DENVER! GeoWoodstock 14er

Recently, I made the long drive to Denver, Colorado with my boyfriend, McDoogins and our dog Rogue. The reason we were in Denver? GeoWoodstock 14er. We arrived to Denver on June 30^th. That night we attended “GW14er: Denver Craft Brew” (GC6EB4A). The event was at a local brewery called Prost Brewery. Attendees were given a small sample cup and were allowed to try samples at 6 breweries and 1 distillery. These were also the locations of 7 of the 10 lab caches for the Mega event. We got two of the 10 lab caches that night.

The next day we visited the Garden of the Gods park. In the park are many large red rock formations. We took a driving tour around the park and got out at a few different locations. We did a few earthcaches and the “Garden of the Gods Wherigo” (GC5FEBH).

The morning of July 2^nd was the “GW14er: Early Meet-n-Greet & GeoCoin Poker” (GC6CQKW) event. When we arrived there was a really long line to pick up your registration packets and any swag you ordered. Instead of waiting in the long line, I met up with many people I know from the #USGeocachingHour which is a weekly chat about geocaching on Twitter. I even got to meet some of the popular vloggers and podcasters such as The Geocaching Vlogger, Geocaching with Darick and Geocache Talk.

After that event, McDoogins and I decided to head up Pikes Peak, the tallest mountain in the southern Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. There was an event scheduled at the summit that afternoon, “GW14er “DGS Rocky Mountain High 14,115ft”” (GC6C8FY). The drive to the top is a 19 miles on switchbacks with a near drop off right next to you. The weather near the top turned cold and cloudy so we did not stay long. We found a handful of caches on the mountain and they are all now my highest elevated caches at 10,000 feet or higher.

Sunday, July 3rd was the big day. I headed out early to the “GW14er: Donuts in Denver” (GC6CT3Z) event. It was at a donut shop with the most delicious donuts I’ve ever had. I was even given a sample of a fresh, hot one right off the cooking line. I signed the donut shaped log and chatted with some other cachers for a while before heading out.

I had a mission to complete. I was going to make an attempt at finding 10 cache types in one day. I stopped at a virtual nearby “Northglenn Veterans Memorial” (GCHHJY) and quickly gathered the required information. I also needed a webcam cache for the day. The one I chose was “Pearl Street Webcam” (GC4994); it was a 35 minute drive away from where the donut event was, and the opposite direction of the Mega. I arrived there for find a group of probably 10 cachers there waiting. When I approached them they said they had been there for quite a while and the camera hadn’t refreshed. I was so upset at this point that I wouldn’t be able to get all 10 icons. I decided to sit and wait awhile. A few other cachers came and went and a few more came. I decided to give up on the webcam and got back into my car. Before I left, I checked the webcam page on my phone one more time and the picture was of the two cachers who were still sitting at GZ! It worked! I excitedly hopped back out of my car and told them it was working again. I waited anxiously a few more minutes before the camera refreshed again and I was in the picture!

I headed back to pick up my boyfriend and we headed over to the Denver Botanical Gardens at Chatfield. We first headed over to the large letters that spelled out GeoWoodstock which were the log book for the event. We signed on the letter D. After that, we spent some time checking out the different vendors. There were a dozen or more vendors attending and they had a wide variety of supplies and swag. We also wandered around the grounds in search of the 3 lab caches that were there. Before too long we were heading toward to big letters again but this time for the group photo. Thousands of geocachers gathered together and our photo and some video was taken by a drone. We spent the rest of the afternoon finding the new gadget caches that were placed around the grounds. Lucky for me, there were 6 cache types placed throughout the grounds specifically for the event. Soon after that McDoogins and I left the event and headed to the remaining breweries for the lab caches.

The next morning, we began our long journey back home to New York. We had a fantastic time at the Mega event and all the satellite events. I got to meet many people I had previously only known online. It was a great time with great friends that I will never forget.

I also put a video together of some photos. You can find it here:

Leap Day Weekend Caching

This year geocaching.com offered 2 souvenirs for this year’s Leap Day. The first souvenir could be earned by finding a geocache between February 27-29 and the second souvenir could only be earned by attending an even on Leap Day, February 29th. They hinted in their blog post that “you will want to earn both of these.”
On Saturday, February 27, my boyfriend, McDoogins and I went into town with our geopup Rogue to find some caches. Our first stop was GC6BTFJ “Bookworm” in a small park in our town. It was a very creative cache but unfortunately we did not find it in the condition it was intended to be in. We found the cache probably 50 feet away from the intended location. I’m hoping that it was not found by some muggle teenagers. We continued walking through town so McDoogins could find some caches that I had already found.

On Monday, February 29, I hosted an event at a different local park, GC69B3Z. Since I had to work that day I made the event from 5 – 5:30pm. I wasn’t going to be a big event; just a quick meet up so the local cachers could get the souvenir. Some prizes were kindly donated by IB Geocaching and the cachers really enjoyed them. I had a mob cache publish for the event where 6 cachers had to be connected to a site in order for the coordinates to the cache to pop up. In total there were 28 attendees at the event. Sadly, I completely forgot to take a group photo.

 

Have you figured out the hidden message in the two Leap Day souvenirs? If you haven’t take a look at the Geocaching.com blog post here.

9th Annual GeoRoc Holiday Event

This year my local geocaching group needed a new volunteer to host our annual holiday party. I’ve hosted quite a few events before so it was suggested to me that I should host this year. I decided to buck up and do it. We had it at a fire department’s pavilion. From my best estimate we had about 75 people attend. We had a lot of food, games and fun. So far there’s been 54 attendee logs. I had a fantastic time and here’s some photos from the event.

Our log “book” made of snowflakes

Starting the raffle

JAKSolantern also put out a puzzle cache that was themed around Christmas movies and it was right near the event. Many cachers solved the puzzle at the party and went out in search of it. The container was a fantastic birdhouse and a smaller decon container and log were Velcro-ed inside it. Really amazing. It got a favorite point from me.

Huge birdhouse!

A present inside! A hand painted decon coantiner

See JAKSolantern’s newest cache here GC67QBY

GIFF Weekend

From November 5-8, geocachers have the opportunity to attend a Geocaching International Film Festival event where the short films of the 16 finalists would be showed. The event for my area was held on November 5th, GC63BAM. The event had a great turn out and about 50 people attended. The films were all very creative and I could tell a lot of hard work went into creating them. It was nice to see entries from so many different countries.

I also got a new GPS that I ordered on Thursday. I got the Garmin eTrex 30x after listening to the recent GPSr Picking episode of the GeoGearHeads podcast. So far I really like it. I’m excited to use it for many adventures to come.