31 Days of Caching in August 2013

Back in July of 2013 Groundspeak announced that they were challenging geocachers worldwide to achieve a find on every day of the month in August.  They also announce that those that participated would receive a souvenir on the days that a find was made, this meaning that there was 31 total souvenirs to be collected.  To my non-cacher readers please note that geocaching souvenirs are pieces of digital art that are collected and available to be displayed on a geocachers personal profile.  This was met with mixed reviews on the Groundspeak forums, but personally I was all for it.  I though it was a great idea to get people out and doing something every day, so I went about planning my strategy.

My biggest hurdle was that there was not much in the way of traditional park and grabs left in the Victoria area, heck there were not that many left even in the surrounding communities.  So this meant if I was going to do this I would have to go to places up to an hour away every single day, and this would be a drain financially due to fuel costs.  My plan was already falling apart before August even started... But then I was struck with an idea, and it was back to the drawing board.

With my new plan of action in place I was ready to begin this month long challenge.  What I had decided to do was instead of going after traditional caches was to go solely after multistage caches and events.  But there really wasn't too much in the way of events in August, so then I figured that I should host one every weekend on Saturday for just 1 hour.  And so the "31 Days of Geocaching Booster Event" series born.
I scoped out the map trying to find where I would like to host these events and selected the locations.  Quickly I drew up the caches pages and submitted them, and in a few short days the events were published.  Next I fleshed out what multistage caches I would do, and the month was planned.  All that was left to do now was wait until August and get to work.

Well August arrived, and away I went.  But really I should stop here...  Seriously there was a ton of things that happened during the month, the caches, a wasp sting, a couple of FTFs (First to Finds), and all the events; including my own.  So how does one tell about everything that happened in a month and not have to go into some huge story?  I will tell you how... By showing you!

So please enjoy my photo montage of The GO! Team's 31 days of caching in August:

366 Days(Cumulative) Done... Challenge Complete

Today I finally was able to get out and get the final for a challenge cache that I was working on called "The Wealthy Barber - 366 Days of Megalomania! - GC28YQW".  Today was the first day of the "31 Days of Geocaching" and this allowed me to get the first of the souvenirs that at are available for grabs this month.

Because I wrote a lengthy log on the cache page I figured I would share that log here instead of typing out a story here.  So here it is:

"Wow, it has been a long road to this one. Over the course of 3 years we have cached and cached, but never really gave any thoughts to finishing this particular challenge. I remember in October of 2011 I had decided to go for Giant Pickles challenge for 50 straight days of caching, and went for 107 days total... I kick myself in the arse for stopping there, cause I totally could have gone the 366 straight days with ease.. But sadly that is impossible now. 

But it was in September of 2012 that I decided to look into this particular challenge to fill in the 366 cumulative calendar grid on geocaching.com... That looked easy enough, and when I looked at the calendar grid I was disappointed to still have so many empty days to do even with the previous 107 days done. 
The biggest obstacle for me was the fact that I am a fair weather cacher. My wife is cool with caching in any weather, but I hate hate hate rain. But I braved it up and worked away at it. And that was when I hit the biggest snag of all.

Looking at the grid again I realized I was missing a day on the very day I was to get married... July 13, 2013! There was no way I was going to find a cache on that day right? WRONG! 
Not only did I hold a photo flash mob event for the local and not so local cachers, I also attended a CITO in the morning of it and got a FTF on a tribute cache placed for me and my wife... Now how is that for dedication lol!

Anyway, by this point I only had a few more cache days to get done, and on 07/26/2013 my wife and I headed out the door to get "GCG56G - Shortstop" by Roswell. This was the last day we needed to have the grid complete and have cache finds on every possible day.
With that done I decided to save the find of this challenge cache for the first day of the "31 Days of Geocaching" on August 1, 2013. 

So today arrived, I awoke early to get a head start on the day. Tried to wake the wife up, but she wanted to sleep a bit more and told me to go by myself. Did my homework and decided to park at a little known shoulder and trailhead a mere 470+ meters away. Walked my way to GZ, but the GPSr lied to me and had me walking in circles in the wrong area. Decided to look at the map: zooming all the way in, and realized that the GPSr had me a good 70 meters too far. As a hint, use my picture of what I found nearby to find it easier. 
Once I did that, it was a super easy find and the cache was soon in hand. Signed the log, snapped a few pics and was on my way.
Thanks for the challenge, it was worth it."