Moving forward, it'll be about the memories, the pictures of interesting places, and new experiences. Geocaching will creep in there somewhere.
As for the numbers, in the seven years that I have been geocaching, 2019 was my fifth highest for total caches found. In other words, third fewest. I was still finding at a rate of 1.3 per day. Like most geocacher's numbers, the traditional cache leads the way with over half of the caches I found being traditional. The breakdown looks like this: Traditional - 362, Mystery (puzzle) - 94, Letterbox - 59, Adventure Lab or Lab caches - 10, basic events - 10, Earthcaches - 5, Multistage - 4, CITO events - 2, Wherigo - 1, Virtual - 1, and this doesn't show up in the stats but Benchmark - 1. I also spent 89 days in 2019 finding a geocache. Fifteen of those days was from the start of September to the end of December. Six of those fifteen was doing the 3-2-1 Go! promotion. Last year was the first time that I had fewer than 100 days of caching since my first year in 2013.
What plans do I have for 2020? I don't even know myself. I would like to attend a Mega event as I have never experienced one yet. GeoWoodstock in Abbotsford, BC is an option. I can see my total finds for 2020 decreasing possibly. I can also see the number of events that I attend to also decrease. I don't attend local events for a couple of reasons. Time, or the lack of time being one of the reasons. One event I have my eye on again is the North Dakota Camping and Caching event. This year it will be in Minot. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I will be able to attend. I'm getting the itch to hide geocaches again. This has to do with getting the stuff needed to set up a night cache in a Cache Advance Cache Crate. Chances are I will be putting out more puzzles and all will have a theme. Let's see what the future has for me.
That concludes my look back at the previous year. Here's to a better and brighter 2020. Until next week, be happy, be safe, enjoy life, hug your geo-pets, and most of all, have fun. Peace out.
(No. I don't want my picture taken)
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