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Geocaching and 3-2-1 GO!!

Good morning everyone.  Continuing with last week's theme for the fun facts, how many new cache listings was there in other countries around the world in 2019?  Jamaica has two new listings, Chile - 41, Christmas Island didn't have any but there are eight caches located here.  Luxembourg - 610, Afghanistan (alphabetically they are listed first for countries) - zero, Zimbabwe (alphabetically they are listed last for countries) - 4, Samoa - also had no new listings, Tanzania - 16, finally Turks and Caicus Islands - 2.

I've been fairly clear on how I feel about the virtual souvenirs that Geocaching HQ keeps cranking out.  I don't put the effort in to obtain these souvenirs that no one will ever see.  The chances of someone creeping my FB page are greater than someone checking out my souvenir page on my geocaching profile.  Another reason that I don't put any effort in to accomplishing these so called goals is that I don't have the time.  Since I'm on vacation over the Christmas holidays and I wouldn't mind having something to blog about, I thought I'd give this promotion a go.

This promotion started on December 11th.  The basic idea was to go out and find a cache on six different days over a three week period, or as GCHQ put it, a three week challenge of going out at least twice per week to earn one special souvenir.  As mentioned, I'm busy so I didn't jump on the bandwagon.  The promotion was basically half over when I decided to make an attempt for blogging purposes.  My first attempt was on December 22nd when I went to do a night cache, but that ended with a DNF.  Skip ahead to December 24.  Christmas eve.  I had some last minute shopping to do for the geo-dog and that would take me in the direction of an area of the city that I grew up in.  I had discovered the final to a puzzle by chance when I watched one of Hakliva's vlogs.    I don't keep up with all of her videos, but this one time I did catch one.  In it, she shows snippets of finding caches that belong to a particular cache owner.  In a one split second shot, I recognized something.  I backed up the video and hit pause when that brief moment popped up again.  I recognized GZ and the surrounding area.  I swung by and made the very easy find.  Here's the catch.  I don't know which puzzle this is (it is a final to a puzzle by Sweethearts14).  After doing some detective work (basically doing a reverse puzzle), I figured out which puzzle it was.  Day one is in the books.


Christmas Day.  Aside from waiting for the boys to return home from their mom's, watching them open presents before leaving again to spend Christmas dinner with their mom's side of the family, I had nothing planned.  I'm not one to sit around.  Took geo-dog for a walk during the day.  Later on, it was off to find a cache and do some Pokémon Go gym raids.  I found one of the newer ones located in Kildonan Park.  It was an easy find.  As I walked towards GZ from my parking spot, I could hear coyotes in the distance.  GZ has a nice view of the river and many animals make their way into the city following the river.  Signed and replaced that cache.  I didn't hear the coyotes later when I was walking the geo-dog again before bedtime.  I did find another cache, but was unable to sign in at that time.


December 26th (Boxing Day).  The day after Christmas and the department stores are usually very busy early in the morning with people looking for awesome sales.  It's sort of the Canadian equivalent to Black Friday in the States, only it's after Christmas.  I avoid the crowds so shopping is the last thing on my mind.  What has become a daily routine is taking the geo-dog for a walk.  The weather has been very nice for longer walks.  These walks are lasting anywhere from half hour to an hour.  With the boys off again, I went about what I normally do, Pokémon Go gym raids and a cache for the day.  This one was an easy find that needed a TOTT to extract the cache from it's hiding spot.  I'm half way done.


December 27th.  Technically, I had found this one when I was walking the geo-dog late on Christmas evening.  Because I had the dog with me, I couldn't stop long enough to grab it, sign the log sheet and replace.  In my travels during the day as I was doing errands, I stopped here again, this time no geo-dog, and quickly did what I needed to do to claim this one as found.


December 28th.  After returning from sm66's, I had some grocery shopping to do.  I had a good suspicion as to where another cache would be for a quick find.  This is from the same cache owner that I found on the 27th and the 25th.  Plus it's also close to Kildonan Park.  As I did a quick drive around the park, I stopped to make this quick find.  That's five days now.  One more day to go to complete this promotion.


December 29th.  My sixth and final day to complete this promotion.  There are a few newer caches in a green area known as Little Mountain Park.  It's a wooded area with paths that's designated as a dog park.  There are a number of caches hidden in this area along with an Earthcache.  The cache I have targeted is very close to the Earthcache.  The weather has been very nice lately, but I'm noticing the cold wind today and I'm out in the open which doesn't help.  Compared to the other five I found for this promotion, this cache was the trickiest to find.  I went to what I thought was the obvious location but didn't find anything.  Is it missing?  This cache was found two days ago so I doubt it's missing.  What am I missing here?  Sometimes taking a step back to get a bigger picture of things helps and it certainly did this time.  I spotted another possible spot and that's where the geocache was hidden.  Signed and replaced.  The 3-2-1 Go! promotion is complete.  This would also be my last find for 2019.  As I get ready to publish this, that last find is really my last find as I haven't been geocaching since.


Did you complete the 3-2-1 Go! promotion?  There was two more promotions since, a last find for 2019 and first find for 2020.  I didn't do either of those.  Until next week, be happy, be safe, enjoy life, and most of all, have fun.  Peace out.

(Happy 2nd birthday to this princess)

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