TEXAS CHALLENGE MEGA VISIT by LostCheq
On March 12, 2016, the Brenham/Washington County Chamber and Visitor Center in conjunction with the South East Texas Region of the Texas Geocaching Society (TXGA) wanted geocachers from around the world to come and enjoy their hospitality at the 14th Annual TXGA Texas Challenge and Geocaching Festival MEGA event(s).
Since 2002, the TXGA Texas Challenge has pitted regional teams from around Texas and Out-of-State teams in a fun intense geocaching competition. However this year there were 8 events and many activities to creative a Festival for non-competitive participants as well as competitors.
Since Wisconsin is part of the world, I hauled home from the March 5th WGA Annual Meeting in Wausau, headed to Duluth, MN the next day to join Racecarchick, and left the following day on March 7th for the road trip to Texas. As non-competitors, the Texas Challenge was a destination, but not to be in the fierce competition. It wasn’t too easy to find out information about how the competition part was conducted, so it was best we observe and learn first before considering taking on those “Texsans!”
It was enough of a challenge to drive there and back, because we just had to stop and find at least 10 caches per state, 2 webcams (Iowa, Oklahoma), 5 oldest active state caches (Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana), many historic virtuals in Austin, challenges in Iowa, and we spent 3 days at Brenham, TX for the Challenge Festival. We also choose to stay an extra 2 days in Branson, Mo due to the winter storm flooding Duluth, Minnesota and the South Shore of Wisconsin for our return home (NOT a hardship!!) Another challenge we had was a broken Wi-Fi connection at the hotel we stayed at! DEFINITELY a Challenge!
We were extremely impressed by the cooperation of the Brenham/Washington County Chamber and Visitor Center with the Texas Geocaching Society. They truly gave us all a warm welcome as evidenced by their promotion of the very first official GeoTour in Texas – a 38-stage trail encompassing all of Washington County! By collecting points by caching, eating, sleeping and shopping throughout the county – 25 or more points gets you a beautiful collectible geocoin! While we went about Washington County finding the MEGA event Lab caches, we were able to find the caches for earning the Geocoin!
We learned the Texas Challenge Event is quite the competition among the 4 quadrants of Texas. The Northeast Region has had several recent wins and they appeared to be the team to beat! Teams search for as many caches as they can all find in 4 hours. Each cache has a special punch for each individual team member’s card. Scores are tabulated and the winners receive “The Golden Ammo Can.” Unfortunately their newly developed software program to tabulate the results failed without a back-up and results were ready at 2 AM Sunday morning. The results were announced late at the Breakfast Event with standing-room-only at the restaurant.
Although this MEGA wasn’t as large as the West Bend Cache Ba$h, they offered many meet and greet opportunities to “cache talk with other like-minded people.” The many Texas cachers we met were certainly surprised we traveled so far to attend the events. However, there were at least 4 Swiss cachers who made the journey across the big pond to attend. This MEGA was a trackable paradise. I did observe about every other vehicle in the lot had a trackable and many cachers were wearing trackable nametags or shirts. Heck, even the Texas Challenge Banners had trackable numbers.
We blended in with our new Texas Challenge shirts and activated new geocoins. And trust me the Texans put out some Huge Geocoins! See how small the pathtag appears next to the geocoin!
After 3700 miles, it was nice to be back Up North. Overall it was a great trip to experience a new MEGA event(s), enjoy caching without snow, and soaking up “Spring in the South!” Even the spring peppers greeted us. As many said to us, “Ya’ll Come Back Now!” Perhaps, I will again, but for a longer time. One could be spoiled by warm weather in March and an abundance of new caches to find and cachers to meet.
