Plans Made, Team Chosen, Team Signature Item Designed & Now The Long Wait...

The gears have been set in motion for quite some time now for us thanks to our good geo-pal Paulboy. 
This intrepid cacher has had this idea for some time to get a group of fun, crazy, out of this world cachers together to go down to Nevada and tackle the ET Highway Cache Series.
This series is two thousand caches long, spread out over a nice long stretch of highway.

The date is set, the flights and hotels have been booked, budgets have been discussed and we are ready to go!

Our cache team consists of Paulboy, Cougar Kid, bigbluemarble, JuRuu, seekandsail, CRkyaker, Postie Bear (my dad) and us The GO! Team (Shadowcaster & Just Leafy). 

We will be kicking off this adventure with an event at the Luxor Hotel and Casino the day before we start, and caching our brains out for five days after.

Our cache team is called the CIA or Canadian Island Aliens and we have t-shirts, hats and pathtags with our team logo (designed by me Shadowcaster)  to go along with us.

We may even toss in an event here before we leave to collect trackables to take the Las Vegas with us and for people to wish us Bon Voyage, so stay tuned for more info on that.

Mid-Island Halloween Costume Event, Night Caching, 1900th Find & 12 FTFs

October 27th, 2012 was the Mid-Island Halloween Costume Event in Comox, hosted by cachers Coast2Coast2Coast and Let's Go Caching at the Comox Recreation Center.  This was our first event this far north of our regular event attending circle and it did not disappoint.

We picked up Paulboy in Ladysmith and made the trek up to the Comox Valley in the dreary and unceasing rain.  On the way up Paulboy told us there would be a series of Night Caches that would get published that night, so when we arrived in Comox Just Leafy and I had to pop into Wal-Mart to pick up some cheap rain gear so we could do them without getting soaked to the bone.  After we picked up that equipment we jumped back into the geo-mobile and headed to the Rec Center.

We arrived early enough to figure out that we had messed up at little.  As it turns out this was a potluck event, and we didn't have anything to contribute.  But luckily my dad who is now a new cacher and resident of Comox was going to attend, and we were able to inform him so he could bring something for the both of us.

It was nice to see and meet so many cachers, and also nice to catch up with those that I already know but don't see too often.

So many people came in costume, and there was a contest by ballot for the best costumes.  Categories were:

Top Overall:  Awarded Magicman65 (King)
Best Geocache Costume:  Awarded to 3 kids dressed as trackable lizards and Kurt of Let's Go Caching (Garmin Maps GPS)

Best Couples Costume:  Awarded to C2C2C and wife for dressing up as Sunny & Cher

Best Kids Costume:  Awarded to Chickadee Rose for dressing as Princess Peach

(See photo at end of blog entry to see the costumes)

As the event came to a close we wandered out and poised ourselves with Paulboy to tackle the soon to be released Night Caches.  We were still enroute to the starting coordinates when the familiar "Ping" on the phone stated the new caches were live and ready, and by the time we arrived Pollywog and HB-vanislelady were already there waiting for someone to arrive and join their group to begin the search. 
I mentioned that maybe we could wait for the larger group, and they all felt that with all the rain we should just get started.  So away we went.

What a great series!  The whole thing was Halloween themed, and each one gave us a great laugh.  The whole time we were sure there was one or two of the cache owners out there ready to scare the bejeebus out of us cachers, but turns out there wasn't.  There were thirteen caches in total, and we got FTF (First to Find) on twelve of them.  We had actually missed #2 and grabbed it later, this made me feel better as it allowed the other group to snag FTF on it.  We even hit our 1900th cache find at one of these caches in the night series!

Over all what a great night!  Just Leafy and I had a blast, and we look forward to attending further mid-island events in the future.

Tipping A Pint To Good Friends!

On the evening of the 17th of October the Cache-keteers threw an event for caching couple ScraphappyJ and Cacher Lou at the Cobblestone Inn and Pub.

We walked into the pub about 30min early to see Chris (Magicman65) already there enjoying a meal.  We joined him and talked for a while until the next set cachers arrive, and went into the billards room to sit at our actual tables.  Cache talked and the flashing of trackables ensued, all the while more and more cachers poured through the door.

I have to tell you.. If you are passing through Cobble Hill and and can have a chance to stop in at the Cobblestone Inn and Pub, make sure to do so.  The food and atmoshphere here is great.  I enjoyed the best nachos I have had in a long time, while most places skimp of the toppings this place piles them on.

Soon AnnieMaroo showed up, and after being out east in PEI she had a ton of trackables to be discovered and picked up.  So it was trackable heaven at the head table, while everyone crouched over the table and recorded numbers for later!

One of the highlights of this was that Annie just happened to find and pick up both mine and Porchlizard's Trackable Racing Ducks.  This means it made it to PEI and back again, and racking in a ton of points. 

This was good news for me, since I didn't even know mine had made it.  When it got to Alberta and then happened to unfortunatly come back to the Island, I got discouraged and stopped paying attention to its progress.  But in the mean while it seemed that Paulboy found it before going to PEI in August and took it all the way there.  So it looks like Porchlizard and I are in the lead WOOO-HOO!  But just cause they went and came back already does not mean the race is done.. So don't rest yet Porchlizard, get that ducky back out there!!!

Slowly the night came to an end, and all the cachers started to trickle back out and to thier homes (or caching).  And soon enough it was our turn to leave.

We had great time, and enjoyed the experience very much.  Nice to meet you ScraphappyJ and Cacher Lou, and thank you Cache-keteers for hosting another fun event!!