Where are they now?

WalkingAdventure

(by rawevil)

In the last couple of articles, we heard about guinea pigs. And to this day, for the life of me, I cannot get this cacher’s encounter with guinea pigs out of my head. It’s nearly impossible to get an article from this WGA legend:

Yes, Mr. Chris Walker (aka WalkingAdventure himself). I first met WA at Pike Lake State Park when the WGA BOD had a WGA informational booth set up when the WDNR held one of their free weekends. That was the very first time I volunteered to help out as a member of the Wisconsin Geocaching Association.

Chris began caching 06-13-2005. He was elected to the WGA Board of Directors in February of 2013 after attending his first WGA Event held at High Cliff in 2009. After his first year on the BOD, he was elected as President for the next three years. I was proud to have served with him in his last year. He was (and still is) a very good teacher. There were a few things I learned from him while serving the WGA community as a whole is that we are just that, a community. There is no I, there is us and we serve the entire state. He also taught me that a good teacher will lead you to the answers and not give them. That was when I learned abut the importance of the WGA website and all of the information I would ever need is right there as long as it was documented.

The last thing I learned was to face a few of my fears; especially public speaking. I believe, with his help I have mostly overcome that. I still get nervous, but the nervous isn’t so bad now. SO for that WA, thank you! So, what is he up to now since not being on the BOD? Here is what he has to say:

“Since the end of my last term in 2016 as your president of the WGA, I’ve been spending my time doing pretty much the same as I did when I was on the BOD. 

I enjoy planning and hosting geoevents such as the Trail of the Serpent kayaking event a couple of years ago as well as the annual Winter Solstice event held every mid- December, where we publish 20ish caches for the event and bring cachers from across the state for some outdoor time and socializing.

My favorite event so far has been the Fox Valley Road Rally, which I put on with several local friends. This is a mix of geocaching and a scavenger hunt, allowing us to come up with unique and exciting activities that are outside the normal rules of caching and allow us to highlight the local unique places within our communities. Look for this event to hit the Fox Valley next in Summer 2021. This is a blatant rip-off/homage of the Waukesha Road Rally that my good friend chevyole hosts this year in October and we take turns hosting in each location every other year. 

The rest of my time is spent brewing beer, making poor (but exciting) decisions in the Jeep while off-roading, and traveling with my wife, Keri as much as we can. Life is good and exciting. Take in as much as you can.

If you are passionate about geocaching and creating fun for other geocachers, I suggest you consider running for a spot on the WGA BOD. I’ve met so many great people across the state, making new friends, and seeing such fun sights, I feel everyone should take a term. What you will learn about your state, others and yourself will change your life in a good way.”

I want to thank WalkingAdventure for all of the caches and events he has put out/on over the years. I’d also like to thank him for the two terms he spent on the WGA BOD. Did I promise there was a guinea pig connection here? Yes, I did . . . I learned to ramble from him as well. He does it much better than I do 😉. One of the best logs I have ever read on a cache was one of his while attempting Ninth Street Boat Launch Rev.3 (https://coord.info/GC361DJ). The log:

“Off to finally look at this one after all the years ignoring it. Parked nearby and wandered over to WP1 which was found within moments. Walked to WP 2 and pondered things a bit then noticed somethings furry.

Squirrel? Rabbits? No, there were Guinea Pigs! 4 Guinea pigs were shivering nearby with 1 off to the side. I chased the loner back to the group of 3 but it then bolted for the nearby bushes. There I found 3 more guinea pigs so I was glad this one was a runner. Called the City Police (is it Fox Crossing or Menasha I didn’t know but we were closer to Menasha so they won). Community Service officer arrives and we grab a net and a kennel. 2 passers-by help rustle up the little fellas and we double checked to make sure none were left behind. Looks like the 3 big ones and the 4 little ones were all there were. I will add the photos of the adventure.

Off everyone goes, the gp’s were waving from the warm vehicle- off to the FVHA for them and a new, caring family. Want to adopt them, give the Humane Association a call.

Back to the cache. I didn’t have what I needed so I thought it out and decided to check a couple of places. BAM, hit paydirt on the 3rd spot. Signed the log, reflected on the adventure and then headed out. 45 minutes here was well spent.

Photos 1 and 2 were when I decided to wrangle them before the officer got there. He was a runner! #3 was off to the side and we wouldn’t had seen them if there wasn’t the runner. #4 is all the family back together, huddling for warmth.”

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Thank you WalkingAdventure. The man, the myth, the legend! And, if you want a personal recommendation for one of his caches, I would highly recommend Faldi (https://coord.info/GC2JF94). I will never forget solving this puzzle being soaked with the remnants of snow while sitting in Applebee’s in Neenah in 2014 when all of a sudden the solve came to me and I couldn’t get the check fast enough. Now . . . I have to figure how to tie my next article into these last four . . .

Where are they now?

seldom|seen

(by rawevil)

And the series goes on with another cacher a few of us have come to either be entirely frustrated by, or elated, once you find one of his caches. It took a bit of prodding to get this article but sometimes the tenacious rawevil can get the job done. Sometimes . . . 

I talked about the Land of Selzzup in Sagasu’s feature article, but this is the granddaddy of them all in the Fox Valley. The one and only seldom|seen. And dangnammit if I always have to look at the keyboard to find that special character in his caching name! Personally, I thought this was much easier:

seldom|seen joined the geocaching community on 10-17-2006. We all have someone that gets us into this hobby and here’s a little known fact from the great puzzler himself:

“It was really Team QWERTY that introduced me to the sport, I think knowing I was bound to do something more with it [than] the traditional hide and seek. On our first outing we located a few simple traditionals and I remember asking him “that’s it?” You see I had worked with GPS equipment as far back as the late 80s for my Remote Sensing major and there was little novelty for me in using GPS [coords] to find things. Then he showed me I Have An Idea! GCRV5Y and the light bulb went on, literally. I don’t think he anticipated quite how much time or energy I would invest in the sport or how prolific I was going to be in the early years but he knew instinctively that I was going to become integral to the local geocaching scene. Now everyone knows who to blame :)”

This puzzler has only 1,008 caches found, 214 caches hidden, and 1,176 favorite points on his hidden caches. With 142 mystery caches and Sagasu as his guinea pig on those, this is what he had to say:

“Well, there’s certainly some truth to Sagasu being a Guinea Pig in the early years, especially during his Pavlovian FTF-chasing phase. Anyone who attempted an FTF or STF on one of my early caches faced certain frustration with coordinate accuracy and, more often [than] not, a puzzle build error that I missed or hadn’t quite worked the kinks out on. For the first few years I didn’t own a GPS unit and was building cache puzzles with [coords] from Terrabrowser using aerial spotting of finals which was less than accurate, shall we say. That, coupled with the complexity of some of the puzzle builds and typical proximity issues I found myself of working around, lent a certain degree of labrat testing to the chase. 

Thankfully, over time, cachers like Sagasu, HuffinPuffin2, -cheeto-, gottarun and the like came to understand that this came with the territory and realized that the content and experience of going after an S|S cache was worth the occasional headache and helped me fix and soften the edges for fellow cachers as more puzzles emerged.”

Egads! What has this man created in the Fox Valley besides the Nadar | Head Case series? I can tell you a bit about that. He has held CITO events in High Cliff State Park, many of which I was a part of after joining the geocaching community. He is very into the environment and I appreciate that a lot. If anyone ever wants to debate his 5/5 CITO come at me; I was there. Been there and done that and I have the pictures to prove (https://coord.info/GC6CGPX) as do the others who were there that day.

So where is he now? I’ll let him tell you in his own words:

“It’s amazing to me that most of my caches are still active and still getting traction after a decade and a half. These days I am several steps removed from the sport and trying my best to stay on top of maintenance, though I am increasingly relying on active cachers to lend a hand if they see one missing or a wet log sheet that needs replacing.

These days my free time is spent on other community-based endeavors like championing the local public arts though the non-profit Sculpture Valley and working on local environmental and social policy issues as Alderman for District 9.

As any geocachers knows, our awareness of place and comprehension of local history grows with every cache discovery and I cannot tell you how many times a discussion about arts placement or parks improvement funding was informed as a result of my experiences chasing the many great caches in the Fox Valley and throughout the state of Wisconsin. I only wish I have more time to do more of it to continue building on the rich education this simple sport has given me. Cache On!”

I want to thank seldom|seen for all of the fun (well sometimes not) times I’ve tried solving his puzzles. Like Sagasu, one of his caches was very trying for us. It’s rated as a 5/5, and rightly so. I would highly recommend going after it if you have the courage: Seldom Seen’s Sloppy Seconds (https://coord.info/GC1G6D2) if you haven’t found it already. Also, back in 2018, he asked us if we would adopt one of his caches. If it wasn’t about the history of Oshkosh and a request from the man himself, it probably wouldn’t have happened. That caches is: War & Peace | Chief OisCoss (https://coord.info/GC67F6Y) if you are ever in the area. Thank you seldom|seen. The man, the myth, the legend! 

Where are they now?

Sagasu
(by rawevil)

Since I started with labrat_wr, it’s only fair to go onto David Lovejoy (aka Sagasu). You see, there’s a family connection there. Most people don’t know that. However, once you become intertwined within the Wisconsin geocaching community you learn things about people that make you go hmmmmm . . . He has never served on the WGA BOD, but he’s definitely a legend in Wisconsin, especially the Fox Valley.

Sagasu joined the geocaching community 12-26-2006. I have it on good word that it was labrat_wr that introduced him to this great hobby. Sagasu is a bit of a puzzle as are his caches. Good luck ever meeting him. He’s the real Sasquatch just like some of his named caches. Check out his milestones:
Cache Milestones:

100: “Real Gone|Dead and Lovely” 2/17/2007

200: “Dr Jekyll & Mr Heid” 3/18/2007

300: “Gotcha Caching” 4/8/2007

400: “Grand Chute’s Wild Side” 5/12/2007

500: “Moonlighting for Cache” 6/9/2007

600: “usa gaS reaches $6.00” 7/5/2007

666: “Flying Fury” 7/21/2007

700: “Head Case” 7/29/2007

800: “Houdini Caching Tour” 8/28/2007

900: “Another Appleton Park in Cacalin” 9/14/2007

1000: “Walking On Velvet Green” 10/7/2007

1100: “No Rookies” 10/28/2007

1111: “Ashwaubomay’s “brave” history” 10/28/2007

1200: “End of The Line|Berlin” 11/24/2007

1300: “Pace Yourself, Again!” 12/26/2007

1400: “Simon sAys: GeocAchers Search aroUnd” 2/15/2008

1500: “Wooly Ceramicist” 3/21/2008

1600: “French Creek : Kelly’s Island” 4/18/2008

1700: “I Know An Artesian, Well” 5/23/2008

1800: “Barking At The Moon” (Michigan) 6/27/2008

1900: “Laughing Waters|You’re Outta Here” 7/31/2008

2000: “Waterworks|Gaged Fox” 8/28/2008

2100: “A Triangle of LOVE, JOY!” 10/2/2008

2200: “Wisconsin Spirit Quest – Pine Hill Cemetery 10/31/2008

2222: “The Quest For The Holy Cache” 11/14/2008

2300: “WSQ 928 All My Children” 2/20/2009

2400: “Iconoclast | Fairey Revolutionary” 5/2/2009

2500: “RAC: Bushwhack! (Five Points)” 6/27/2009

2600: “Easy As Pi?” 8/15/2009

2700: “A Hobbit’s Trail: The Lair of Smaug” (Minnesota) 10/11/2009

2800: “Swan Lake: Trail of the Serpent” 11/28/2009

2900: “Flat Jack Goes To The Park” 3/6/2010

3000: “The Old Man | Gets All Strung Out” 5/15/2010

3100: “The Beacon” 8/12/2010

3200: “Santa’s List” 12/16/2010 & “Remember The Nimmo” logged as #3199

3300: “Hand to Mouth- Solanum Melongena” 4/29/2011

3333: “Trillium Trail” 5/14/2011

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Consecutive Days Logging a Find: 205 from 1/28/2007 to 8/20/2007
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Wisconsin Lonely Cache Game: First Place, January, 2008
Wisconsin Lonely Cache Game: First Place, February, 2008
Wisconsin Lonely Cache Game: First Place, May, 2008
Wisconsin Lonely Cache Game: First Place for 2008
Wisconsin Lonely Cache Game: Second Place for 2009
Wisconsin Lonely Cache Game: Cumulative First Place for 2008 and 2009
Wisconsin Lonely Cache Game: Fourth Place for 2010
Wisconsin Lonely Cache Game: Cumulative First Place for 2008 – 2010

Did you happen to catch the WGA Lonely Cache Game finds? If you’re not familiar with the WGA LCG, check out this link: https://www.wi-geocaching.com/wga-lonely-cache-game/?_tab=map. This year the WGA has recruited a couple of WGA members to be on the task force of the game. There has been more lonely cache finders this year than what’s been seen in the not so distant past. This legend was one of the original players.

And this is a unique bit of information that I was able to come across. Did you know that Sagasu was seldomIseen’s “guinea pig for several years”? It doesn’t actually surprise me too much knowing that they are both from the Land of Selzzup. And, I was this many years old when I found out that Selzzup is actually puzzles spelled backwards (insert face palm here). Thank you Walkingadventure! Sagasu says that seldomIseen was (and still is IMHO) “one of the most imaginative and creative nightmares for solving puzzles and hides”.

So where is he now? I’ll let him tell you in his own words:

“Still working full time nights and wearing a face mask in warm weather – not a lot of fun. Weekdays are real hard to do much other than a full schedule and home life, and I used up too much time last weekend tweaking most of Wander in the Woods, and then spending three hours redoing Sasquatch Search because hunters had used part of my reflector course and then split off their own tack trail with a lot of bright reflectors. So I moved the start and found enough open woods to redo the tack trail. It took a couple days to recover from far more than I had expected out in the marshes Saturday night. But, all the night caches have now been refreshed, and few of our other caches have needed much as I continue to work on durable, long lasting, and often tethered hides or waypoints.
 

Your general question got me to thinking a lot about the first time I was persuaded to go look for a cache by Pete. I remember that Giz hide well. Went back several times to see where it moved around to. Then Dan and I begin to check out the caches around home. I remember them all, and
the fun we had discovering so many new and imaginative hides, along with some dumb ones. I haven’t been able to reminisce too much yet, but a flood of memories of special places, real inspiring hides, and some great personalities along the way. I hope someday to return to more of the camaraderie that I miss so much along with the active caching. Wonderful memories.”

I want to thank David Lovejoy (aka Sagasu) for all of the fun (well sometimes not) times I’ve tried solving his puzzles. One of his caches was the HARDEST caches I have ever done. It’s rated as a 5/5, and rightly so. I would highly recommend going after it if you have the courage:
Sagasu’s Sinister Semantic Search (https://coord.info/GC182D3) if you haven’t found it already. Thank you Sagasu. The man, the myth, the legend!

P.S. There were Jeep trackables in that cache. The first ever partnership that Geocaching had with a corporation. If you don’t believe me, take the 20-year quiz that HQ put out recently. We kept the Jeeps for discovery at our Halloween event which we then put them in the capable hands of Walkingadventure.

If you are wondering about WGA Legends Series #1 – please see the WGA Summer Newsletter!