Christmas Caching

Vancouver Island Caches

Had a corporate Gig in Nanaimo, so I went over early so I could grab a few caches. Ended up just getting 2 in Parksville area, plus 1 Adventure Lab at an outside Museum.

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!!!

Skagit Valley Trip

Booked a corporate show down in the States at the Skagit Valley Casino.

I took Susan (Sansue) with me, and we grabbed several caches on the way there. A couple of the caches we got, I had already got from other trips across the border.

We did a total of 2 Adventure Labs, and 3 caches, but I only could log one of them, since I found the other two already.

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!!!

Mount Currie Trip

Booked a corporate show in Mount Currie and thought I would try and find a few caches on the way. 

Grabbed 1 cache that was a 5 Gallon Bucket hanging in a tree. It was on a rope and pulley, so you could lower it down to sign the log inside.

I also stopped in Pemberton, as I did a walkaround gig there in the summertime and I was checking out a sign board at that time, about a slide that has happened several years past which closed a roadway. I thought this would make a perfect earth cache so this time I decided to grab some more information, and pictures of the sign boards and do a little research and build a new earth cache for people coming through the area. Look for it to be published soon hopefully.

The 2010 Mount Meager landslide was a large catastrophic debris Avalanche that occurred in southwestern British Columbia, Canada, on August 6 at 3:27 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time.

 More than 45,000,000 m³ (1.6×10⁹ ft³) of debris slid down Mount Meager, temporarily blocking Meager Creek and destroying local bridges, roads and equipment. It was one of the largest landslides in Canadian history and one of over 20 landslides to have occurred from the Mount Meager Massif in the last 10,000 years.

Last month when I was in Squamish for a gig, I noticed there was only one adventure lab here, so I decided maybe I should try and put an adventure lab in town.
I noticed there was a lot of murals in town so I thought that would be perfect so I started looking at some of the murals, but then when I went near to where I was doing my gig at it was a cool new park that it just opened with lots of artwork and interesting things so I decided to do the adventure lab there all five and one little area nice little walking tour of the park I got all the information. I built an adventure lab when I got home and then a few days later I noticed another adventure lab got published there in town shortly after I was gone today going through there. I stopped to do the adventure lab that is in mine and it is of the murals in town. Very funny coincidence? 
And the cool part was, I was actually the first one to log this new adventure lab!!

Another Island trip

Booked a Corporate show in Victoria the week before Christmas. Went over to the island on the first sailing so I could also grab some caches. I ended up getting 16 stages of  9 different Adventure Labs, and 5 Virtual Caches. 

I like when you can go to one spot and there is a cache or virtual and also a stage of an AL. "Mile 0" was one of these spots.

One of the Virtuals was the "Terry Fox Marathon of Hope" Statue.

Below is an excerpt from the Caching page:

Terry began his Marathon of Hope on April 12, 1980 to raise money for cancer research. The journey started near St. John's, Newfoundland with the intent of running the equivalent of one full marathon (42 kilometers) a day until he reached Victoria, British Columbia. The Marathon started off with little fanfare but Terry’s journey soon grabbed the public’s attention and soon events were scheduled to greet Terry along the way. Terry quite frequently provided speeches, media interviews, and attended sporting events – anything he could do to raise awareness of cancer research. On September 1, 1980 near Thunder Bay, Ontario, Terry fell ill and was admitted to hospital. The following day, after running for 143 days and 5,373 kilometers, Terry announced that his cancer had returned and had spread to his lungs. Terry underwent months of chemotherapy and other treatments before eventually passing away on June 28, 1981 at the age of 22.

Terry had raised $1.7 million during the Marathon of Hope and another $10 million was raised in the weeks after the run ended. The first annual Terry Fox Run was held on September 13, 1981 and has been organized in over 60 countries, and attracts more than three million people annually. The Terry Fox Run is the world's largest one-day fundraiser for cancer research, and has raised over $850 million dollars.

Next Month will be the start of a New Year...2026, with lots of cool things to come, lots of shows, and of course lots of caching trips....But, more about that Next Month. Until then stay safe, cache often, and have an awesome New Year!!!

Well that's it for this month!!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65

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

Back to the Island

Vancouver Island

I had a show in Sooke, over on Vancouver Island on New Years Eve, and a couple days later on January 2nd, I had a show in Nanaimo, so we were able to grab a few caches while over there. Just recently I took my girlfriend out to a couple of caches near my house, as she was interested to know more about it.
She enjoyed it and downloaded the app. I took her with me to Vancouver Island. There was a few caches that I have been meaning to get for some time such as "Magicman65 Tribute Cache" which is a puzzle cache made by my friend Brett Taylor (The GO! Team) where you had to do a magic trick online to get the final co-ordinates. Thanx again Brett for the Tribute, and the awesome cache!!!

Also on the trail to that cache was a challenge cache named T300 Challenge Cache", and to log it you needed to complete enough caches in one month to add up the Terrain ratings to 300. I was pretty sure I met the requirements to log it, as I did, 200 caches in 1 day years back, and all of them were a Terrain of 1.5 or more.

We also did a virtual cache called "Jan's Patchwork Fence"

I used to co-own a cache that was at this location years ago.

Made a short trip thru Chemainus (I lived there for 7 years) on our way up island on New Years Day. Grabbed a few caches while there, and I showed Sansue some of the cool Murals that has made this town Famous.

I was also able to grab a puzzle cache called "Sudoko Oh No!" while in Nanaoose Bay/Parksville area. I had finished the puzzle back when I lived on the island over 6 years ago, but never got around to finding it. lol
Also found a cool Virtual cache on the way thru Nanaimo, called Petroglyph Provincial Park
In total I found 13 caches consisting of 1 Event, 2 Virtual's, 3 puzzles, and 7 Traditionals

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 received my monthly edition of FTF(Geocaching Magazine) and was reading it online when I noticed an ad for FTF playing cards. This month, they had some cool Magic dude advertising the cards. They are great cards, and recommend them to anyone looking for some cool giveaway's or swag.

I might have to order more cards, I also have 100 pathtags ordered. Geowoodstock XVIII is coming up in August, here in the Fraser Valley, BC., you can register at "Geowoodstock XVIII". I will be performing 2 shows as well as some close up magic during registration to amuse the long line ups. I will probably pass out some cards and tags. Speaking of giving stuff away, just before Christmas someone on one of the FB geocaching pages posted his collection of geocoins. I asked for his address, and I sent him some pins, tags, and a cool looking geocoin that I had an extra one of, to add to his collection. No reason, just felt like giving!!

 Also I noticed this blog is my 95th blog, and at my 60th I  had a contest and I gave away some cool swag and geocoins. I will do that again at my 100th Blog. Keep watching for it!!!

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!!!


So I happened to look on the geocaching website, and noticed my stats on the fizzy chart, I only need 5 more to complete it. I haven't really focused on finishing it, I just figured it will fill in eventually. lol
Maybe I need to look for some specific caches to complete it. Road trip anyone??

Sansue and I just recently did some caches at Burnaby Lake, but I only found 5 and DNFed 6!! Someone needs to do some maintenance I think. lol

TB Security Breach

In January 2020, Facebook was littered with upset geocachers. There was a new bully on the internet and they were giving out Travel Bug codes for FREE Discovery on a Face Book group. I know what you're thinking, "How Terrible!". And it was terrible. The community was in an up roar. Groundspeak told cachers just to delete these bogus logs and lock their TB's so they can not be logged thru the FB group. Luckily none of my TB's were listed as I have not seen any bogus logs as of yet. Some people just don't know how to play the game. People have logged caches before also without actually going to the cache. We call those people Armchair cachers. Simple rule is: go find the cache, log the cache!! Same with TB's, find or see the TB and log it!!! Rules don't get much simpler than that. Not sure why someone would want to cheat as they are only cheating themselves.

Well that's it for this month,

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65

Magic and caching trips!!!

Victoria trip for the 3 of Clubs Convention

Only managed to grab one challenge cache called "Night Games Challenge" while over on the island. You had to have found at least 10 Night Caches. I have found 24 in total. I still remember doing my 1st Night Cache in Courtenay.

YAY FTF!!!

Got an FTF called "1-UP" the other day. When it popped up as a new multi cache, it said it was just under 3KM away, so I got ready fast and headed out the door. As I was heading there, I realized it was further away than what my email said. I kept going anyway and when I got to the benchmark with the info, I worked it out as quick as I could. I put it into my phone app as a waypoint and it said it was 60km away.....whoooa!! I assumed I did something wrong so I looked at it again and realized the puzzle info was possibly wrong. I changed one of the numbers to make more sense, since it said it was just a short distance away. Plugged the new Co-ords into the geochecker, and got a thumbs up!!

After finding it, and realizing we were the First to find, we played with the huge leaves that were all over the trail.
I contacted the CO after me and my little guy made the find to let him know there may be a mistake. He quickly changed it, to make it work. When I got home, I checked my notification list and realized I have not changed the co-ords to my new address. All fixed now.












Vancouver Island Magic show
I am headed to Campbell River this coming weekend, and plan on heading over early so I can grab a few caches along the way. One cache I really want to get is "Royston Wrecks"
I used to live in Courtenay for about 3 years and have done several caches near this location. This "New Virtual" is one of the 4000 that where given to specific hiders, so they could place a Virtual.
Another cache I plan on grabbing is "Steely Dan"

Have passed by him several times when I used to live up that way. This time I plan on saying hi!!! And grabbing the cache!!!

NOTE: The highlighted 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, Instagram, and Google Plus links. Please feel free to check them out and follow or subscribe!!!


Getting ready for some upcoming trips for shows in December, and I will be doing some caching along the way. Also headed for Alberta at the end of the year during Christmas, and have already planned which caches I will go for. (as long as there is not to much snow)

Well, that's it for this month......

Keep on caching

Chris Yuill

Magicman65

December and January caching

Victoria trip

Caching for Challenges
It always seems when I travel somewhere I tend to look towards finding Challenge caches and my recent trip over to Victoria was no exception. I found a total of 6 challenge caches that had to do with the Jasmer chart, that I was able to log as I have completed the challenges. The Jasmer chart is explained a bit more in one of my previous "Blogs"

I also found an old cache that was published in October of 2003, that I needed to fill a spot on my Jasmer chart to finish off my 2003 caches.

 

 

NOTE: The highlighted 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, Instagram, and Google Plus links. Please feel free to check them out and follow or subscribe!!!

 

I also made a trip to the Landsharkz store. They have a very cool cache box right outside their store.

The box is locked and using the newspaper on the front, you can find the combination to the lock. Very Cool!!!

 

Speaking of challenge caches, I was recently out in Mission for a Magic gathering and had time to grab another challenge cache called Streak Challenge. Yup its a sickness!!!

New Years eve and New Years day cache souvenirs

 

This New years Groundspeak was giving away 2 new souvenirs if you found a cache on New Years Eve, and New Years Day. As you can see by the pics, I got both!!!

 

 

 

The Yukon

A few years back in 2012 I traveled to the Yukon for work, and I did as many caches as I could while there(There is much less caches up where I was than here at home) In fact I ran out of caches in the town I was in, so I had to travel greater distances to keep caching, as you can read about in a few of my past blogs, here, here, and here!! While up there, I did one in Whitehorse on one of our few trips to the big city, that was a simple magnetic key box but it was at a very cool huge Copper Nugget. Recently my wife Angelcheeks(also known as Jenna) was up in Whitehorse on Business and she got the same cache, but as you can see by the following pics, we were there at much different times of the year. lol

Dec 2015

June 2012

 I have been contemplating the challenge cache Geo-Mentors Challenge for awhile, and thought I could get it with my friend and fellow magician, Close Up Matt. (To claim this challenge cache, there must be at least two cachers finding it together - one cacher with less than 100 finds, and one cacher with more than 1,000) Then I noticed he was creeping up on the 100 mark, so we made a plan to meet up after I was finished work and go grab this one to get it off my list. Plus this would be his first Challenge cache. This was number 97 for him and then we even went and grabbed another cache close by to bring him to 98. I then dropped him off at the skytrain station in New Westminster and headed home. About an hour later he called me to let me know he did not get the train right away and went and grabbed 2 more caches in New West to bring up his total to 100!!!! Congrats again Matt!!!

 

 

 

Well that's it for this month

Keep on caching

Chris Yuill

Magicman65