The Woes of the Short Geocacher

(by BeccaDay and Silyngufy)

Geocaching is a fantastic sport;

but not when you are very short.

Oh you tall geocachers, if only you knew;

All of the things that we short geocachers go through.

 

The cache page says just a quick PNG,

my first thought is “how hard can this be?”

My eyes begin to water and I begin to whine.

My goodness, that is a very tall sign!

As I slowly ponder, I become madder and madder,

why did they not tell me to bring a ladder?

I stare and sigh with my face pointed to the sky;

and I wonder why this cache was placed so high?

Maybe if I just stand on my toes?

Nope, still too short, yes these are my woes.

 

I hiked for over two miles across the land;

only to find the cache 6 inches above my outstretched  hand.

I guess I’ll have to climb for it, at least I like trees;

stick my hand into a hole and out come the bees!

I run as fast as my short legs will carry;

running from bees is always very scary!

But the lure of the FTF draws me back;

I look around for some logs to stack.

They wibble, they wobble, but they give me some height.

Onto the logs I climb, and I reach with all my might.

I can touch the bison tube with my arm extended;

But unscrewing the cap must be done two-handed!

I furrow my brow and swing my other arm wide;

Only to end up on the ground lying on my backside.

I lie there looking at the cache and feeling queasy.

Then some tall cachers arrive claiming “This one’s easy!”

They walk up and in seconds their name is first on the sheet;

and I know in my heart that I’ve been beat.

 

This cache is hidden under a bridge;

that covers the span from ridge to ridge.

I gingerly make my way down the slope;

I look up, then shattered is my hope.

For there it is hidden, couldn’t be bolder;

up in the rafters, that magnetic key holder.

It might as well be up on a cloud;

my wail of despair is now very loud.

You six-footers will never understand the plight;

of the geocachers with much shorter height.

 

I set off down the trail, my friends set the gait;

but it isn’t too long until I have to cry out “Wait!”

They’re comfortably walking, a smile on their faces;

while my legs are running to keep up their paces.

But there is one advantage we have over the tall;

those low-hanging branches are no problem at all.

This time it is the short cacher’s time to shine;

as those tall friends fall farther and farther behind.

Behind me I hear them crashing under branches and brush;

I smile and call out “I found it, no need to rush!”

Tall woman and short man

Let’s See if These Bugs Have Been Crawling Lately

2015 WGA Picnic to Picnic TB Race

Rank TB name Owner Logs Last spotted Image Miles travelled
1 Aida Lacknothing 40
Champeaux # La Collégiale Saint Martin
(43 days)
26925 Miles
2 Horny Toad 2015 – 2016 WGA Racer Team Northwoods 150
The Border Reivers
(22 days)
19912 Miles
3 Labzone’s Nutty Traveler labzone 34
M3 Moncton Centennial Park
(2 days)
12050 Miles
4 *** joint effort’s WGA Custom Cachekinz *** jointeffort 98
GettingIntoTreble
(49 days)
7878 Miles
5 LostCheq’s WGA RACER 2015-2016 lostcheq 18
lilian.onsen
(106 days)
4822 Miles
6 Kevin Bacon’s Adventures Walkingadventure 106
Unmorty
(35 days)
4723 Miles
7 J&L’s WGA Racing Snail JimandLinda 29
HSC_Pride
(26 days)
4014 Miles
8 Jessica’s WGA Racing Camaro pixiestix13 140
THEINCREDIBLE4
(63 days)
3854 Miles
9 Kathy Cache-a-lot furryhermit 80
Xtended Stay TB Hotel & Spa
(34 days)
3520 Miles
10 2015 WGA Racer GO JEEP GO sweetlife 37
Trowbridge
(88 days)
3207 Miles
11 2015 Racing Butterfly Mocrin 21
JJustice8808
(68 days)
1931 Miles
12 Val of Sweetlife’s Peace Turtle WGA 2015 Travel Bug Racer sweetlife 29
World Largest Travel Bug Hotel
(76 days)
1640 Miles
13 GO CHEEZE GO!!!! Hayward Cheezehead 38
Cache Across America – Kentucky
(6 days)
1617 Miles
14 Spook and The Wild Weasel – YGBSM Wis Wild Weasel 415
Next 4 Miles
(16 days)
1584 Miles
15 Wisconsin Parabuddy BeccaDay 12
Operation Bunny Watch
(0 days)
869 Miles
16 Lake Superior Coin Wandering Tracks 11
Owner
494 Miles

Summer Events

There are some great summer events happening in your area soon! Did you know that at West Bend Cache Ba$h you can get a special token of appreciation just by being a WGA Member? Just tell any one of the current Board of Directors “the phrase that pays” and you will be rewarded. You will need to read the 2016 Summer WGA Newsletter in order to get the secret phrase. Watch your e-mail for the newest edition of WGA News.

http://www.wi-geocaching.com/events/

Godchild Cures Shopaholic Through Geocaching

(by labgal13)

 I have one Godchild. Her name is Lyla (aka ljwaranka). Not having any children myself, I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into with this role of Godparent, but I figured, at the very least, I would have a new shopping buddy once she was, perhaps, a teenager.

It turns out Lyla doesn’t like to shop. She does, however, have an interest for this hobby called geocaching. It started when she was 12 years old, after learning about it through a classmate at Hunter Safety course. As her mom works Saturdays, and I was her Godmother after all, I volunteered to drive her around a few times to find these hidden treasures. It seemed like fun, even though our first adventure was on a frigid 9-degree winter day in Wisconsin and I didn’t know it at the time, but I was referred to as a “muggle”. Did I really lack any magical ability? Perhaps I did at the time.

Fast forward to August where, as the devoted Godmother that I am, I agreed to chauffeur Lyla for the West Bend Cache Ba$h. Little did I know at the time, that this would be the start of an obsession for me. That Friday night, I signed up for my own account, easily picking the name “labgal13” as my labs are my life and my favorite number is 13 (I never said I was normal). We continued to seek out our treasures on Saturday and I proudly signed my new “magical” name to the logs next to ljwaranka.

After the Cache Ba$h, Lyla and I attended several geocaching events and began to add days to our geocalendars. Our biggest day followed Mr. Greenthumb and Sunshine’s Very Merry Breakfast event, where we were able to meet fellow geocachers with the same obsession. We claimed 36 smileys that day with a nice walk on the Bugline, followed by a few visits to cemeteries, silos, and emeralds. What a rush! Lyla was the most excited I have ever seen her and I was glad to be a part of that happiness.

Our most recent event was the WGA Campout which we both enjoyed very much, despite spending a chilly 33-degree night in a tent. As it hailed while we set up our tent, we looked at each other and both agreed that we were crazy for doing this but we were determined to sleep in that tent that night. And we did. Again, we met some more great people and experienced night caching for the first time. So fun!

Lyla and I have had a ton of fun in the last year finding each hidden treasure, learning about new places and historical events, challenging our minds (and our bodies!), finding new parks (and restaurants), meeting wonderful fellow geocachers along the way, and enjoying what beauty this planet has to offer (or Wisconsin). Geocaching is a hobby that has strengthened our bond as no other hobby could, in my opinion.

Instead of looking forward to shopping, as I once did, I now look forward to finding my next cache. One day I planned to find a few caches on my way to the Johnson Creek Outlet Mall. I never found my way to the mall as I was having too much fun working on the silo challenge! What was happening to me?

Summer is coming up and Lyla will be enjoying her summer break from school. I am not as fortunate to have off of work for the summer, but I will use some vacation time as we plan to visit some Wisconsin State Parks and continue to work on our calendars. We may even attempt to cross some state borders! As of the time I write this article, I have 159 more days to go yet (sigh) before I have a full calendar. That said, I was able to claim February 29th this year, which is pretty lucky given my favorite number is 13.

Some Day, They Will All Be Lonely

(by zeeman_clan)

As our caching group has gotten involved in looking for lonely caches, we started to wonder about what future generations would think of our technology driven game of hide and seek. In the past couple of months, we have found caches that get regular visits from the caching community, but we have also come across the lonely ones that have not been visited in three or four years. One can only imagine archeologists and historians, many years after the end of geocaching, finding the remains of ammo cans, peanut butter jars and film containers hidden deep in forested areas.

Seasoned cachers have all experienced old caches that have seen better days. Bad O-rings on bison tubes, a cap that wasn’t put on right or a coffee can that experienced a bit too much water from spring floods all have led to damaged logs and swag. Now can you imagine 25, 50 or even 100 years of no maintenance? What would these people of the future make of mossy army men, clutches of sea shells and gooey wads of paper if they even survived that long? As well as an ammo can holds out most of the moisture of life in the outdoors, eventually it will succumb to the forces of nature. Rusty cans with all sorts of plastic goodies spilling out for future explorers to discover and wonder exactly what we were up to.

What if the cache container did survive? Mint condition Tupperware lodged under a pile of rocks. And of course these future historians can go back through their archives and determine that these storage containers were intended to keep foods fresh. So why are they hidden in all sorts of crazy places? What are these things inside? Of course, the only logical conclusion would be that they are some sort of time capsule. But, they seemed to be opened many times, and the visitors to the time capsules would mark what day they were there. Sometimes there were several visitors in one day!

And what is with some of the bizarre contents?  Obviously, the notebook is a log of visitors. The coins inside would make one think this is some secret cache of treasure, but these don’t appear to be coins of monetary value to any ancient civilization. Very small coins with pictures on one side and a hole near the edge. Very large coins with amazing pictures stamped into them.  Phrases like “Log me at Pathtags.com” or “Trackable at geocaching.com” are etched into the surface. There are even toy cars with tags chained to them that feature a very strange bug image. And what is with all the marbles? So many marbles!

Only time will tell how long geocaching will go on. As long as there remains an interest in the hobby, there will always be someone who can identify the strange containers in the woods. But, if by some chance, geocaching fades into a distant memory, we will leave quite a confusing trail of containers for future generations to find, with or without a GPS.

ROAD RALLY 2016…. A RACE TO THE FINISH

(by Silyngufy)

 June 11, 2016 marked the 3rd bi-annual Road Rally Event (GC6AMQ3) hosted by Chevyole and family.  With the addition of a new Ole in March, Ranger Boy and I offered to help plan the event.  A new venue was found in Hartland at Nixon Park, which offered a shelter, restrooms and a nearby splash pad for kids.  Chevy, RB and I spent months planning new caches and tasks to perform.  The cache page was created and soon we had 13 teams from around the state and Illinois committed to race!

Then the fun really began.  The Goldie Diggers alter ego, Geffie, made a few appearances on You Tube trash talking the other teams.  Team Rambo was ready to race!!!!  Death Race 3000, Team Epic, Team from BCCC, Cache-Me-If-You-Can, Team Free Radicals, and all the other teams were ready for the challenge.

At the beginning of the Rally, each team was given a packet with instructions.  There were 17 caches and 20 optional tasks from which to choose and had a 4 hour time limit. Some teams opted to find only the caches, other teams opted to perform only the tasks, and some teams chose to try to incorporate both. That’s the beauty of the Road Rally.  Each team could invent their own adventure.

What a great day it turned out to be.  The weather was beautiful and everyone was in good spirits.  The teams took off between 8:00 and 8:20 and it wasn’t long before we had our first PAF call.  Several teams were having trouble locating one of the hardest caches on the rally and decided to play rock/paper/scissors to decide who had to call for a hint.  DR3K lost the game and incurred a penalty.

Team Rambo came back to the shelter and reported that Goldie had taken his infamous digger, not once but twice! Racing his way to a cache called “Race to the Finish (GC6EPKE)” he tripped and did a forward roll, got up and proceeded to face-plant.   I wonder when he will learn to follow the paths to the cache and not try to bushwhack through the overgrowth.

Ranger Boy attempted something new this year.  He burned music CDs to accompany the caches he created.  The idea was to listen to the songs and identify various landmarks noted in the songs and find the related caches. There were two caches that involved getting into the water and one running up a hill.  This was a new twist and brought an interesting aspect to the rally.

At 11:00 Chevy, GrillMaster BJ, and I decided to (what else) walk down to Beer Snobs and watch the racers come in for their flight of beer. We decided as long as we were there, we might as well order some beer too. Why should the racers get all the fun? As the teams entered they were required to announce to the bartender “Hey, Bartender, we’re Beer Snobs” and order a flight.  Imagine our surprise as three teams showed up simultaneously.  Then, it was back to the shelter to fire up the grills for the picnic.

The teams were instructed that Chevy, RB, and I wanted “to share” a cache with them at the shelter so they should look for clues.  I was wearing a shirt emblazoned with “Diet Coke”, had a Coca-Cola key chain and a Diet-Coke bracelet.   Team Rambo came up with the ultra-super secret cache that was hidden at the shelter in a Diet Coke can. Justin (one half of Waggentails) made the lucky grab for the can.

Right on time, the teams started arriving in high spirits with their score cards in hand.  This year, each team was responsible for keeping their own score. And in the end it was Team Death Race 3000 crossing the finish line in first place.

As I mentioned above, Chevyole, Ranger Boy and I spent months organizing the event, planning the tasks, gathering supplies, searching for the proper venue, and eventually hiding the caches.  We had many “meetings” and there were a lot of emails sent back and forth organizing all of the paper work.  As a joke, I quickly placed one more cache the night before called Trash Talking (GC6KBM5) as a tribute to Geffie. [SPOILER ALERT!] I literally picked up a piece of trash and slapped a log on it! So, imagine my surprise when a few geocachers told me that was their favorite cache (each with their own reason).  Sigh, Geocachers! You can never predict what they are going to do or like.  But, I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything.  Thank you to everyone who participated and for making the day so much more fun.

See you in 2018!

A Glowing Thank You from a Founder

(by CacheCows and Dustpuppy)

This is an excerpt from an e-mail that was sent to WalkingAdventure in regards to our WGA heritage. The letter below was used with permission from CacheCows and Dustpuppy. A huge thank you to them for providing all of us this wonderful letter and history lesson.

We are grateful to the founding fathers (and mothers) of the WGA and are hoping to fulfill all of the visions those before us have set. You all gave us the building blocks on which we hope to keep adding to the foundation both now and in the years to come.

Please enjoy a vital part of our history.

“We have never met, but we have a history.

I received the latest WGA newsletter today, and was excited, and a bit
trepidatious, to see the WGA history announced.

And I must say, my wife (Arn) and I were more than thrilled at how
complete, but more so how accurate John Sudar’s work is.
Not that our memories are perfect, but we can’t see any issues with the
history, and frankly in this day and age of history being twisted
nationwide, it was refreshing to see this excellent work!

To see the accurate time line, the accurate reviewers list and story,
the picnics and campouts list was a real joy to see, including all the
Friday campout games listed that Arn & I created for the group. The goal
back then was to increase the member participation on Friday nights, so
we were asked each year to come up with a creative game. I’m not sure
which was our personal favorite, but it was probably either the CSI game
or the Amazing Race game.

The first campout as was mentioned was at Governor Dodge State Park. We
had to checkout the location before announcing it, so that Winter I
headed out to the park to check the group sites. Unfortunately, that
part of the park was closed, so I had to hike in through a foot of
snow. As it was a few miles to hit each group area, out in the closed
part of the park, with dusk settling, I noticed the wolf or coyote
prints. That was more excitement than I had planned on, so we were
thrilled at how well the site worked for the first campout!

By the way, there is a logo that precedes the one on the history page.
Ken Braband may still have a copy of it, he had very early on
established a Yahoo Group for the WGA organization prior to our website,
and he edited a photograph of Mount Rushmore, replacing the faces with
the WGA Founding Father’s faces. Just a side note, Arn & I were part of
the founders of the WGA, you will find at least my face on the doctored
image. We were not part of the Pike Lake organizers, but we were at that
event and part of the organizers from that day on. As was stated, Pike
Lake was pre-WGA.

Anyway, enough rambling down memory lane. Please forward a copy of this
to John Sudar, we would like him to know how much we appreciate his
thorough and accurate work!
And thanks to yourself, the current board, and all the boards after we
retired for the great job of sustaining, promoting, strengthening and
growing the WGA!

Sincerely, Alan & Arlene Fiebig (aka CacheCows and Dustpuppy)”