Caching and Adventure Labs

Lower Mainland Cache Bache #9

For the last several years there is a cache bash, that takes place in BC. For 8 years it was known as the Fraser Valley Cache Bash, and spread from Pitt Meadows to Hope, This year they extended it to Horseshoe bay and now its the Lower mainland Cache Bash. I didn't plan on doing any this year, but then noticed there was one close to home, so I made my way over there. I was already looking when I saw some familiar faces walking into the woods. We finally found it as the co-ords were off.

We shared the FTF and I headed back home, as they headed for more caches.

Eight Thousand, Eight Hundred, and Eighty Eight!!

Coming up to getting 8888 finds!! As you may have seen in past blog's I like to mark wierd numbers. Even though I do enjoy finding round numbers and milestones such as 5000, 6000, etc., I like to mark my 5555th, etc. as you can see in part of the list from my Geocaching profile page:

5000th cache Ensconcement Interchange March 17/20 Richmond, BC
5555th cache Two Posts from Blue White March 7/21 Delta, BC
6000th cache BC Spirit Quest #30: Murray's Corners Oct. 26/21 Murrayville, BC

6565th cache Cynthia Street Cache Aug. 11/22 Saskatoon, Sask.
6666th cache DHL9 - The North West Necklace Sept. 25/22 Semiahmoo, Wash.

6969th cache Welcome to San Juan Travel Bug Hotel Apr. 22/23 Friday Harbor, Wash.
7000th cache English Camp Apr. 22/23 San Juan Island, Wash.
7777th cache Bygone Hwy - Basking Rocks May 12/24 100 mile house, BC
8000th cache West Richmond Community Centre AL Nov. 9/24 Richmond, BC

8888th cache ???????? 

Will I make it to 8888 this month? Maybe you will you have to wait till next blog to find out??

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!!!

This month I was lucky emough to be chosen to chat on an Online call with 2 Lackey's from Groundspeak. They wanted my opinion of a new thing they are thinking of putting into the game. It's something called "Sharable's" but it's not yet been started. I am waiting to see if they launch this new feature or not!! 

Adventure Lab Geoart

I got to be a part of an adventure Lab geoart builder. It is being spearheaded by a cacher in Victoria called Benicha. When finished it will consist of 124 AL's with 5 stages each totaling 620 finds all from one spot. I did 26 AL's at the San Diego airport back in October when I was thru there, for a total of 130 finds and though that was a lot. 

My Adventure Lab which is the 6th one I have done now is about Shipwrecks around Victoria, BC

Here is the FB post that I saw, that lead me to asking to be a part of it:

I VICTORIA – GeoArt Project

We’re building a large GeoArt in the ocean off Ogden Point — and you can be part of it! We are halfway there!!

Each person creates one Adventure Lab (5 locations) that becomes a piece of the design.

Themes are extended to all of Vancouver Island

I can provide:• A theme• 5 questions• Multiple choice answers

All you need to do is: Add 5 photos Build your Adventure Lab Let me know when you’re ready

I’ll then assign your official ocean coordinate + title, and you can publish.

Bonus: Publishing your Lab may trigger another Adventure Lab credit (sometimes right away, sometimes in 3 months!)

No stress, no pressure — I’m happy to help make this easy

It looked like a fun project, so I asked if I could be part of it. And now I am!!! Mine just went live!! 

Mine is "I {heart} Victoria BC 071"

Now I am hearing they are planning on making one in and around the Kelowna area.

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!!!

Blue Switch Day

This month on May 2nd was what cachers have dubbed "Blue Switch Day"

On this day 26 years ago the decision was made to discontinue Selective Availability, ending the intentional restriction on civilian GPS accuracy and significantly improving GPS technology for public use. This date is recognized by geocachers as “Blue Switch Day.”

And this happened the very next day:

The first geocache was placed on May 3, 2000, by Dave Ulmer in the woods near Beavercreek, Oregon. He placed the container shortly after the U.S. government turned off Selective Availability for GPS satellites, creating a fun test to see if others could find a specific location using exact coordinates.

The original "stashed" cache was a black plastic bucket that contained software, books, money, and a slingshot. Today, there is an official Original Stash Tribute Plaque placed at the exact historical site.

M is for MAGIC!!!

Had a show out in Mission and stopped for a few caches along the way. 

This was a cache that I grabbed at this large Metal "M"

There used to be a cache here in the past that I got, but it must have been archived, and now there is a new one here. Plus there is one stage of an Adventure Lab here.

Next month, I will be heading to Edmonton to visit Family, and will also grab a few caches.....But more about that in Next months Blog....

Well that's it for this month!!

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65

Letterboxing Galore!!

Letterboxes Everywhere!!!

Grabbed a few caches with Susan on Easter Weekend. We found 6 caches on Saturday, not one of them was a traditional cache. We found 1 puzzle, 2 multi caches and 3 Letterbox caches. There has been many letterboxes pop up in this area, so I thought instead of targeting Traditional caches, I would make a list of a bunch of cache types that I don't always get. On Sunday, we did 9 Letterbox caches. 

One was a pretty cool box, that needed a screwdriver to retrieve the log book. 

I had to undo a total of 15 screws to get into the box. There is actually supposed to be a total of 20 screws, but several were broken as they were made from plastic.

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!!!

Tour to the States

Went to Leavenworth as I had a show on April 18th. I also had a corporate gig booked at the Tulalip Resort Casino on the 22nd. I decided instead of going home between the two dates, why not book some other shows on the dates in between. (I'm good at that)

Ended up booking shows on the 19th, 20th, and 21st to make it a five day tour!!! 

Made a list of 32 42 49 53 caches. 1 of which I had already found last year on my birthday when Susan and I went down to Wenatchee for a gig, but it's a cache at one of the locations where they filmed "Harry and the Hendersons" 

Harry and the Hendersons is a 1987 American fantasy comedy film directed and produced by William Dear and starring John Lithgow, Melinda Dillon, Don Ameche, David Suchet, Margaret Langrick, Joshua Rudoy, Lainie Kazan, and Kevin Peter Hall. Steven Spielberg served as its uncredited executive producer, while Rick Baker provided the makeup and the creature designs for Harry. The film tells the story of a Seattle family's encounter with the cryptozoological creature Bigfoot, partially inspired by the numerous claims of sightings in the Pacific Northwest, California, and other parts of both the United States and Canada over three centuries. In conjunction with the film's setting, shooting took place at several locations in the Cascade Range of Washington state near Interstate 90 and the town of Index near US 2, as well as Seattle's Wallingford, Ballard and Beacon Hill neighborhoods and other locations in or around Seattle.

Harry and the Hendersons grossed $50 million worldwide. It won an Oscar for Best Makeup at the 60th Academy Awards, and inspired a television spin-off of the same name. In the United Kingdom, the film was originally released as Bigfoot and the Hendersons, though the television series retained the American title. The DVD and all current showings of the film in the UK now refer to the film by its original title.

My trip will take me to Leavenworth, then to Everett, then to Monroe, Then to Lake Stevens, and finaly to Tulalip. As you can see by the number of caches in my list, I kept adding more as my tour grew.

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!!!

I headed out on day 1 of my tour towards Leavenworth, I was trying to make sure I got at least one cache that was in plain sight. The Geochallenge of the month was to find a cache in Plain Sight!! I had a few on my list that said that in the description.  

This one was actually hanging up in a tree, and I needed my extendable pole to retrieve it.

This one was also in plain but it was a wherigo, and you had to stop at a monument to get some info to figure out where it was.

On day 2, I headed back towards Everett and I was able to grab 5 Traditionals, 1 Virtual, and 1 puzzle cache. 

Susan and I stopped at this little church last year while thru here for 1 stage of an Adventure Lab. Now there is a Virtual cache there as well as a Traditional Cache

This was also a cool church I saw on the way thru a little town called Gold Bar. 

It had 3 large skeleton's climbing the building and 2 skeleton's, 1 of which I am sure was meant to be Elvis Presley in the front seat of the car parked here. lol

I found a very unique cache at a Free Library called "secret stash library cache"

It wasn't just inside the Little Library, there was a lock box on the backside, and you had the code to it on the cache page. Inside the lock box was a special tool to find the cache container and retrieve the logbook. Watch my video "Here"

Day 3 my show was in Monroe, but, I was spending the night at the same motel in Everett, so I did some caching in Everett and the Monroe area. 

One of the Puzzle caches I did, started by having to complete a Kakuro Puzzle. It is not that easy, and this one was quite a larger puzzle then some of the one's I do. I do Suduko, kenduko's, Kakuro's and other math type puzzles all the time. But this one took me about a week to finish, before leaving on my trip.

Day 4, was a short trip to Lake Stevens and strangly enough, I found caches at 2 different little free library's today. Seems to be a theme happening. lol

dtregaer

Day 5, I woke up and it was raining this morning. After checking out of my hotel, I went around the corner to a nearby multi called "wa state covid-19; 1st case in US"

One of the paragraphs read: 

Washington State had the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the U.S. (not counting later retroactive research that may have uprooted earlier cases).  On January 19, 2020, a 35-year-old man who had returned to the U.S. four days earlier after traveling to visit family in Wuhan, China, checked into an urgent care clinic and tested positive for COVID-19. He had a 4-day history of cough and fever, wore a mask in the waiting room, and eventually recovered.

I found a few more caches on the way to Marysville, where I checked into the Tulalip Casino and Resort. 

The following morning after checking out and grabbing some breakfast I headed back towards the border and grabbed several more caches.

On my trip I found 13 Traditional's, 1 Virtual, 3 Wherigo's, 3 Letterboxes, 2 multi's, and 9 Puzzles, A total of 31 only, but definatly some cool caches.

Next month, I have shows all over, so will be grabbing some select caches.....But more about that in Next months Blog....

Well that's it for this month!!

Keep on SAScaching!! LOL

Chris Yuill

Magicman65

Caching south of the Border

States Trip

Booked some shows down in the states. I originally had one booked in Ellensburg, Wash.,

but then decided may as well do some more shows to make the trip longer and more profitable, so I booked a couple more shows. Ended up making it a 3 day tour to Ferndale,

 then Ellensburg, and end back up this way in Bellingham before coming back across the border back into BC.

I built a list of 47 52 63 caches that I may want to get while down that way. As you can see by the numbers, I kept adding more caches to the list. I have many puzzles that I worked out as I am trying to get 14 puzzle caches in 3 days for a new souvenir that Groundspeak is giving out.

I ended up not getting as many caches as I wanted to get. Several were in areas that there was so much snow. The Pass(Steven's Pass) that I had to go over to get to Ellensburg which is in the Snoqualmie Mountain area(Home of the A.P.E. Cache and the Snoqualmie Tunnel) was shut down the night before I had to cross it. Luckily they had plows working all night to get it clear. I made it to Ellensburg early and was able to set up and check into my hotel.

I found a cache in Ellensburg called "Kleinberg Caboose" with 106 favorite points. It was a big huge electrical box

and it had a lock on it and they gave you the four digits but they didn’t say what the four digits order was so you had to figure it out yourself. When I first got there, I started to monkey around with it a little bit, trying a few different combinations out of random order, and didn’t seem like it was going too fast for me so I went back to the vehicle and asked Google for all the combinations using those four numbers, and it’s spat out 24 different combinations. I went back and systematically went through them one by one and when I got to the 17th code, the cache box opened. If I would’ve started from the back end of the numbers, It would’ve been way faster. LOL

This was the container opened, after figuring out the Combination. Full of swag!!!

The next day I headed back to Bellingham for my 3rd show in the states, and was able to find many more Puzzle caches to complete the 14 that I needed. In total I only found 14 puzzles, 3 Traditional's, 1 Wherigo cache, and 1 Adventure Lab with 5 stages. 23 total finds out of the 63 I had on my list. lol. 

That's OK though as I go down to the states often, and will get more next 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!!!

Blue Switch day, AKA the day Geocaching was born!!!

Have you ever thought about what makes GPS possible?
With the flip of the “Blue Switch,” or Selective Availability, GPS became dramatically more accurate, and a new kind of adventure known as geocaching became possible, turning the whole planet into a playground.
Before Selective Availability was discontinued, the U.S. government made GPS less accurate for everyone except the military, for national security reasons.
On May 2, 2000, the decision was made to discontinue Selective Availability, ending the intentional restriction on civilian GPS accuracy and significantly improving GPS technology for public use. This date is recognized by geocachers as “Blue Switch Day.”
The first geocache was hidden on May 3, 2000, marking the beginning of geocaching—a journey full of innovation and experimentation. Today, there are 3.4 million geocaches in 191 countries.

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!!!

Puzzle Event

Went to an event called puzzles: lets put our heads together

It was a 2 hour event which was attended by about 12 people helping each other figure out puzzle caches they have been working on. Always nice to get some insight into puzzle caches. I was given a few hints to help solve 2 caches I've been wanting to get just beyond Blaine, Washington. They are a part of a 25 puzzle series called the X-Men series. I have figured out and found all but the last 2.

Next month, I will be heading to the States a couple of times for a few shows.....But more about that in Next months Blog....

Well that's it for this month!!

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65

The Shortest Caching Month!!

 More Traveling!!

Went to Semiahmoo Resort and Spa just past Blaine, Wash. on Jan. 27th for a Walkaround Gig. I did some walkaround for this same company 2 years ago. I love weekday gigs and repeat clients.

Went down early of course so I could grab a few caches.

Susan and I were here back in 2022 so most of the caches here, I have already found.

From several of the caches in the area you could see Canada. Here is a picture of White Rock from one of the caches I got.

This was a cool cache. Took me a little bit to find it. I eventually picked it up to see if the caches was hidden under it and saw that it was inside the piece of driftwood

You can see the underside in the next 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!!!

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!!!

Ucluelet Trip

Booked a gig over on the island in Ucluelet on the west side of the island. 

Went out there early to do some caching and meet up with a couple other magicians in Nanaimo on my way thru for a chat.

Was able to find 8 Traditionals, 1 Puzzle Cache, and 1 Virtual cache

Kamloops Trip

Booked 2 shows in Kamloops on Saturday Feb. 21st

Headed out early of course so I could grab a few caches. 

This was a Gadget Cache in Merritt. There is a old road in Merritt that has several Gadget Caches along it.

If you are ever in the area, I suggest checking it out!!

This one was called "It's a Flush"

Inside the tiny Outhouse was the toilet, and gameboard to figure out the code to the lock.

Took me a bit longer to do this than I wanted to as there was snow in the area and a bit chilly in the shade

Also on the way home Sunday morning I swung thru Hope to grab several.

While looking for this one a couple of muggles walked up and showed me where it was. They said they were gonna get into caching, they just have to download the app.

This one is called "The Watcher of Hope"

He is staring at the cache, but the funny thing about this statue is the other side as you can see in the next picture

Found only a total of 7 caches only on the 2 day trip, but they were all cool caches. I am about the quality, not the quantity!!!

Next month, I will be heading to the States for a few shows.....But more about that in Next months Blog....

Well that's it for this month!!

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65