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

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