Another New State Challenge Cache

[BakRdz]

For those who have been following the “WRR Recruitment” thread, this probably isn’t news, but for those who are interested there is a new statewide challenge cache…

The Wisconsin Rustic Roads Challenge.

I know there are a few people watching it. Be interesting to hear how close anyone is to qualifying. My money is on Zuma being the closest…

[nunsontherun]

How to tell if someone is working the Rustic Roads Challenge:

After our first weekend doing a few RR–we have one bee sting, a case of poison ivy and legs shredded by raspberry bushes. Okay–so we’re learning “what not to wear”. Enjoying the fun and ready to go again!

[sandlanders]

Yeah, sorry to zuma for messing up WRR 104 for him. Can’t check on our Rustic Roads caches as easily as our others (plus we were on vacation at that time), but we’ll be getting to it within the week. Being a WRR cache owner takes on added importance now that this challenge is out there.

And poison ivy is definitely a problem along a lot of the rustic roads!

[zuma]

@BakRdz wrote:

For those who have been following the “WRR Recruitment” thread, this probably isn’t news, but for those who are interested there is a new statewide challenge cache…

The Wisconsin Rustic Roads Challenge.

I know there are a few people watching it. Be interesting to hear how close anyone is to qualifying. My money is on Zuma being the closest…

And you would have won that bet. For those interested, this was a fun challenge, and I highly reccomend it. Here is my log for the challenge:

Nothing better than a fun challenge cache, so I was pretty happy to see this cache come out. I had about 14 of the required caches when the challenge came out. plus quite a few WRR caches that were not needed for the challenge.

The first one that I got after the challenge came out was WRR 51, on July 24, which turned out to be one of my favorite rustic roads. This one is near the Great River Road, an area that I have visited often, but have never had occasion to go down. Awesome cool rustic road, and truly rustic, unlike some of the other roads that the states designates as rustic. Very interesting that they dont use culverts for the little creeks, and just let the water run over the road, and hope that you can ford the river without getting stuck.

The next day, I headed up to Amery to cache, and got WRR 28 while up there. Another nice road, in an area that I have often visited.

I was pretty much able to finish the challenge without making more than one special trip to fill the requirements, just by paying attention to where I was going anyway, and which WRRs I still needed were available in that area. On July 31, I went down to the WGA CITO event in Gibraltar, and stopped and got WRR49 on the way. That was an interesting road, tucked in between the Wisconsin river marsh.

The following Saturday brought another WGA CITO event, this time way up north in Barnes. I detoured over to WRR 80 on the way home. That took me to an area of fancy resorts and lake homes, a paved road near the lake with lots of Audis and Lexus type cars with MN plates.

About that time I looked at what I had still needed,and at caches already found. I had figured that I could get the 2 WRRs in the 30s while visiting West Bend, but then I noticed that I had already found quite a few caches over the years along WRR roads designated as the 30s. In fact, one of them was I Have Seen The Light!, one of my favorite caches in Door County near the Cana Island Lighthouse, and right on WRR 38. I also had several caches found already along WRR 32 in Marinette County, so that left just 3 more numbers to fill to meet the challenge requirements.

The toughest of the numbers ot get is the 90s, at least right now, because there are only 3 caches out right at this point. I already had 91 from visiting there last fall, but the other 2 were a long ways off. And I also neeed one in the 100s, but had a lot of choices there to fill in that one.

On August 9th, I found myself with a full day without work or baby tending requirements, and decided that would be the best day to make the trip to get the other 90 cache. It was a very hot day, too hot to cache if you were taking long walks, but fine for a drive in the country grabbing PNGs. So, I made the 3 hour trip down to WRR 96, and was glad that it was easy peasy, since the only alternative is a very long ways away. Then, I headed north to get the one in the 100s, and had a great drive in the country grabbing PNGs along the way.

I was expecting WRR 104 to be easy peasy too, so took my time getting there, grabbing a bunch of caches along the way. However, the Sandlanders are way to tricky for me. Here is my log for the DNF at WRR 104:

###

A truly painful DNF here. Saw the obvious beacon before I was even out of the car, looked in the spot where I would have hidden it. Nope, not there, tried a few more places. Checked the hint, yep, the hint suggests the exact place where I would have hidden it, the place where it ‘should” be. Looked again, Dug out some sand. Looked again. Hmmmmm. Those darn Sandlanders!

Well sometimes if ya jump to conclusions, you land in the wrong spot, so thinking about that I decided to try looking in every other possible spot within a reasonable distance. Still no find. Man it is hot out here. Went back to the “right” spot, and removed some more sand. Considered my options.

Finally decided I had no other option, but to DNF this one, and curse the Sandlanders when I see them next. Thought a bit about abandoning the quest to finish the WRR Challenge, but then I remembered the words of Master Yoda:

“There… is… another… “

###

Anyway, I had a back up plan loaded, but it was 25 miles out of the way, and it was getting on towards the end of the day, so I was not sure if I would get there before dark, or if I would be able to find it. As it turned out, WRR 102 was a quick find, so no worries.

That left just one more, but I knew WRR 73 had just come out, and was pretty much on my way to the West Bend Cash Bash, like the final, so I decided to get 73 and the final on the way to West Bend.

As to the final, I stopped here on the way to West Bend, enjoyed the short walk down the trail, with KSpud and Team Honeybunnies along for the ride as observors and the quick find on a trail that I have previously visited. Dropped in 2 jeeps to sweeten the pot for those who also decide to work on this cool challenge.

Thanks for the great challenge. Keep On Cachin In The Free World.

[zuma]

@sandlanders wrote:

Yeah, sorry to zuma for messing up WRR 104 for him. Can’t check on our Rustic Roads caches as easily as our others (plus we were on vacation at that time), but we’ll be getting to it within the week. Being a WRR cache owner takes on added importance now that this challenge is out there.

And poison ivy is definitely a problem along a lot of the rustic roads!

Darn Sandlanders!!!!

z

[cheezehead]

@zuma wrote:

@sandlanders wrote:

Yeah, sorry to zuma for messing up WRR 104 for him. Can’t check on our Rustic Roads caches as easily as our others (plus we were on vacation at that time), but we’ll be getting to it within the week. Being a WRR cache owner takes on added importance now that this challenge is out there.

And poison ivy is definitely a problem along a lot of the rustic roads!

Darn Sandlanders!!!!

z

Well lookie there! Someone other than Cheezehead getting DARNED!

I guess I really, really need to ge them caches out.

[zuma]

Congrats to Sloughfoot!!!!

Location: Wisconsin, United States
sloughfoot found Wisconsin Rustic Road Challenge (Unknown Cache) at 8/29/2010

Log Date: 8/29/2010
2nd To Find isn’t bad on this kind of a challenge. When the challenge came out we only had 5 of the WRR caches so we started plotting and picking them up whenever we nade a run. We were going to visit friends in the U.P. so one day we left Portage and headed up north via Black River Falls direction. That got us one of the required in the Southwest section of the state and several more in the Northwest quadrant. We also had a funeral in southern Illinois a week ago so on the way back north from that we found several in the counties along the border. Unfortunately I had forgot to load the Palm Pilot so we didn’t have any cache listings, hints or finder logs and we had 5 DNF’s out of 9 attempts. We still needed two “nineties” so one day last week we made a ninety run and got 96 in Dane County and 99 in Grant County at the Potosi Beer Garden. We were glad for that as the next closest ninety was north on LaCrosse.

Today we left Portage needing 5 caches and could get them all down in Rock,Walworth,Racine and Kenosha. It was a good plan except we DNF’d 2 of them and needed to go north to FDL couny for 82 and Waushara county for 48. We found both of them and were fully qualified and only 13 miles from the Final. We went for the final off of Rural Rd and found it quickly as we were chased by the mosquitos.

We always enjoy a chance to stir the state and appreciate everyones efforts to get the caches renamed so the listings made sense and thanks to BakRdz for putting the challenge together.

The WRR’s that we used were 1,2,11,12,14,22,29,35,36,48,49,53,54,60,69,73,76,82,86,96,99,102&104
There are a minimum of two from each quadrant of the state.
Thanks again

[sandlanders]

Congrats to sloughfoot on rising to the “challenge”, but a big “thank you” to that team for checking on and replacing the missing container at WRR 104 for us.
Now you can go back to look for that one, zuma, and maybe quit cursing us now? 😉

[BakRdz]

I didn’t get the chance to send out STF congrats before I left on vacation, so thanks Zuma! Another great log describing the travels along the roads less traveled.

[sandlanders]

We keep getting the nicest logs on our four WRR caches. Everyone seem to love being led down these scenic out-of-the-way thoroughfares to find the geocaches there. They make all sorts of discoveries while on the rustic roads. Great idea of yours, BakRdz!

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