Good morning everyone. No fun stats for this week as I'll be sharing some of my stats throughout today's blog.
This week I look back at the summer months of 2021 and where geocaching took me. It was an eventful ride.
July: This was a slower month for finding geocaches for some odd reason. Only 41 finds. Twenty three were traditionals, ten multi-stage caches, four mystery, three Earthcaches, and an event. The event was the first event to be held here since social gathering restrictions were eased.
(This was a newer cacher's first attempt at hiding. Very impressive)
The things you see when geocaching. While doing that multi, I drove past an Elk farm. I mistakenly referred to them as reindeer in the video.
While at the event in July, and this usually comes up at events, a cache that's nearby that most of the attendees still haven't found. This particular cache hadn't been found yet. As a group, we went in search of it, and found it. An FTF. So we thought. The owner came along a couple of weeks later and verified that we didn't find his container. Who's container did we find? We will never know and the container that we found has mysteriously vanished. No FTF for the group.
I did complete my multi-stage goal on the last day of July with the help of my long time geocaching friend, Auntie Mo. You can catch that adventure here > July Goal
August: This was a much busier month compared to July. 117 caches found. This is the first time since June, 2019 that I cracked the 100 mark, and only the fourth time since November, 2016. When I was doing a daily streak, finding 100+ in a month was common place. August also saw me leave Manitoba, albeit temporarily, and for only a fraction of a mile, to attend an event at the Manitoba/Ontario border. It was hosted by a couple who look very familiar. Where have I seen them before?
It's Londonwesty and lyriclass (aka Cache Canada). It was absolutely awesome to finally meet them in person. Cache Canada will be releasing a video on this portion of their Northern Ontario adventure in a matter of days. I did a little bit of video as part of a geocaching challenge. You can see that here > Geocache challenge
You can catch Cache Canada's Northern Ontario adventure, including the highlight of their adventure here > Cache Canada
August also saw another event that soon morphed into three different types of events. This soon became another personal goal. Eleven different cache types in a single day without attending a Mega event. You can see part 1 of the adventure here > 11 icons part 1 Part 2 still needs to be edited and should be out soon. August was also my geocaching birthday. Eight years I've been doing this. I can't imagine what life would be like without geocaching. My August goal was to reach 50 Earthcaches completed. Mission accomplished.
One of the many cool caches you will find in the Winkler/Morden area of Manitoba. This one is from JAB007.
Another awesome cache I found in August in St. Anne, Manitoba. I do have video on this one, but it still needs to be edited.
September: Another busy month. 96 caches found. There was a heavy emphasis on mysteries as my September goal was to reach 800. There's plenty of geo-art outside of Winnipeg that I can easily do and reach 900 or 1,000 and more. Geo-arts usually become power trails once solved. I can only do so many on a power trail by myself before I get tired and lose interest. About 20-30 is my limit when I have to get out of my car, run through a ditch, sign the log, back through the ditch to my car and go to the next one 165-200 meters down the road.
September should have seen my return to North Dakota for the Gilby Gone Wild event. Unfortunately, the border remains closed to Canadians. Some of us would be Gilby attendees went to an annual event at the zoo in Winnipeg and did a group picture.
I ended September with my 6,400th find. An interesting container that has me wondering what a geocaching scent would smell like.
For the three months, I found 254 caches. That translates to 105 traditionals, 100 mystery, 11 multi-stage, 5 letterbox, 9 Earthcaches, 15 Adventure Labs, 4 regular events, 2 Community Celebration Events, 1 CITO, 1 virtual, and 1 WherIgo. All three months are filled in with a minimum of eleven finds per day on my date found calendar. I also added fifteen more dates with a mystery find. I now have 239 dates filled on my mystery date found calendar. I still have 127 to go.
What is the plan for the final three months of 2021? I will continue to fill in my date found calendar with a minimum of eleven finds per day. It gets more challenging now as we get closer to the winter months. This is where I start to see more dates with only four or five finds so far. There are twelve such dates between now and December 31st. It was thirteen, but I filled that in earlier this week.
I usually have some big adventure planned for my birthday week, but with the recent spike in gas prices, those plans could be scaled back. I do hope to reach 6,500 finds by the end of October. That would make it 500 finds in just seven months. My 5,000th was October 9, 2018 as part of my birthday week adventure. 5,500 was an event I hosted in Williston, North Dakota in June, 2019. 6,000 was April 1st of this year. I'm finding caches as a good pace this year.
On a side note, I quit playing Munzee. Games/hobbies should always be about having fun. When it's no longer fun, it's time to leave it behind. That's what I did with Pokémon Go at the end of 2020, and now Munzee.
That's all for this week. Hopefully I can get part 2 of my 11 icon day edited and published for next week's blog. Until next week, be happy, stay safe, wash your hands and wear a mask, hug your pets, and most importantly, just have fun. Peace out ✌
There's always just one more picture. This is part of my Trans-Canada Highway Adventure Lab Series that I set up at the beginning of September. There are now three TCHALs in Manitoba.
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