Road Trip - Favorites

We're not very concerned about souvenirs on Geocaching.com. They are mildly more interesting than badges, but other than the state, country, and Mega souvenirs which represent caching memories for us, the rest just seem to be a promotional tools for the site. We've been participating so far this summer because we cache a lot and the requirements work for us.

Favorites have always been a lukewarm tool for selecting geocaches for us. Some caches with many favorite points are great caches and deserve all the votes they get. Others not so much. There seem to be too many caches with lots of favorites because they were near a Mega or are some sort of gadget cache which often doesn't meet the guidelines. Also total favorites doesn't really matter. The true measure of how much your cache is liked is the percent favorites.

I happened to be in Spokane and had an opportunity to earn our souvenir by finding a gadget cache made by one of the best. I had already found his first Little Free Library Cache by his home. This time he had enlisted a non-caching homeowner to allow a second placement of a Little Free Library cache. This one was just as well done as the first and well deserving of the 75 favorite votes and 77% favorite rating. I also got to visit with the kind and friendly landowner who permitted us to have fun on his property. Kudos to him and his family too.

No spoilers here

It's a super bit of craftsmanship!

I didn't expect to find two eligible caches on the Spokane trip, but I also didn't expect to have an hour free on my airport drive. I was looking for a multi and not expecting to find the grave of George Cache.

Yes, that is a real true stone marker some dedicated cacher spent money having engraved. It was very funny and surpising. It also has 67 favorites and a 77% favorite vote as of this posting.

So we have earned our Fun With Favorites Souvenir. It seems a number of cachers participated in this souvenir promotion. I am not sure why Groundspeak feels the need to add that we were "#129,454 of 274,222 to earn this souvenir." We would have looked for these caches with or without the souvenir. For a company that has always indicated it is not about the numbers, this seems to be a push to promote numbers and competition. I just hope this is not some poorly thought plan to replace Challenges with a weak souvenir game.

As of this post, we've "beaten" 144,768 cachers to earning this souvenir. That and 99 cents (plus tax) will get me a Coke tall boy at most gas stations after a day of caching.