Geocaching and 02 02 2020

Good morning everyone.  The first ever CITO event to be held in Manitoba occurred on April 22nd, 2006.  'Belly Full of Flapjacks CITO Race' GC3J0 took place on Earth Day.  It included a pancake breakfast, a CITO race, followed by a tailgate party with prizes.  This CITO event had 19 attended logs and 8 found it logs.  The reviewer note on the day it was published was amusing.  LOL.

Who went out and did some geocaching on palindrome day?  As we all know, a palindrome is anything that can be written forwards or backwards and still be spelt the same, such as racecar or radar.  February 2nd, 2020 was palindrome day because anyway you wrote that day down, it was the same set of numbers forwards and backwards.

My story actually begins and January 31st.  I'm driving out to the neighboring city of Portage La Prairie so my boys and the geo-dog can spend the weekend with their mom.  Since I'm in Portage, I may as well grab a few caches.  I really should grab a few since I have zero finds so far for the month of January.  With six hours remaining in the day and month, I set out to grab a few that I had scouted out before heading out.  After dropping everyone off, I grabbed three nearby caches that were marked as Winter friendly.  I did manage to get pictures of two of the three caches.  I remembered to bring my handy dandy flashlight II with me and my Winter boots.  First up was a TB hotel.

I circled ground zero a few times before sticking my head closer and amongst the branches before spotting this hotel.  Sadly, there was no TB's inside.  Further down the road was what I thought would be an easy find, sign and replace.  Nope.  I had to figure out which key I needed to unlock the jar so I can sign the logsheet.  I got it on my first try.  I forgot to take a picture of the 3rd cache that I found.  I ended with three finds for January.  It's better than having a "0" staring back at me on my stats page for all eternity.

This brings us to Sunday, February 2nd.  I'm driving back out to Portage to pick up the boys and geo-dog.  I leave a little earlier so I can do a piece of a geo-art.  The geo-art in question is the top hat from the Mad Hatter of Alice in Wonderland fame.  There are seven geo-arts in total so far in this area, all set up by local cacher Semb.  This is my goal for Palindrome Day.  

I only solved a portion of the geo-art and I knew I wouldn't be able to find all the ones I have solved.  That's ok.  I can come back another day to work on the geo-art.  I picked one stretch of road that would give me the most finds.  As with most geo-arts/powertrails, once you start finding them, you don't really need your GPS to find the next.  Just count the poles.

Since I'm out on a country road, and probably crossing snow covered ditches, I brought my boots along to be on the safe side.  I'm glad I did as I did sink almost up to my knee at one spot.  It's not the best picture but you can see how deep it was near GZ.

It had been cloudy for most of the week, so it was nice to see some sunshine for a change.  I thought this was picturesque.  Rolling clouds with a country road that vanishes into the horizon.

I needed to get a picture as proof that I was finding the caches.  You can see the date, my geocaching initials with the Team Valor logo (Pokémon Go) behind and the TB that's on my car that is yet to be discovered (8 months and counting since it was activated).

Another photo opportunity that I couldn't pass up.  Container and log sheet (you can sort of see my initials) with the remains of a harvested crop covered in snow in the background.  I believe there is 66 caches that make up this geo-art.  I was able to pick off 14 of them.  That's plenty more than the three I found in January.  I was also keeping an eye on the time as I had to be in Portage La Prairie by 4pm to get the family.  

With d-2002 in the passenger seat, mew two and the geo-dog in the back, it was time to head for home.  That concludes my weekend.  That's all the geocaching I've done so far in February.  Being a single parent doesn't give me the time I need to go on adventures.  That's ok.  Geocaching has been around for twenty years and will still be here for another twenty plus years.  I am thinking of doing some geocaching on Leap Day.  Who knows if I will and where I'll go if I do.  I already have caches found from the last Leap Day in 2016.  Until next week when I unbox the February Cache Advance Cache Crate, be happy, be safe, be kind, enjoy life, love your geo-pets, and most of all, have fun.  Peace out.

(Did you know that February 20th was Love Your Pet Day?  I love this princess, even if she is only pretending to be sleeping)