Good morning everyone. Today we stop at 'The Rock'. No, not the actor/professional wrestler, but the Province of New Foundland and Labrador. The most favorited 'cache' was 'Bernie's Traveling Geocache' GC2179. As the title suggests, this was a moving or traveling geocache. Hidden (or activated) in October, 2001, this has 2,092 logged finds and 427 favorite points before being converted to a trackable in 2017. The most favorite cache amongst active geocaches is 'Extreme East' GCWJZ3. Hidden in June, 2006, this cache has 1,269 found logs and 157 favorite points. 'The Lookout: first ever cache in New Foundland' GCE1C is exactly as the title says, New Foundland's first and still active geocache. Hidden in June, 2001, it has 307 logged finds and 88 favorite points.
I've been hinting and teasing about doing something different and today is the big reveal. As the title to today's blog suggests, I made my very first geocaching video. I have entered the world of vlogging. The closest I've come to doing anything like this was a couple of short videos that I did on Persiscope. I didn't like the way my presentation was in front of the camera, so I retreated back behind the keyboard to continue writing.
Lately, I've had an itch to do something different. I felt a need to be seen, placing myself in front of a camera, and not for pictures. There's that problem of my presentation. I was a guest on Adventures with Dan's podcast last year. I watched it again recently and paid very close attention to myself. I was not happy with my presentation. I'm flat sounding and at times, not very clear. They do say that we are our own worst critics. I think my criticism of my presentation is justified. You can watch that episode here > Adventures with Dan
I don't have any fancy recording equipment. Just my Samsung phone. I don't even have a selfie stick or a tripod. I do have a phone stand that was given to me for Christmas. I've never edited or even know where to go to do editing. This was a very strange world for me.
I decided to record my geocaching adventure that I had planned on my first day of vacation. My goal for the day was to find the four letterbox caches that I needed to reach 150 found. I already decided that my July challenge was to reach 100 multi-stage caches found. I have a bunch of those on my radar. I also want to get pictures of old grain elevators. I'm capping the day off with some geo-art and a celebratory drink at the end.
I have a cooler packed with water and food. I have a battery pack as I'm sure my phone will need charging at some point. I just hope I'll have enough juice to keep the phone going for the entire trip. I don't leave as early as I wanted to. That's normal for me. I start recording in my car in the parking lot of my apartment. Let's see how this day turns out. It took me three attempts to get an intro that I was happy with. The CD that I hold up is The Doobie Brothers Greatest Hits, a staple in the last three vehicles I have owned.
The way I planned my route, I would be hitting all of the multis and a few elevators before starting on the letterbox caches. Eventually, I will end up in Winkler and Morden. I really didn't want to drive that far, but I needed four letterbox and these are the closest to Winnipeg.
I wasn't sure how I was going to have the overall presentation look like. Do I insert pictures with a brief description typed over the picture? A quick video of each find? Something a little longer showing me finding and signing? Ultimately I went with a brief video, a few seconds long of the find and you can hear me say which find it was. My thoughts were to keep these little video clips short, maybe three to five seconds in length.
So far, the day is going good, other than not leaving when I wanted to. I've managed to capture a few video bursts of geocaches found. My attempt at recording at the elevator in Lowe Farm didn't go very well. It was more windy than I realized and you couldn't really hear what I was saying. I don't know this until I got home.
So far, I have found more elevators than geocaches. Time to focus on geocaching. I make my way into Winkler. I have many memories coming here as a child, visiting my grandparents. Now I'm here for a couple of multi-stage caches. This is where I run into a small problem. The description on one isn't very clear. I reached out to a previous finder, and a resident of Winkler, AWOL.
I carried on to the only other multi in town. This one was fairly straightforward. At this time, AWOL returned my message.
On my way to the final of the butterfly multi, I pass this big stick. As I arrive at the final, AWOL pulls up. I wasn't expecting him to come out, but it was nice to see him and chat a little. He helped me with the first multi I was at.
Before leaving Winkler, I decided to stop at the cemetery to visit my grandparents. At this time, I realize that I am falling behind in time. I'm going to have to cut some stuff out of my trip. A couple more multis before I end up in the neighboring city of Morden. A couple of quick caches there, and I'm off to do the letterbox trail.
So far, filming has been good. Fairly straightforward, doing small video bursts. I had an idea of filming myself going through the ditch to a letterbox, sign, and run back to my car to give a thumbs up. That's what you see in the video. What you don't see is the first take of this attempt. I had the camera stand on the roof of my car to get a good angle. I run through the ditch to the cache, flip the door open and a container falls out. Up to now, the log sheet and stamp are in a bag. I wasn't expecting a container. It has to be a green container that falls into the tall green grass. A quick, frantic search turned up nothing. Back to the car to stop recording. Back to the cache to find the container. Place it back inside it's home. Back to the car to start recording again, and do it all again.
Another blooper that I left in was when I went for my 150th letterbox. I flip the door open and it's empty inside. No log sheet, no stamp, nothing. What an anticlimactic moment.
I didn't finish with all the letterbox caches. It's already 4pm and I have over an hour drive home. I also skipped the geo-art. I could have kept going until dusk, but I had enough for the day. I accomplished what I had set out to do.
There's always just one more. I had found one here on the big fire hydrant maybe six years ago. It has been archived since, but there's a different cache in it's place now. I found this one and headed for home.
One thing I wanted to do was have a celebratory drink at the end of this adventure. It would be more fun if it was something I have never had before. I will be doing this at the end of all future videos. It can be anything from alcohol to non-alcoholic. For this day, I chose a Peace Tea flavored ice tea. I'm still driving so I want a non-alcoholic drink. I'm not a coffee or tea drinker. I don't normally drink ice tea either, but I was seeing these Peace Teas at Walmart for 99 cents. What the heck. I chose a raspberry flavored one. My big concern was the size of the can. That's a lot of ice tea to be drinking. If I started drinking this at the fire hydrant in Elm Creek, I may not make it home without pulling over somewhere. I waited until I was in Oak Bluff, a small bedroom community on the Southwest edge of the city. I still have a half hour drive to my apartment on the North side, but I should make it home.
Now comes the editing. Another vlogger who was giving me helpful advice was Hakliva. She suggested what she uses. I couldn't get that to work, but I did find an editing feature on my laptop. It's not fancy, but it got the job done. I've watched enough geocaching videos from other vloggers that I have a good sense of how the overall video should look like. After playing around with it one evening, I have my very first geocaching video. It's not an Academy Award winning effort, but I thought I did ok for my first time. You can watch the video here > The video
I do plan on making more, but there's no set schedule. Whenever the moment hits and I feel there's enough content to put something together. I have since resolved the reversed image thingy when I'm in selfie mode. In the next video, I'll be driving on the North American side of the car.
**A side note... I have done more recording for a second video. I went out on Saturday for a day long adventure. I still have to edit. You can subscribe to the YouTube channel so you don't miss the release.**
That was my day and a glimpse of behind the scenes from my first video. Just a reminder about the photo contest. You still have a couple of weeks to get your entry in. I'll be announcing the winner August 1st. Send your entry to thegeocachingguild@gmail.com or direct message me on Twitter at @thegeocachingg1.
Until next week, be happy, stay safe, wash your hands and wear a mask, hug your furry pets, and most importantly, just have fun. Peace out ✌
There's always just one more picture. Not quite sure what this is supposed to be, but it's on the same road as the letterbox caches.
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