Geocaching and Pictures pt. 1

Good morning everyone.  This week is about those who have completed their 365 day found calendar multiple times or loops.  The top looper for Manitoba is JB who has completed the calendar 15 times and is almost done his 16th loop (I count about 19 more days with 15 finds left before his next loop is complete).  I'm ninth in the province with 4 loops complete with 40 more days with a minimum of 4 finds.  In North Dakota, Former Hawkeye is the leader with 2 loops complete and about 24 more days of 2 finds before completing his 3rd loop.

Before I begin, I want to give a special shoutout to Cache The Line.  Some may know him by his geocaching name, thebruce0.  He is a Canadian geocacher and vlogger who puts out some amazing geocaching videos of some epic journeys and finds.  You can find his YouTube channel here > https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ2CBS4upyqZlZza6b1z9og  You can also be a Patreon member as well.  I just joined and I'm looking forward to future content.  

A couple of weeks ago on Twitter, Cache The Line asked "Do you take photos while geocaching?  If so, do you share all the photos you want to share?  Or are you like me and over time end up with daily albums filled with shareable photos that never see the light of the 'net (and plenty of meh photos)?"  My answer to that was a resounding YES!  Especially now with my blogging, I try to take pictures, even though I don't know if that particular outing will become a blog.  I always took pictures in the past of real cool caches, interesting landscapes, or just random pictures in general.  I'll be sifting through all my pictures and trying to recollect the memory or circumstances behind that picture.  I'll try to focus on pictures that haven't seen the light of the 'net, or in particular, my blog.  I do have a geocaching album of pictures on my FB page, so some have been seen by a few.  For today, I'll be sharing some of my older pictures.

This is the very first trackable that I found in the wild.  Blue Mini Adventure.  I found this on November 11/2013 at a cache that is located in the Gimli Motorsport Park sign, which is about an hour North of Winnipeg.  The owner is jimthebee from South East England.  It managed to travel 51,131km (31,771 miles) before going missing from a cache located on the Aland Islands, located between Sweden and Finland in May, 2018.  

Some of the veteran geocachers may remember the original "Grand Welcome"  GC1VCNY, located at the visitor centre in Grand Forks, North Dakota.  This was located across the parking lot from where I was staying (I don't think that hotel is operational right now).  We came down for a few days on a family outing.  This was also right after a snow storm hit North Dakota on March 31, 2014.  It was in this cache that I released my first two trackables into the wild.  More on that in another blog.  This particular cache was stolen in March, 2015 and archived as a result.  It has since been replaced with a much better cache (I haven't come across a picture of it just yet), in May, 2015, with the help of local North Dakota cacher, Trycacheus.  Grand Welcome II GC5V689  There's not many caches that I'm comfortable leaving trackables in, but the newer Grand Welcome cache is one that I'll drop trackables in.  It looks like a birdhouse/feeder and has two sections inside.  One for the log book and another for trackables.  The trackable section is locked and you need to know the combination, which isn't that hard to get.

You never know what you'll come across while geocaching.  One afternoon, while caching just East of the city, I came across this Tardis.  There was no cache located here, but there is one across the road.  "It's Bigger on the Inside" GC4GA47.  I found this on March 20, 2015, not long after I separated and moved out.  My caching numbers took off after that.

While making my way over to ground zero of a cache, I came across this cute object in the field.  Isn't it a-Dora-ball?

You never know what you'll discover while geocaching.  Back on November 28, 2015, I was caching South of Winnipeg, in and around the town of Niverville.  One of the caches I found that day was "Mennonite Memorial Landing Site"  GC5W1GM  I was expecting to find a container of some kind, but I wasn't expecting to find this out of the way marker that gave some interesting history.  I've always known that Southern Manitoba is where you'll find plenty of Mennonite communities with the cities of Steinbach and Winkler being the largest.  I find it somewhat neat/cool to be standing on a piece of ground that pioneers first set foot on decades and sometimes centuries ago.  When standing there, I like to close my eyes and imaginarily transport back to that time and wonder what it was like.

I found this one amusing at the time.  I'm caching East of the city, could have been the same outing that I found the Tardis, driving down some gravel roads when I found this cache and the sign.  Who is going to park their car in the middle of nowhere on a country road?  Geocachers maybe.  LOL

To wrap up, this is where I'll do an update on any challenges I'm working on.  For the month of March, the challenge was to find 29 caches.  So far, I have found seven.  Hopefully I can get out and do a decent outing and get closer to my goal.  Until next week, be happy, be safe, have fun, and enjoy.  Where will geocaching take you?  Peace out.