Vancouver Island trip

 Vancouver Island tour

I went to Vancouver Island for a couple of theatre shows on the weekend.

Headed over on an early ferry, so I could grab some caches, before heading to the Port theatre in Nanaimo.

Was able to grab a Puzzle cache, a Multi, 2 Virtuals and 2 Traditional caches.

In Nanaimo I also completed 2 Adventure labs and started 2 others

Had a great show that evening in front of about 450 people.

The next morning I got up early and headed down island caching along the way.

Grabbed a cool one that had me looking for a bit in Duncan area that was taped to a stick and hung in the tree as you can see in the picture. (Click on the pic to enlarge)

Ended up getting 2 puzzles, 1 Letterbox cache and 3 traditional's on the way to Victoria.

In Victoria I got 1 Virtual and completed 2 Adventure labs BUT, I also got to walk down memory lane as I was going to be performing this evening at the "McPherson Playhouse". 

Way back in 2006 a Magician named Tony Eng from Victoria who owned Tony's Trick and Joke shop contacted me and said I should compete in the upcoming competition called the "Pro Challenge" at the P.C.A.M. Convention being held in Victoria. 

NOTE: The highlighted or underlined words in my blog can be clicked on as they are links to other cool stuff!! Also if you click on any of the pictures they become bigger!!!

I got my start in Magic back in 1993, and I had never competed in Magic competitions before, even though many magician friends said I should, as I never felt the need to prove anything.

I took up Tony's offer and decided to put together a 10 minute routine to compete with. I submitted video of my routine to the PCAM Committee and was chosen to compete. They only allow 6 acts in the PRO-Challenge.

This was the same stage I Competed on for the very first time in my Magic career, back in 2006.

Tony Eng has since passed on, but his memory lives on in all the magicians he helped during his career. 

While I was in Victoria, I went down to "Fan Tan Alley" to look at the exhibit in the Chinese Canadian Museum about Tony. And as luck would have it there was an Adventure Lab in Chinatown.

Tony was well known in Victoria and was the Self-proclaimed "Ambassador of Victoria"

He was very well known by magicians everywhere.

PS: On the right hand side of this webpage is where you can find my YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, links. Please feel free to check them out and follow or subscribe!!!

The display at the Museum was awesome with lots of memorabilia from Tony's personal magic. 

Thanks to Tony for persuading me to compete in the PRO-Challenge that year against 5 other acts, and it was judged by audience vote. They sold tickets to the evening show and the theatre was sold out. The six acts, myself included performed in the first half of the show, and at intermission the audience cast there vote for who they felt was the best act. I was honored to come in second and receive the silver medal. I found out the next day I missed the Gold by only 2 votes.

I have since competed several other times over the years as you can see in this picture of my Living room.

All in all this weekend's trip was amazing, the weather was great, and I had some awesome crowd's to perform for and got to see some awesome stuff and also got to do some caching.

Issaquah Trip

Headed down to the states to do a corporate show.

I did a cool Virtual Cache called "Northwest Trolls: Jakob Two Trees" 

Apparently there are 6 different Trolls in the Pacific North West. Check them all out "HERE"

What I didn't realize when I was there, that there was 2 stages of an adventure Lab at this location. I gotta remember to look at that more often.

I want to make a trip down there just to find all these trolls now. lol

Next month I am off to Quesnel for a corporate show and have already made a list of caches for the trip, but more about that next month....

Well that's it for this month!!

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65

VEGAS BABY!!!

Missing TB???

Got a Message from a cacher that one of my Travel Bugs that was Marked missing back in 2022 was actually found in a geocache. My TB was started in Panama when I was there in 2011.

Here is the TB description:

This TB started in a little roadside store in Farallon, Panama near the resort we were staying at, he is a keychain.
I built a cache for others coming to the resort to find as the nearest cache was some distance away. This is where he started his Journey from, and then he flew back to Canada with me.

He traveled from Panama to BC, then across Canada to New Brunswick and then back to BC. He then dropped down into the states where he went to California. From there he then went to Australia, Germany, and is now in Sweden where he was lost for a couple of years, but has now been found and on the move again. YAY!!!

Trip to Chase, BC

So I had a show in Chase for the Lions Club, so I headed there early, and was able to check out the Village and grab some caches. 

I found 7 caches, did 2 full Adventure Labs, plus 2 stages of a Trans Canada Adventure Lab.

NOTE: The highlighted or underlined words in my blog can be clicked on as they are links to other cool stuff!! Also if you click on any of the pictures they become bigger!!!

OMG I Love Vegas!!!

Had a nice Vegas trip with Susan for four days. 

The first thing we did when we got there, picked up our rental car, which was a convertible Mustang, very sharp, looking car. We headed down to Fremont Street, Got to see this cool metal monster of a praying mantis with flames shooting out of his antennas and we were able to grab one virtual cache nearby.

The next day, we are awoke early and headed out to grab some GeoCaches before heading towards the strip.

We went to the north part of the city and grab some Puzzle caches, one was a challenge cache, a couple were cool phone caches where you needed your phone to scan a QR code to be able to get more information as to where to find them. One of them lead you to a phone number and when you called it, you got a recording telling you how to find the cache.

 

Headed back towards the strip, and we went and checked into our hotel for the next couple of days, which was the Luxor. 
We went out and grab a couple more caches before heading off to see a show. We were also able to grab a couple of adventure labs.

We ended the night by going to watch the sphere do its thing. We were able to find a cache nearby and complete the AL, as well as got the "Amazing Las Vegas Sphere" Virtual.



The next day we went out and grabbed a bunch more caches. Some puzzles that I have had solved for some time.

PS: On the right hand side of this webpage is where you can find my YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, links. Please feel free to check them out and follow or subscribe!!!

Alberta Bound

Had a quick 4 day trip to Edmonton, Alberta to visit some family. Had a bit of time to also grab several caches. 

This was a cool one, I thought it was gonna be the switch plate, but it was the big steel block instead.

Found a total of 11 traditional caches and 2 puzzles, one of which was a challenge cache.

NOTE: The highlighted or underlined words in my blog can be clicked on as they are links to other cool stuff!! Also if you click on any of the pictures they become bigger!!!

Heading to the Island for some theatre shows, and will grab some caches as well,

but more about that Next Month......

Well that's it for this month!!

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65

February is the shortest Month!!!

Seattle Trip

Headed to Seattle with Sansue for a show and I set up a list with some high favorited caches, but it was raining pretty good and we ended up only getting one virtual cache.

I guess we will get the high favorited caches another time.

NOTE: The highlighted or underlined words in my blog can be clicked on as they are links to other cool stuff!! Also if you click on any of the pictures they become bigger!!!

I came across a Challenge cache called "Oldies But Goodies 100 Century Challenge" where you needed to have found 100 caches from 2000 and 2001 back when geocaching was just getting started. I love doing Challenge caches and seek them out whenever I travel, so I thought I would see if I qualify.

This is a list of the 2000-2001 Caches I have found so far. Not even close to 100. lol

GC2388	Where the beer got it's name!                Okotoks, Alta.
GC92	Un-Original Stash                                   Beaver Creek, Oregon
GC1169	Mission 9: Tunnel of Light                      Snoqualmie Pass, Washington
GC79	Iron Horse                                              Snoqualmie Pass, Washington
GC2179	Bernie's Traveling GeoCache                Courtney, BC
GCA6	Strathcona Wilderness 1                        Strathcona, Alberta
GC21AF	Dickson -Stevenson Stopping House    Crossfield, Alta.
GC1DD	Treehugger (BC's First Cache)                Vancouver, BC
GC1D28	Good Hope Lake Cache                        Good Hope Lake, BC
GC1D26	Spencer Creek Cache                            Alaska Highway, Yukon
GC1E63	Local Meridian                                        Bellingham, Washington
GC1E09	"United We Stand"                                 Simi Valley, California
GC27DB	Shore Circuit                                         North Vancouver, BC
GC6DF	Lost Loggs                                            Iona Island, BC
GCA2B	Rotten Ole Stumpy                                Vancouver, BC
GC4DB	Burrows Channel Cache                        Anacortes, Washington
GC13DC	Ebey Bluffs                                            Coupeville, Washington

Bellevue Trip

I had a show down in Bellevue last week. It was actually a 3 hours close up/walkaround gig.

I got into town early and was able to grab several caches. One I got was called "Aloonimum Sculpture"

It was a long curved walkway out on the water, that was all aluminum.

The weather was awesome and the water was super calm.

Was able to grab 5 traditional caches before my show. I looked for a puzzle cache that I solved while here. But it sounds like the co-ords are way off according to previous logs, so I eventually gave up the search as I had to get to my event.

PS: On the right hand side of this webpage is where you can find my YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, links. Please feel free to check them out and follow or subscribe!!!

Vernon/Kamloops Trip

Booked a show in Vernon and one in Kamloops also at the end of February on Leap day Feb. 29th

On Leap year day you needed to find 4 caches to get a virtual Souvenir and of course since I was traveling anyway, I had a list of caches I planned on getting. I left home the day before in the evening and drove thru the night to get over the Coquihalla Hwy as I had heard it was a mess with snow. I got to Kelowna at about Midnight and decided to keep heading towards Vernon and grab some caches before stopping for the night.

One of the caches I had on my list was Winfields First Chirp Cache....Well Kinda

It wasn't an actual Chirp Cache but a corner lot with lots of cool birdhouses. When I reached for the cache container which was just sitting on the top of one of the bird houses, two birds flew out and scared the crap out of me. lol

I also got a TB hotel that I missed last time we were thru here.

Grabbed a couple more caches and then stopped at a roadside pullout to sleep for a couple of hours

This one was more like a Bird Hotel and resort.

I grabbed several more after a few hours sleep before mu first show at noon, even almost got an FTF but I was second to find.

Next Month Susan and I are headed to Vegas for a few days, and I have a few caches we will get while there, But more about that in Next months Blog........

Well that's it for this month!!

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65

Say Hello to The New Year

 Happy Holidays Mission 2023

So at the beginning of November I saw this on the Geocaching Forums:

HO HO HO... Time as come to think about the Happy Holidays mission....

Happy Holidays Mission 2023
You only need to send one non-activated trackable geocoin (no micros and no travel tags) and a nice Christmas card. I'm sure a lot of you will be very happy with that simple mission 

 

So, everyone who is interested, please e-mail me your caching name, your real name, your address and your e-mail addy. I will choose by random who sends a coin to who. The person you send the coin to is not the person you receive your coin from unless I make a mistake.  You may have to send overseas but it's only a card and a coin so, it shouldn't be that expensive. It's Christmas time after all so, who cares 

 

If you want to add some tags, trinkets, stickers, chocolate, it's up to you but it's not mandatory. Just keep in mind that shipping can get expensive if you send a large package 

You can participate more than once if you want to.

Happy Holidays 

Laval-K9

Apparently she has been setting this up for several years now.

I decided to participate as it sounded like fun, and in the Christmas spirit of giving!! You are given a random name and address, and you send some stuff to them. And someone gets your name and address and you receive stuff from them.

I sent out a cool coin from a past Geowoodstock, some pins, a TB tag, stickers, and some other cool swag. 

The pictures below were all the goodies I received!! 

Some statistic's on this years mission:
 
There are 98 geocachers participating this year for a total of 118 missions 
 
USA 80
Canada 23
The Netherlands 7
Portugal 2
Spain 2
Norway 2
Denmark 1
England 1

This was such a cool coin I received, It is a steampunk Eagle. The tracking code is SP1Z37.

Please feel free to Discover it, as I will not be sending it out, it will go into my collection.

I will be participating next year for sure!!!

PS: On the right hand side of this webpage is where you can find my YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, links. Please feel free to check them out and follow or subscribe!!!

New Year's Eve show

I booked a show on New Year's Eve at the Quil Ceda Creek Casino in Tulalip, Washington. On the way down we grabbed several caches as well as on the 1st day of the year coming back home. On the way down we found 7 traditional caches, 3 multi's, 2 Adventure Labs, and 4 puzzles caches with 2 of them being Challenge caches. One of the challenges I got, I finished the challenge on this trip.

The challenge I completed was to find 50 caches that started with "Welcome to" 

Before the trip I only had 48, so I got two more on this trip to complete the challenge in Arlington.

Just chillin' with my rock!!

These little rock movers were a stage of an Adventure Lab.

V.I.P. New Years Eve Party at Quil Ceda Creek Casino

This was the stage in the Venue I performed at on New Years Eve. It was a private VIP event in the Casino.

On the way back towards the border we got 8 more Traditional's, 1 more multi and 2 puzzles with one of them being a challenge cache, and 2 more AL's.

Mountlake Terrace Trip

Had another show across the border and was able to grab several caches

We visited the Marysville water tower twice when we were here for New Years eve, as there was a cache here, so we grabbed it. And then we had to come back as it was a stage of an Adventure lab.

I swung by here again during this trip, as I grabbed a challenge cache nearby, and spotted the tower all lit up, so stopped to grab a picture. 

NOTE: The highlighted or underlined words in my blog can be clicked on as they are links to other cool stuff!! Also if you click on any of the pictures they become bigger!!!

I was able to grab 1 adventure labs plus a bonus cache. 2 Traditional caches, and 2 Challenge caches.

Geocaching Charted 2023 Earlier this year, we charted a course towards success for our 2023 geocaching goals. Now, we’ve finally reached our destination and made many great geocaching memories along the way!   Let’s take a look back at your geocaching stats for the full year. Whether you were all about the numbers or just here to make memories, this email will show you where you’ve been and maybe just help you plan where you want to go in 2024.   Without further ado, let’s get charted… 717   This is your total number of finds in 2023. We bet you found some pretty cool caches along the way! 8   This is the number of distinct cache types you logged during the year. You really aimed for variety! Traditional Cache   Traditional Caches were your top cache type this year! They’re popular for a reason, and the backbone of the great hobby we call geocaching. Way to stay true to yourself! 4         This is the total number of DNF (Did Not Find) logs you posted this year. Way to log your DNF’s! This is the best way to inform cache owners and other finders that a cache may be extra difficult to find or is possibly missing. 2   This is the total number of countries you cached in this year. You explored geocaches far and wide! GC7B7E3 567 Favorite points This is the highest Favorited cache that you found in 2023. Take a walk down memory lane and revisit what made this cache so special! 13   This is the number of Events you attended this year. Oh, the places you’ve been and the geocachers you’ve met! GC7932   This is the oldest placed cache you found this year. This cache has been waiting for that special moment when you logged it! This is the first image you posted in 2023. Aww, do you remember that moment? This is the last image you posted in 2023. It’s like it happened yesterday! 2023-07-09 48 finds This was your busiest caching day of 2023. You were on a mission! 119   This is the total number of days you geocached in 2023. Way to fill in that calendar! 17   This is the number of Favorite points you awarded to geocaches. You had lots of love to give and you didn’t hold back! 6   This is the number of geocaches you hid this year. Thank you for contributing to your geocaching community!

Virtual Rewards

In 2023 I did all the requirements to have an opportunity to receive a Virtual Reward and get the chance to place a virtual cache:

This was the message I received from Groundspeak HQ:

You were randomly selected to receive a Virtual Reward Cache from Geocaching HQ. We selected your account from those that had a geocache published in 2023 with four or more Favorite points. Thanks for hiding a quality cache in 2023!

Virtual Rewards 4.0 - 2024-2025

This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between January 17, 2024 and January 17, 2025. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. 

I've already come up with a placement for it in Las Vegas, but I have a year to place it, so I may try to find something closer to home.

Heading to Seattle at the end of the month for a show, and will grab several caches on the way down and when in Seattle. But more about that in next month's blog.

Well that's it for this month!!

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65