Geocaching with Geocacher Ken

Good morning everyone.  Who was busy in 2019 finding geocaches?  Locally, that would be 4elements5senses with 2,276 finds.  Across Canada, Troqueurs32 with 11,071.  South of the border, mondou2 led all American geocachers with 18,933.  In North Dakota, Tick_Magnet had 2,084 finds and next door in Minnesota, Lalang had 4,512 found geocaches. It's that time of year again where we say goodbye to the year that's over and hello to a new year.  Time to reflect and reminisce about the highs and lows.  My favorite at this time of year are the sports plays and misplays.  Those are always fun to watch.  For the sake of this blog, I'll stick to my year in geocaching and to a certain extent, my personal life. It was an interesting year to say the least.  While some doors closed, others opened.  The year started with me stepping away from the local caching association where I was the treasurer and stats person.  These were positions tha...

Good morning everyone. This week, the fun facts is all about those who hide geocaches.  First up is the top hiders for 2019.  Locally, here in Manitoba, that honor goes to Semb with 333 hides.  For Canada, it's bootecacher with 749.  bootecacher is actually a team of nine geocachers that hide caches in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island.  Across the border, i.findit hid the most in North Dakota with 81 hides.  Nationally, JcTAZ hid 1,885 geocaches.  Now for the most hides overall.  Locally, that's Jabbywockyz with 927.  Across Canada, it's geowhacker in Prince Edward Island with 3,420.  Looking South, Tick_Magnet has hid the most in North Dakota with 292.  Across the States, it's TeamSageBrushers in Nevada with 24,004. As you may recall last year, Joshua the Geocaching Vlogger decided to create a week where we, the geocachers, let Geocaching Headquarters know just how much we appreciate all the work they do behin...

Good morning everyone.  Continuing with last week's theme for the fun facts, how many new cache listings was there in other countries around the world in 2019?  Jamaica has two new listings, Chile - 41, Christmas Island didn't have any but there are eight caches located here.  Luxembourg - 610, Afghanistan (alphabetically they are listed first for countries) - zero, Zimbabwe (alphabetically they are listed last for countries) - 4, Samoa - also had no new listings, Tanzania - 16, finally Turks and Caicus Islands - 2. I've been fairly clear on how I feel about the virtual souvenirs that Geocaching HQ keeps cranking out.  I don't put the effort in to obtain these souvenirs that no one will ever see.  The chances of someone creeping my FB page are greater than someone checking out my souvenir page on my geocaching profile.  Another reason that I don't put any effort in to accomplishing these so called goals is that I don't have the time.  Since I'm on va...

Good morning everyone.  For this week's fun fact, I'm going to continue with a year end look, but at a random selection of countries around the world.  How many new geocaches were published and still active in 2019?  Cuba - 7 new caches, Columbia - 23, Argentina - 213, Egypt - 23, South Korea - 361, South Africa - 1,497, Finland - 7,516, and even Antarctica has one new geocache listing for 2019.  A couple of other African countries that I checked (Nigeria, Congo) didn't show any new listings. After doing some errands on Friday, December 27th, I returned home to check the mailbox before heading out to sm66's house.  Usually when I check the mailbox (and I don't check it everyday, maybe twice a week), it's nothing but flyers, bills and junk mail.  Today, when I opened it, there was something staring back at me.  The December Cache Advance Cache Crate.  Since I'm about to head out again, opening the latest crate will have to wait until I get back. ...