Year in review – and a look to the next.

[GetMeOutdoors]

Well, the year is over and a new one begins. How’d everybody do last year? What were your highlights? What do you hope to accomplish? Looking for a numbers goal? Trying to meet more cachers? Looking to see new places?

I’m really happy about this last year. I had a number goal set which I blew past and then set a couple new goals. I never dreamed I’d have 570 finds in 1 year. I doubled my overall finds per day average and I cached 46% more days than last year.

But numbers aside, I have to say that my best day as far as fun and fondness goes is the day trip I took solo to EauClaire. It was just me, my car, my bike, and a plan. I started in Lowes Creek park and biked to the remaining caches I had there (that was a blast in of itself, what a super place for biking!) Then from there I worked my way around town, doing some more biking on the great trails the town has to offer (including the cliff trails and the state trails). I didn’t get home that night ’til almost midnight.

I also had a good time going with my family down to Devil’s Lake for some camping. We cached there and along the way and though there wasn’t a cornucopia of caches that weekend, it was still alot of fun. Bayfiled area was another nice place we cached together out of town.

I had a great time at the Bjornson event meeting new cachers and caching with familiar buddies, Team Black Cat, lil van man, and DaleVC. Speaking of which, TBC and I had some great trips ourselves this year. Losing keys in the snow, falling through the ice (just one leg), walking through freezing winds, climbing down into pits, wading through hip deep snow-water (Thanks, Mathman 😉 ), biking the Woodville bike powertrail, caching by moonlight, finding rusty refrigerators, and all sort of other caching fun. (Here’s to 2009, B!)

And of coure, I can’t forget the trip with our youth group out to Oregon where I got to cache at stops along the way and out in the Eugene area. That was my first real road trip where I got to cache. Had a GREAT time out there and finding a cache on the Pacific Ocean!

The non-event gathering in January was a fun time and was the first chance I had to meet many area cachers including BaileyHK, Bandits, OnePaddleShort, Mathman, Knoozerx2Zer, The 007s, Timberline Echos, and Team Honeybunnies. It was also the first time I stole a logbook (accidentally).

I enjoyed Bailey’s series – Kung Hei Fat Choy. I started the spring out with the Leather camp and twilight zoner series. That was a gorgeous spring day of biking! Also enjoyed the TOTK series. by PBnJareWe, and also their “wear the kids out” series in Merill. Mathman’s puzzle caches by the Dam were a good time – had lots of FTF parties out there! Also the CCS series – great paddling. I also visited more artesian wells that I ever care to see in 1 year again. Lil Van Man’s MCP series was a blast too. Especially the final!

I celebrated my 30th Bday with “GetMeOutdoors Turns 30” – GC1A4JT. My #300 milestone (one I’ll remember for a LONG time) was Don’t Look Down – GCYAF1. I also finally completed the 3 bad ribs! – GC112D, one I had my eye on for over a year!

I had a great time hiding the Legend Of Mission Lake series with TBC. It was fun getting to know the park and it’s billion little ticky inhabitants. The Mixed Bag chache series was a great time too. Especially ambushing the FTFers at the Final – Dale should never have called me just as I was leaving GZ.

There are just a thousand great memories, each of which I won’t bore you with further… but I say all that to say that I’m thankful for the great year with friends and family and a big thanks to all of you out there who had a part in it. I’ve been glad to meet many of you and hope to meet more. Caching has been an awesome hobby and I am totally hooked ;-). I’ve seen places and met people I never would have otherwise.

In this coming year I hope to focus on visiting some places that have been on my radar for a while – Appleton (especially SSSS and SS|SS), Green Bay, Door County, and maybe even a longer trip or 2. Plus I hope to meet new friends out on the trail. Might even be able to knock out a few more of those delorme pages 😉 I don’t really have any number goals other than I want to have at least 50 caches in a day. Then bump that up to 75. Can I get 100? That would be a dream come true! I’ll have to take lessons from Zuma. (Speaking of which, I still haven’t met Ralph. Another 2009 goal!) I should add Trekin’ and Birdin’ to that list too… especially since I was only moments behind them up in Bayfield one day.

THANKS, EVERYBODY! See you out there, Happy caching in 2009!

[marc_54140]

For a minute there I thought it was going to be a Trudy and the Beast review!

Well, Ray, want to predict anything for 2009?

My 2008 was a good year.

I went over 500 in both puzzles and multis. Took a fair number of Tours around the state to achieve those numbers.

Overall, went over 6000, but who’s counting?

My birthday is next week, and being invited to a birthday party on Sunday, I discovered I had been the wrong age all of 2008! Well, it really doesn’t matter.

MWGB is on the agenda for 2009. It will be in Ohio this year, and far enough east of Kendalville to open up new areas for caching.

I’m sure there will be some other odds and ends in trips. They usually are fairly serendipitous, and are planned only a few days in advance.

One however, will probably be to Escanaba. Team B Squared has thrown down the gauntlet, and challenged me to ‘their’ puzzle cluster. So, I’m been working on them……..

[Crockett3663]

Being that this will be only our 2nd year caching, I’m not going to set a lot of lofty goals for myself or our caching family. Right now we’re sitting at 23 finds, and have yet to place our first cache. My son and I are already planning our first cache placement. I’ve been thinking about it for sometime, and scouted out locations back in October. Hopefully we’ll be putting it together and placing it around April 1st.

As for finds, I’d like to get to #100 before the end of the year. I know for some people that seems like a pretty easy mark to hit, but when you understand that I/we don’t get out quite as often as so many of you do, you’ll see why I believe getting to 100 is quite a goal.

One thing I’m excited about is meeting and caching with others out there. I just found out last week that a new family has joined our church, and they are avid cachers. Also, they have a son who’s roughly the same age as my own, so I’m hoping to introduce myself and my son and suggest that we all go out together a few times this summer.

Other than that, just getting out for some excercise and seeing some different areas of the state sounds really appealing to me.

[-cheeto-]

In 2008, I learned that I am more of a “collector” than a “numbers guy”. I like to collect things and I like to log the accounts along the way.

The numbers:
311 Finds, 16 of those were FTF’s
60 dnf’s
6 Events Attended, 1 was hosted/owned by me
28 Caches Placed (of which 5 were subsequently archived in 2008 )

The Chronological Caching Highlights of 2008:
– In early January I went a business trip to Plano, TX. Dnfed 3 caches in Texas and found out that caches in Wisconsin are much better maintained and in much better locations than in other parts of the country
– In March I won the Lonely Cache Game (LCG) for the month with 34 “reports” and 265.5 points scored in the month.
– I also found a couple of my all-time favorite caches in March:
– GC12FFY – Old Man Takes Shelter – Hand’s down my favorite caching “experience” to-date.
– GC14WJJ – Espagueti Occidentales – The toughest puzzle cache I have ever solved.
– Towards the end of March, my family had a Winter Getaway at the Tundra Lodge Resort in Greenbay and we visited Lambeau Field and found a few caches along the way.
– April 19th I hosted a CITO Event in Appleton in Jones Park, my first attempt at hosting an event. 29 people helped clean up the park that day. It was really overwhelming to see everyone cleaning up the park and the impact we had.
– At the end of April I had my Gall Bladder removed. The doctor left a piece of surgical equipment in me that I still carry around with me today. A TB I picked up while finding GC1B4ZH helped keep me company while I was in the hospital.
– In May, around the time of my Birthday my son (little cheeto) and I went on a fishing and caching trip driving to our usual getaway locale (Adams County). I got to meet labrat_wr on this trip and also hunt one of his caches GC16CJD, where 50+ mph severe storm winds blew us clear out of the park! When we got back near home we stopped and fished in Neenah and little cheeto pulled in a whopper of a bass.
– At the end of May, I traveled to Chicago on business and cached there and back. I visited Al Capone’s grave at GC26C4 and I also got followed by some creepy pervert who thought I wanted some “action” while hunting a pair of caches in the Bemis woods. I also found GC137FG the RAID series of caches which is a great high-quality cache series and also my inspiration for the “In a Rut” cache series that I placed in June, which was my first experience with working with both the park and rec dept and with a subdivision homeowner’s association to get cache placement approval.
– In June, my entire family got eaten alive while hunting Sagasu’s night cache GC1BW8D. We managed to find our way in and back and it only took a few days to rebuild the blood cells.
– In July, Hemi (Jim of Team Hemisphere Dancer) and I met during the 4th of July fireworks show (put on by none other than Team Bear Bear) and planned our attempt at the 5-star terrain GC16W5J – Oasis in Menasha. What would be my first 5-star terrain and my 600th milestone cache find. We embarked into choppy Lake Winnebago waters and managed to tip the canoe just after swinging around the Island. Everything onboad enjoyed a swim including my digital camera and cell phone. Ended up with a new cell phone…
– In August my family visited relatives in Spring Grove Illinois near GC159XA and spent the weekend swimming in their pool.
– In October I found my first Letterbox Hybrid GC1HJR7. My entire family also attended JimandLinda’s event in Fondulac which was my milestone #700 cache and before getting to the event we visited Zuma’s Lighthouse Yellowstone Trail cache GCR092 which was really the highlight of the day for us.
– November was quiet and I almost didn’t even find any caches in December the snowiest Month ever on record for Appleton.

Looking ahead to 2009, my goals:
– I want to use our camper more. We purchased a pop-up in 08 and didn’t use it all that much.
– I hope I can attend a WGA event and attend as many geocaching events as I can.
– I am going to archive some of my caches and hide some new better quality caches and hope to stay on top of cache owner maintenance better than I did in 08.
– I hope to find more Earthcaches in 2009 as this is an area of caching I would like to explore more of.
– Number goal is obvious, to find my 1,000th.
– Host a bigger and better Appleton CITO event and not have to pay as much out of my own pocket to make it happen.
– Win another month on the LCG.
– Beat Sagasu Dave whenever possible and on whatever I can. He loves the competition.
– And most importantly Meet more Geocachers!

[sandlanders]

Let’s see . . . Maybe hit #500 by the end of the year? (at 245 now) 😀

Definitely meet some other cachers. 8)

Organize all our ideas for caches into a few more placements. 💡

Reach a middle ground with my spouse/caching partner on how much caching is too much (or not enough) caching. 😆

Keep our feet dry. 😉

Not lose anything more. 😳

OK . . . clean the house, lose weight, be a better person, yada, yada, yada. 🙄

Highlights of 2008? Practically every find! 🙂 (Don’t like those DNFs! 🙁 )

[baileyhk]

Cool idea – I had no idea until a second ago that I had found more than 200 caches in 2008. Of course that now makes me want to top that this year!!

It continues to be a huge blast caching and my only problem is that I don’t have more time to cache!! Fun stuff last year includes:

1. GMO’s MBGS – they were all fantastic hides.. very original and yes the final was definitely one to remember 😀

2. All the kayak caches – finally got a kayak and had a fantastic time going up and down the Eau Claire, on Lake Wausau, out to find TT#1. Can’t wait to do the Knoozer x 2xer and Rick Blick ones this year

3. The scrapes I got into – having my car towed this time last year after inadvertently driving down a snowmobile trail (3 miles down, cell phone on low battery.. oops), locking my baby daughter in the car, along with the keys, while searching for the wood pile #2, oh and the little bump my car got after leaving Rib River park. You have got to laugh!!!

4. Overseas caching – was lucky enough to find caches in UK and Malta last year, as well as Nevada and IL. Looking forward to cleaning out HK in March and plenty of other states later on this year.

5. Meeting a ton of people while out caching – the FTF parties, skeleton key cache, flash mob.. all great fun!

6. Improving my puzzle solving skills – finally getting better at these!!

7. winning two geocaching competitions for free entry into two conferences next year :D.. thanks Cindy22 for organising them!!

I am sure there a ton more that I can’t think of right now. I would love to double my numbers by the end of this year.. need to improve my planning so I too can be a 30 a day cacher once in a while.. also want to attend more events. Best hobby/ sport ever!!

[Team Black-Cat]

Great topic GMO! Caching highlights for 2008… where to start?
Driving all over the place for River Raiders’ Whodunnit series.
Driving 40 miles at night with GeoKatzen to grab FTF on the first three Springbrook Tour caches.
Our “non-event” was the highlight of winter. Lots of cachers and lots of new caches.
baileyhk’s Chinese New Year series.
Finding a cache during a lunar eclipse in sub-zero temps with GK.
GMO hiding a cache for my birthday and our 300th find.
A darn cold day of caching in Point with GMO.
A trip to Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and back through Canada and Michigan. Caching all the way, with two out of state FTFs!
Accidently finding Mathman’s series in Ringle.
Getting in a pillow fight with Rick Blick, Bandits, Timberline Echoes and a couple of other cachers from “up north”.
Busting my rump on the Woodville Trail.
Finding a night cache during the day.
Solving, not finding and then finding SSSS.
Midwest Geobash!!!!
A fateful trip aboard the SS Splashmobile.
Co-FTF on a really Sloppy cache.
A few other cache outings with other cachers.
What made all of this so much fun was being able to do it all with someone else along. Other cachers are what makes caching fun for me.

For 2009, I don’t have any numbers goals. 1K is coming up, but it’ll come when it comes. I’m looking forward to as many events as I can get to. We’re already planning for MWGB! I’m also looking forward to getting out with any cachers that are willing to put up with me for a day. 😉

[RSplash40]

@Team Black-Cat wrote:

A fateful trip aboard the SS Splashmobile.

#$%^@$^@ that might go down as most hope to forget for me, the day was great( even with the OC dnf’s ), great company (with a heck of a support team) and lots of laughs but a tad frustrating and a huge dip in the wallet.

Now that I think about it, this 2008 was pretty rough:

1. I lost it with this game late in 07, and pretty much shut down in January, lots of reasons why.
2. Endured a 6 month stint with a roomie who is related but not my wife or offspring and quite a bit different than I.
3. Enjoying another in a string of awesome days caching with part of the NEWPG in Shawano, experimented with snowshoes and ended up taking Frizz to the hospital.
4. A Short 27 days later I wiped out (sober!) and enjoyed a number of hospital trips while on a 4 hour vicodin cocktail cycle.
5. Fought a pretty long battle once the vicodin wore off, both mentally and physically. I now understand why Farve had to go to a hospital to quit.
6. Lost a potential house sale when switching realtors on what I think are suspicious circumstances.
7. The aforementioned Labor Day road trip.
8. Have had several friends and co-workers who had and are still having serious health problems.

I did have some good events though

1. Frizz and a number of friends have recovered.
2. I met a number of great people in wausau.
3. I can say that I did a cache while using a walker.
4. I am able to walk standing up again w/o said walker.
5. I had time to solve a few puzzles and even get to some of them.
6. I enjoyed a few months of being a stay at home dad, something I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do for any length of time.
7. My family is now back together and after a move we have grown much closer.

Caching Highlights in no particular order:

1. Solving the first S4 – I slept without the help of vicodin that night.
2. The NEWPG, and SS Splashmobile, runs.
3. My 800, 900, and 1000th finds.
4. The trek to my silver ammo can, and subsequent DRIVE to it the next day.
5. A two-day tour of Lake Wausau.
6. My first FTF after the big break, with the “boot” still on.
7. The few caches I did in Door County.
8. My first walk in the woods (Treaty Tree) after the boot was off.

Goals:

1. DON’T BREAK ANY BONES!
2. Pace myself and enjoy caching again.
3. 1100 finds – keeping expectations low.
4. Sell a house.
5. Find time for a couple of caching days with others.
6. Stop writing a book in each forum post.
7. Start legislation to have multis and puzzles outlawed :>

Hope everyone has a safe and fun year!

–mike

[-cheeto-]

both mentally and physically. I now understand why Farve had to go to a hospital to quit.

I don’t think many people understand why someone would get addicted to pain medications like vicodin and percoset until the day they have to take them routinely and then get to feel what it’s like to stop taking them. Especially when they (the doctor) “cuts you off” before the pain is actually gone.

I have recurring kidney stones and I have had 2 painful surgeries in the last 3 years (one included detaching my ear and then reattaching it, the other I had a surgical instrument left inside me). Trust me, I know what it’s like to be in so much pain that alternating advil and tylenol won’t cut it and to feel the addiction of these drugs. I congratulate you for stopping as I know it’s not easy.

[Trekkin and Birdin]

No numbers goals for us, believe it or not. I don’t even want to look at how many we got this past year; I know it’s a pile of them!

We did, however, meet every goal we’d set out, including a couple last minute ones we hadn’t even known we had.

Finished Wisconsin DeLorme Challenge
Finished Badger State Counties Challenge
Achieved Well Rounded Cacher status
Passed 100 EarthCache finds
Completed zuma’s Northwestern 12 Pack as one of the first 12 finishers

and the late goal—FTF with THB on the new DeLorme Physical Features Cache of Ralph’s

Hightlights—so many, including meeting and caching with even more folks, attending our first mega event (Midwest Geobash), enjoying a number of paddling caches, a blast of a trip to Mackinac Island with DOC and accordiongal, another blast of a trip to Marquette MI with THB, some excellent cache hunts, like seldon’s “Gauntlet” in MN, bandits “Eyes,” “S4” and many, many more.

Let us not forget one new life bird sighting while caching and quite a few close encounters with a variety of wildlife while caching, including not one, but two wolf encounters (although I guess one of those was actually that last couple days of 2007).

Having met all our goals, we have not made any new ones, other than to look for interesting places to explore and to always have fun and not many DNFs. Well, we have just one more goal….a climbing 5/5 cache. Hope to get that one sometime next summer with the help of Esko Climber. Trekkin’ has volunteered to keep his feet on terra firma and take photos for that one! If there are any underwater 5/5s that a person could get without SCUBA certification, that would be cool, too. Not sure if “Nifty Fifty” meets that criteria or not, but I haven’t even figured out how the heck that one is solved. And going to the GPS Adventures Exhibit in Davenport next summer. Yes, we’re icon fiends!

[Team Hemisphere Dancer]

2008 was a bit of a slowdown in caching for me, as we only did about half as much as our previous 2 year average. However we have had our hands full with our youngest and her continuing health issues, which will continue for sure into April of this year. Caching may still be slow but they will always be there.

On the positive side
1. We hit our 100th find on Pike Powder Hike
2. Grabbed a few caches in Florida
Most importantly
3. We continue to meet great people while out caching which make it all worthwhile.

For the upcoming year
1. Continue finding caches
2. Solve more Puzzles (Yes the self proclaimed puzzle hater said that)
3. Find the puzzles I solved. (Judging by last saturday that will be difficult)
4. Keep Meeting great people out on the trail.

[LightningBugs Mum]

OK, I’ll throw in my lists:

Caching Highlights of 2008:
1. 1000th cache find milestone
2. Platinum Earthcache Master (well, I qualified for it, but I haven’t submitted it yet. S’pose I ought to do that.)
3. Got DeLorme page 104 done (whew!)
4. Attended my first Mega-event (MWGB)
5. Door County caching trip with greyhounder
6. Fun in the rain at the WGA Geo-Picnic
7. The spring CITO event in Waukesha (always amazed at how much trash we find)
8. The 8 other awesome events we attended
9. Oh yeah. There was the time I went back to Gov Dodge SP to pick up a couple of my temp hides that got left behind after the campout. The skies opened up to drench me as soon as I arrived, but the best part was when some insect bit me on the eyelid and my whole eye swelled shut. That was fun. (I know that doesn’t compare to some other’s misfortunes, but still….it was memorable.)

Goals for 2009:
1. Finish the DeLorme Challenge
2. Finish the Wisconsin County Challenge
3. Get back to MWGB
4. Keep finding Lonely Caches when I can
5. Make new caching friends
6. More events!

[sandlanders]

@Team Hemisphere Dancer wrote:

1. We hit our 100th find on Pike Powder Hike

Having trouble with the zeroes, Hemi? You left out that same one on your log for the cache, too.

Claim your 1000 (now 1200).

[Team Hemisphere Dancer]

@sandlanders wrote:

@Team Hemisphere Dancer wrote:

1. We hit our 100th find on Pike Powder Hike

Having trouble with the zeroes, Hemi? You left out that same one on your log for the cache, too.

Claim your 1000 (now 1200).

I guess I am still in disbelief that I found that many.

[kansas64]

Great Topic!!
Highlights-There are many:
Meeting and becoming friends with some great people
Got to 1000 finds (about 900 this year) and the mock race with Dr. Doolittle for the first to 1000
Cached in 13 different States
Completed the South Carolina Delorme
Completed the Wisconsin Delorme
Page 104 of the Delorme
Completed the Badger State County Challenge (the day after the Delorme)
MWBG
2 WGA Events
West Bend Cache Event (found 46 of the 50)
A cache called Catwalk-you would have to read the logs around when I did it to understand
and surprisingly given how much I dislike Earthcaches, became a Silver level Earthcache Master

For 2009:
Finish the last 10 spots for the Well Rounded Cacher
Try to get to some new states
MWBG and/or Geowoodstock and West Bend again
Try to get to 2000 by 9/12/09 (our 2 year caching anniversary)
Some more WGA events
Try to get our first foreign cache
Place 1 more EarthCache and find 14 more so I can get the Platnium level (I got this far why not finish)
and finally hope to meet more truly great people along the way
After all the caching is fun, the people make it great!!

[Author]

Posts