Monday 22 August 2016

Vegas BABY!!!

Los Angeles to Las Vegas!!!


As you remember from my last blog (for those that do read it. lol) The plan while down in the states for a couple of Magic Conventions, was to travel from Los Angeles, California to Las Vegas, Nevada and a quick stop into Hoover Dam in Arizona. In my sights were mostly Virtual caches with a few others in between. Also on one day the plan was to get a Virtual, a traditional, a Multi, a whereigo, a Letterbox, an Earthcache, a puzzle, and a challenge cache (a total of 7 icons, and a challenge)


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Los angeles has a huge number of Virtuals!!


Simi Valley Days 1-4 (Aug 4-7)

The first few days of my trip was in Simi Valley, California, where I managed to get a few caches close to the hotel I was staying at for #pcam2016, early in the mornings before all the events of the day started.  Most magic conventions go from 10am till midnight and into the wee hours of the morning.
Simi Valley sign

After the convention was over, I stayed a couple of days in Thousand Oaks with a magician friend of mine who was one of the organizers of the event.

Los Angeles Day 6 (Aug 9)
Today I rented a car and headed toward Los Angeles to get several virtual's as well as this was the day to grab 7 different icons, like I mentioned above.
In order, I got a Virtual, an Earthcache, a traditional, a Letterbox, a puzzle, and a wherigo.
I headed to a multi, which looked as if it would be a quick super easy multi. I got to the first stage and found the container but no co-ords in it. So I searched for another multi. When I got to this one, I could not find it. Ok, lets move on to some other caches and I will try a multi later. Got several cool virtuals including one that was a tribute to Penn & Teller called "Wanna see a card trick?" in the form of a cenotaph. Being a fellow magician, I just had to get this one.

"Is this your card?"
Definition of a Cenotaph: A cenotaph is an empty tomb or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. As you can see by the pic below, Penn is fine. And he assured me that Teller is also. lol #magiclive2016
Penn and I at Magic Live 2016

I also found several other virtuals including seeing the Norman Bates "PSYCHO" House
Later as it was getting a bit dark, I tried to get another multi. Got to the first stage and found the info I needed to find the next stage, but realized it was far out of my way, so I decided to pass on the multi and so only got 6 icons that day. Oh well, I have done a 7 icon day in the past.

Off to Vegas Day 7(Aug. 10)
Today I took back my rental car and went and got another one from a different agency and got ready to head towards Las Vegas. Along the way I stopped several times for caches and saw a lot of cool things. One of the reasons I like caching while traveling is it takes you to interesting stops along the way that you might miss if you just traveled straight to your destination.
Most caches were just off the highway thru the surrounding area of L.A. where I grabbed a cool wherigo called "The Fox, The Chicken, and The Grain" where I had to walk back and forth a bridge about 7 times. lol. If anyone knows the Fox, the Chicken, and the grain puzzle (google) they would understand.
Getting my kicks on Route 66

"Route 66 Museum"


I then headed thru the desert onward to Vegas, grabbing several other caches including 2 on an old stretch of road that was part of "Route 66"







Also stopped at the "Route 66" Museum in Victorville, California.
It was closed, but I was able to get the info for the virtual cache there.





Grabbed several more caches on the way to Vegas, including several in the desert.
 Made a stop at the "Calico Cemetary" for a virtual cache, and in a town called Baker for a couple of caches.

Baker, California which is the gateway to Death Valley, and they boast the "Worlds Tallest Thermometer"

The town's most prominent feature is a 134-foot (41 m) thermometer, dubbed "the world's tallest thermometer". Visible for miles, it was not operational from 2012 to mid-2014 when it was relighted following restoration. Its height commemorates the hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth, 134 °F (56.7 °C), in nearby Death Valley on July 10, 1913. Baker is also the location of Alien Fresh Jerky and the UFO Hotel.

One more quick cache and I crossed the border into Nevada.
Stopped at a couple other caches but as they were further off the road and it was getting dark, I decided not to venture to them. I headed into Vegas, checked into Circus Circus and got a good nights sleep.

Vegas

Vegas Day 8- (Aug 11)

Woke up in Vegas the first day and I see that a new cache has been published,(Yes, I set Notifications for where I go) I head off to this cache called "Eazy" not knowing if it will be still there or not (not sure how many FTF chasers there are in town) I arrive at the area and start looking and within a couple of minutes, I have my first Vegas FTF. YAY!!!
Grabbed a nearby virtual and then headed out of town a ways to get another virtual called
"Many Years Ago". While there I noticed a nearby stacking of some painted boulders.
"Seven Mountains"
 Went and checked it out, and as you can see they are out in the middle of nowhere??
Ummmm....OK!!

I continue on with my day of caching and found a total of 15 caches this day including 12 virtual caches, 2 traditional caches (one being the FTF) and 1 puzzle cache. I also earned a new souvenir as I grabbed one cache at the Hoover Dam in Arizona. It was placed there by officials of the Dam, and was clearly in the open, as you can see.

Hoover Dam
On the way back into Vegas, I spotted this sign and had to take a picture of it. I knew I was heading in the right direction!!!!

I also visited the NEON Graveyard and Fremont Street for a couple more caches.


Vegas Day 9- (Aug 12)
On the second day in Vegas, I only grabbed 3 caches as I had a Magic Luncheon to go to, and one of the caches was in the parking lot of the restaurant where the luncheon was taking place.

Vegas Day 10- (Aug 13)
Today the plan was to grab a multi cache in order to receive a new caching souvenir for Groundspeaks Mission GCHQ47. An exciting series of puzzles that needed to be worked out to find out how to achieve three new souvenir's. This was the second of the series, and entailed working thru a maze to find the chosen word in order to break the code. When I woke up though I noticed another cache had been published the night before. I figure I will head over towards it but I will get a virtual and the multi cache out of the way first. The multi used to be a virtual cache called "Remember 9/11" but was changed to a multi when the new guidelines came into place.
The multi cache was more like a traditional cache as you just had to go to the co-ords on the cache page and look at the plaque and monument which was an actual piece of steel structure from the wreckage of the twin towers.
Commemorative Plaque

Actual piece of one of the Twin Towers


After the multi, I headed towards the newly published cache. I arrived and started looking around for the obvious places and was not coming across anything. Starting to get frustrated, I spotted something that I thought…maybe?? And I was right, YAY another Vegas FTF!!!


I continued on and grabbed a couple more caches to make it a total of 5 this day while also getting an FTF and a souvenir to add to my stats.



Vegas Day 11- (Aug 14)
Today the plan was to check out of Circus Circus, and check into the Magic Live 2016 host hotel, The Orleans. I grabbed a cache close to the hotel, but this was the only one today, as it was time for a Magic overload. Lol. Magic Live had over 1500 magicians attending, and was an awesome 4 days of magic, magic, and more magic, and while in Vegas, I also jumped off the "Stratosphere Sky Jump" (which you can check out the video of it, by clicking the < previous link)
The SkyJump Las Vegas holds the Guinness World Record for highest commercial decelerator descent with an official height of 829 ft (253 m)
Stratosphere
But that's a whole different story!!!

All in all on my trip down south I found 23 Traditional caches, 1 Earthcache,  1 Multi, 2 Puzzles,
2 Wherigo's, 1 Letterbox, and 31 Virtuals. Also in the mix was 2 FTF's, and 2 New Souvenirs.
A grand total of 61 caches over 16 days. My plan was to get only interesting caches, not everyone I drove by, Not a record, but lots of fun anyway, and 2 awesome Magic conventions!!!




Well that's it for this month
Keep on caching
Chris Yuill
Magicman65




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