Geocaching and the Giga weekend

Good morning everyone.  It's back.  After last week's DNF, fun facts has returned with most Letterbox caches found.  In Canada, that would be joce13 with 993.  In the States, it's Alamogul with 2,026.  A very close second is Ground Fox with 2,015.

Last weekend was GeoWoodstock 2018 in Cincinnati, Ohio.  This year marks the first year it has been given the "Giga" status.  How did it become a Giga?  According to Geocaching.com, a Giga-event cache is a geocaching event that is attended by 5,000+ people.  As I type this, 4,082 people have logged it as attended.  Giga-events are the largest of the event cache types and feature excellent activities for geocachers attending from all over the world.  How did GeoWoodstock get to be a Giga-event?  Giga-events must first be very successful Mega-events.  Geocaching HQ reviews existing Mega-events to see if they qualify for Giga status.

GeoWoodstock is THE event to attend on this side of the planet.  It even attracts geocachers from overseas.  Geocachers plan their  vacations around GeoWoodstock.  Have you attended any of the GeoWoodstocks?  Have you attended any other Mega-events?  Sadly, I have not been to either of these types of events.  I would love to attend, mostly to experience an event of this magnitude.  With that said, I wasn't in Cincinnati to attend the first ever Giga-event in North America.

So what does a geocacher do when they can't attend a large event?  They go geocaching of course.  That's what I did during Giga weekend.  My weekend didn't start out with geocaching though.  It was spent with my girlfriend, sm66, her sister and husband, and their daughter and boyfriend (all muggles by the way) on a Friday evening taking in some horse racing.  I have been to the track in the past, but as a DJ for a couple of Christmas parties.  This was a first for the horse races.  It was fun, watching the different strategies on what horse to bet on.  sm66 and her sister grew up around horses.  In fact, sm66 was a barrel racer in her younger days.  They were watching the horses during the parade to the post, then deciding what horse to bet on.  My strategy was simple, bet on the #2 horse, no matter what the odds were.  I actually bet on two races and walked away $1.50 to the good.  Now to decide where to spend my winnings.  LOL.

Saturday was geocaching.  I had a goal in mind.  Find eight geocaches.  As mentioned in a previous blog, some of my adventures are stats based.  This was one of the dates that has three finds in total.  I'm trying to replace all dates with three finds with a higher number, or complete my fourth loop of the date found calendar.  There isn't much to find around Beausejour for me.  I've either found it, own it, or it has a string of DNFs and probably missing.  With my I-pod back in the car for another summer of rockin' good tunes, I made the trek out to Selkirk to begin my adventure.  My first few attempts were DNFs.  My caching mojo wasn't fully awake just yet.  I headed West from there.  If I kept getting DNFs, then I knew of some Letterbox caches that should be a safe bet to find.  As I pulled up close to one GZ, I knew it was another 200 meters walking from the road.  There was a little bit of an approach from the road, probably more for tractors and farm machinery.  It looked safe enough to drive on.  Away I went, drove up to GZ, made the find, and backed out without getting stuck.

 Onward down the highway, eventually winding up in the Stonewall area where the Letterbox caches are.  A local cacher, New Caledonian, owns several Letterbox caches and all are fairly easy to find.  Before I could get to those, I wanted to find the cache that's by the local Tim Horton's.  Of course there has to be a group of motorcyclists hanging around near GZ.  I went inside to grab a bite to eat.  That was long enough for the bikers to leave.  There were other muggles around since this was near the edge of the parking lot.  When I did have a moment, I circled GZ a couple of times before finding the cache.  Now my caching mojo is clicking.  Off to find some Letterbox caches.  These were all quick finds as I suspected they would be.

I did take a small break from geocaching to capture a couple of Munzees in the local park in town.  My first Munzee captures since last October.  I wish Munzee was more popular around here.  Back to geocaching.  I still had three more finds to make to meet my goal.  A couple more Letterbox caches and one Traditional.  The traditional was an interesting one and worthy of a favorite point.  It was up in a tree with a rope attached to help lower it down.

That was my Saturday.  Eight caches found, two DNFs, along with seven wood ticks.  On Sunday, I went in the opposite direction.  Myself and sm66 went for a drive up to Pinawa.  sm66 has never been there before and I've only been once about a year and a half ago.  Pinawa is situated on the shores of the Winnipeg river, although you would think it was a lake by the size of the river.  There is a walking path along the river where there's several caches placed.  Not all the caches are still there.  Some are missing.  We succeeded in finding the first two before DNFing on the next three.

We did find one more before heading for home.  Three finds, three DNFs and no wood ticks.  We also got an evil death stare from a muggle at a picnic table as we walked by.  I don't think she blinked once the whole time.  

That's how I spent the Giga event weekend.  Now to watch all the videos from GeoWoodstock.  There are plenty as lots of vloggers were in attendance.  I've seen quite a few good, fun pictures on social media as well.  It makes me wish I was there.  Maybe next year as GeoWoodstock will be in Ft. Worth, Texas.  I say that every year.  I'll get there one of these years.  LOL.  Until then, be safe, enjoy, peace out, and remember, geocaching is meant to be fun.