Ms. Wonderful

Ali doesn't trade or keep much swag. She'll trade for a foreign coin or an interesting stamp once in a while, and she's traded for a few arts/craft pieces made by friends. A few days ago she found a piece of swag that joined our troop immediately. Ms Wonderful is a talking doll. She comes pre-loaded with a host of catchy phrases including,

"Don't feel bad honey. I forgot it was our anniversary too."

"Your right. We don't need directions. Maybe we'll find a short-cut."

She was way too happy to add Ms. Wonderful to the team. I think Ali wishes she could add a few other phrases like:

"I agree. There was no need to load additional waypoints. It was more important to have 2000 caches loaded."

"We don't need breakfast. I'd much rather hunt the new guardrail powertrail."

And Ali's favorite, "You're right honey. Planning a caching route is for sissies."

Welcome to the miatabug team, Ms. Wonderful. Other suggestions for new caching phrases for Ms. Wonderful are always welcome in the comments section.

Our First Challenge Find

We completed our first challenge find yesterday. We completed the Take a Hike Challenge at Watkins Glen State Park. Although New York State Parks allow geocaches, there are no caches along the relatively dangerous gorge trail so it was a perfect place to enjoy a hike and claim a smiley. This is the photo we posted for the challenge.

There are a few items about the logging and challenge page that I wish would be changed. First, I am disappointed the image above didn't get added to our gallery. It's my image and my memory. I also wish I could add more than one photo to the completed it log. The park is beautiful, and I like to post images of our adventures. Lastly, I wish the image bar at the top showing photos posted by people completing the challenge would link to the log by that cacher. I have visited a lot of places based on the wonderful photos posted by other cachers.

We'll keep looking for challenges to accept and complete. I hope this is successful.

These are a couple other photos I would have posted if the page allowed.

GeoWoodstock Swag Sale

If you want to buy some trackable swag at a great price, now is the time to buy some of the GeoWoodstock swag that was not sold at the event last month. There are limited items of most goods that were sold at the event with the exception of the pathtag set. These are all sold out. You can still buy some quantities of the official geocoin, the bear and eagle cachekinz, and the event lanyard with the event pathtag. There are also some trackable shirts, lanyards, and USB drives.

This is a chance to buy some great swag at a reasonable price and do some good by helping the GeoWoodstock IX Committee convert the items back to cash so they can close the account. If your interested, please contact Wes of kcepenn at wes.kce@eaglezip.net

The Triad

We were all hyped that the chance had finally come to do the Triad. The opportunity to visit the Lily Pad, the location of the original hide, and find the APE cache was exciting. The thought we could tie a few vacation days together with a business trip was great too. Although I am a regular visitor to Washington, Ali hadn't been there in years. Neither of us had ever been to Oregon.

We started our journey in Seattle. A couple of days in a town like this never seems to scratch the surface. I've always heard about the rain there and was blown away by the mostly amazing weather we had. We spent the morning doing some caching around Seattle and had an afternoon visit planned to Groundspeak. Our visit was awesome. We have spent so long as reviewers that we forgot a lot of the things we were going to do (take lots of photos, trade items, leave some trackables, visit the photo booth). Instead we just spent time with people who have come to be our friends.

The "cache"

We had to be in Portland, Oregon by the evening but got to visit the area around the Lily Pad before our journey continued. We county hopped our way to Oregon with a nice detour to walk around Tacoma.

Our second Triad stop was Thursday at the Original Stash location. For both of us, this was a bit of a yawn. The words cache and dash best describe it. The road to the cache is filled with park and grabs too. Historically its cool, but the weakest of the three stops.

We were both also distracted at the thought of grabbing Oregon's two oldest caches. Since we chase old caches these were the perfect fit for us. It also helped that they were hiking caches in the woods and two months we need for the Jasmer Challenge. The caches are on National Forest service lands, but are accessed through private roads. We had not anticipated the sign at the gate near the start of the private road which read, Closed to Public Entry May 2, 2011. We called the number to see if the restriction had been lifted but the recording said no car access yet. We hadn't planned for the 18-mile version of this cache hunt. Sadly, we turned away and moved on.

We regrouped at enjoyed a super afternoon at Salmon River. Mount Hood and the river were gorgeous.

By the time Saturday rolled in we were both eager to head for Snoqualmie to hunt the A.P.E. cache and the last stage of the Triad. This trail, the A.P.E. cache and all the surrounding caches were all we expected and then some. It was in the 40's and raining with lots of snow still on the ground and raging streams from the snow melt. It was an awesome day on the trail.

miatabug at the APE Cache.

Since it has been muggled, I guess the spoiler won't matter.

It is strange to think we were one of the last finders of the Triad... maybe the last. It's too bad someone saw fit to steal so many caches from this area. We had a great time. The area is stunning. Hopefully, we will be able to return and claim a find on the replacement cache as well as making it to Lake Annette.