Geocaching and Trackables.

Good morning everyone.  Going with today's subject; trackables, the fun fact is all about trackables.  The Manitoba cacher that has found or discovered the most trackables is =GeoJoe= with 2,781.  Second place is Peter&Gloria with 1,402.  They own an impressive collection of coins that I have had the pleasure of seeing and discovering.  I'm 12th in Manitoba with 689.  For North Dakota, Whiskey Sowers has found or discovered the most with 726.  She too has a very nice coin collection that I was able to see at last year's Camping and Caching event in North Dakota.  

Last week in my blog, Geocaching and Pictures, I had shown a picture of the original "Grand Welcome" cache in Grand Forks and made mention that it is where I dropped my first trackables.  This is the tale of those two trackables and the rest of my trackables that I have.

Majority (I'm guessing) of the geocachers out there have owned or still do own a trackable at one point in time and have released it into the wild, hoping that it will travel great distances.  Chances are, it will travel for an unspecified amount of time.  Some for years, and others for maybe a day or two before the dreaded happens.  The trackable has gone missing.  It either mysteriously vanishes from the geocache it's suppose to be in, or someone picks it up and they vanish from geocaching along with any and all trackables they have picked up.  I have released six trackables in my early days of geocaching.  Like most new geocachers who are first exposed to trackables, I was excited to see my trackables go to places I could only hope to visit someday.  Of those six trackables, four have been declared missing.  I did have one resurrected by I.B. Geocaching last year and it's still out there.  Last time I checked (which was earlier) it was in Idaho.  The fifth one did make it out of the city where I found it in a cache, grabbed it and has stayed with me ever since.  I don't release my own trackables into the wild anymore.  I do have a happy story to share about the 6th trackable.  That is today's blog.  The adventures of a trackable.

As you can see in the picture, I attached a Hot Wheels car as it's hitch hiker, just like all the other trackables I released.  It visited it's first cache in March, 2014.  This trackable and one other were the first to be dropped off at a TB Hotel outside a visitor's center in Grand Forks, North Dakota at the beginning of April.  It's travelling partner would be picked up first and thusly be the first to go missing shortly there after outside of Grand Forks.  It was this trackable that I had resurrected since it had such a short life originally.  This particular car that's pictured above would be picked up later on in April and make it's way down to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

(It found it's way into someone's dinning room)

It spent the month of June touring Napa Valley and the San Francisco Bay area.  In July, the trackable made it's way over to Texas and made it to a NASCAR racetrack before I could (I still haven't been to a NASCAR racetrack and would like to someday)

(Outside Texas Motor Speedway)

It was picked up by jbailey912, a cacher who was in the midst of a daily streak that lasted 1,099 days.  My trackable logged plenty of miles and plenty of caches in the next few months as it made it's way to and all over South Carolina.

By October, it was dropped in a TB hotel "The Peachoid Redux cache/Travelbug Hotel"  GC3BAV5.  That is the view of or from GC.  I'll have to go there one day and find out.  My trackable spent the remainder of 2014 in North Carolina before being dropped off in a cache in Maryland in January, 2015.  It made a tour of Maryland and even wound up at GeoWoodstock XIII.  I've never been to any GeoWoodstocks, but my trackable has.

(My trackable was here)

It was picked up at GeoWoodstock by a Canadian cacher, NFJK.  Now it's back in Canada, Ontario to be exact.  It saw many more geocaches before being dropped off.  It was picked up and made it's way West to Alberta where it would eventually wind up in the hands of NNVN, another Canadian cacher.  In September, 2015, my trackable is grabbed by local cacher, Carl the cat.  If I recall correctly, NNVN is Carl the cat's brother-in-law.  Carl the Cat brings the trackable back to Manitoba and eventually to an event I was hosting on New Year's eve, 2015.  My trackable has come home.  It's not often that a trackable gets released, travels, and finds it's way back to it's owner.  I thought of releasing it again, but decided not to.  With the other ones going missing, I decided that this one was special enough to stay home for good.

(Back home where it belongs)

There is a seventh trackable that was suppose to be released, but I liked the car so much, I couldn't let it go.  So it hangs from my rear view mirror, along with an archived nano "Flags of Rememberance" GC7AENT, a pathtag from Geocaching Jangie (my very first pathtag) and a bracelet that I received from former girlfriend and still very good friend SM66 that has the coordinates from our very first date.  I have purchased a few coins over time and those are not leaving.  The container they sit in is also trackable, my Mary Hyde trackable number which was pictured in an earlier blog, number clearly visible and yet, no one discovered it.  Hmmmmmm.

Weekly update:  My March challenge is to find 29 caches and move into 42nd place in Manitoba for total finds, passing inactive geocacher, AngelFreak.  Well...….  Guess who'se active again?  Yup.  AngelFreak has returned to the game and has logged 29 finds so far this month.  So far, I have 13 finds.  I can still try for the 29, which is proving to be a bigger challenge due to the lack of findable caches with all the snow we have this Winter and my geocaching map of Winnipeg is dominated by happy faces already.  Welcome back AngelFreak.  Looking forward to bumping into you out in the playing field.  

That's all for this week.  Until next time, be happy, be safe, have fun, and enjoy.  Peace out.