ET Highway Day 4: The Road to Rachel and One Big Alien Head

Day 4 began like all the rest in the trip, EARLY!
We all met up in the parking lot of the Clown Motel and headed back over to the Mizpah Hotel for breakfast.  We learned that the restaurant here opened at a good time, and this meant we didn't have to eat at Texaco again.

I don't know what was my problem this day, but it was my worst yet.  I was feeling better, but I mentally was not alright.  Seriously I was a total jerk this day, absolutely miserable.  Maybe I was just done... Tired of being sick, tired of being tired, tired of all the caching!  But like I said I was a jerk, and I felt bad about it after.

But on with the story about this day!  We began with a couple of traditional caches in Tonopah followed by a earthcache. With those out of the way we were back on the highway and completed a small powertrail that consisted of caches placed by those who had come and completed the ET Highway series.  At the end of the trail Paulboy placed one on behalf of our team "CIA Thanks You - GC45PJN", so if you are in that area be sure to find and log it.
The reason people from so far away can place a cache there is because the cachers maintain it.  In fact every cache in the whole series and in the surrounding areas a maintained mostly the cachers and not their owners. It is kind of a requirement, so make sure you bring film canisters with paper in them to use as a replacement.

After we completed that we kept heading back down the highway, picking off caches we skipped when focusing only on the ET caches.  We eventually got to another earthcache and went on a short walk to get a cache that claimed to be the original ET Highway cache (not tied into the series).  Continuing on we also found a fun little cache inside a skull.  JuRuu just wanted a picture with it, but when he held it up for the shot we noticed the cache inside.

We eventually got back to Rachel and stopped in for a quick bite to eat and a coffee, and headed back out.
This part of the trip would be more like regular caching, and did not require driving around at all.  We first did another small powertrail across from the Alien Head, and once that was done headed over to the Alien Head and completed that.
I have to say the Alien Head is a lot of fun, and it left me looking very forward to doing the UFO the next day.

After returning to the hotel the whole group headed out to do a Whereigo, a multi-stage, letterbox hybrid, regular, another earthcache, and a mystery-puzzle in the dark so that we could complete and sign a challenge that required you to find 6 different cache types in one day.  And before calling it quits for the day did one last small powertrail  A great time was had by all, but by this time everyone was super tired from all the walking.
Very much our smallest number day so far, but man it was worth it!  And as the day came to a close all turned in for the night once more, dreaming of one last day on the ET Highway.

ET Highway Day 3: Snow Day

I was the first to awake this day, my chest congestion triggered a coughing attack that caused me to run to the bathroom so as to not awake my father Postie Bear and Just Leafy.
After getting past that, I decided to look out the window to see if the weather reports were correct.  And of course they were.  Laying on the ground was a light dusting of snow, but nothing to be concerned about.
There really wasn't any place open to eat at this particular time of the day, so we hit the Texaco to try and stock up on snacks to tie us through to the evening.  The service station's attendant told us that he could make us breakfast, and he did.  We were a bit skeptical, but it actually turned out to be alright... Almost McDonalds in quality!

Just as we were about to pack up and head out the snow started again, and some of us decided to buy tuques and gloves as well.  The temperatures were very low this morning at about -10 Celsius, later in the day raising to about a flat zero.  So it was a blessing that the Texaco had what was needed.


This turned out to be the hardest day for me health wise, the cold and the thin air at our elevation of over 6000 Feet above sea level really made it hard for me to breathe.  I was coughing and coughing, so I did not assist in the running but tried my best at navigating.  Thank god Cougar Kid had Fisherman's Friends (I could not find one place that sold them) with him, as the Hall's I was forced to buy were no longer doing the trick.  The Fisherman's Friends were just the thing needed, and allowed for deep inhalations and allowed me to speak and call out distances without coughing up a lung.

There were a few caches that were not a part of the series strewn in the mix, and these were a welcomed diversion.  They allowed all of us to get out and do a bit of traditional caching, but they were not hard to to find.




This was an interesting leg of the series, because none of the caches were on a straight and logical path.  Instead they had us heading in one direction for a few hundred, then they would force us to drive 15-20 min in another direction to get another few hundred, and this would continue all day long.  It would continue to snow off and on too, covering the landscape intermittently with a light dusting of snow.  It was beautiful, and filled Just Leafy and I with a sense of awe! 

We did not have to go so hard this day because there was only about 590 left for us to do.  And by the time light started to fade yet again we made our trips goal come true.... We finally got 2000-E.T.

With giant grins on our faces, we setup the tripod and camera once more and grabbed a group shot holding the ammo-can in jubilee.  As we loaded back up into the van, we decided to grab just a few more on the way back to Tonopah.



When we arrived we were greeted with a nice dumping of snow everywhere.  It is interesting how a difference of 500 Feet can have such a drastically different effect on the weather.

After a quick stop in at the motel for a brief clean up it was time for a nice celebratory meal at the Mizpah Hotel, where we were treated to a nice congratulatory dessert (I am sure Just Leafy had something to do with that).

We returned to the Clown Motel and turned in for the night, as tomorrow brought new challenges that had to be over come.

ET Highway Day 2: Roadrunners, Jack Rabbits, Coyotes and Head Injuries OH MY!!!

We awoke the next day not feeling refreshed at all.  Travelling takes a lot out of you sometimes, and with all my previous lack of sleep I was already a wreak.  We quickly dressed and met the team in the parking lot and headed over to the Sinclair Station for a quick breakfast and lunch supply run.  We were back on the road by 6:45am blasting down the highway to where we ended the day at 0625-ET.  Sunrise in the desert is a beautiful sight, and I am glad I got to see it.
It didn't take us long to blast past Rachel and arrive where we needed to start today.  The goal in mind was to at least reach 800 cache finds, and this meant go now, go hard, and don't stop.

We pushed on just giving it all we had, runners ran faster, navigators were trying to be more accurate at distance count down.  And because of this we had our first... OK second injury (on day one Just Leafy smashed her knee at the very first cache we did), where when Paulboy jumped out of the vehicle he smashed his head on the holy crap handle on the ceiling and knocked himself unconscious.  Just Leafy being our team medic got Paulboy back up and moving very quickly, but he refused to quit running... And so continue running he did!

We sadly at one point had to waste 40min to drive all the way to Tonopah to fuel up.  This doubled up meant that when we got back we would have to no matter what put an extra hour in after sundown to meet our goal.  And once we had the van fueled up, we rushed back to the spot we stopped at and really got back to work.

We cached on and on, seeing new and wondrous vistas.  And we saw so many neat wildlife like Roadrunners, Jack Rabbits, Coyotes and more.  There was even at one point a leg trap set for the coyotes almost right beside a cache.  We used a stick to spring that one, as it would be too dangerous for a unwary cacher who had their eyes on the prize. And we passed the half way mark by doing 1000-E.T.

Soon the light started to fade away, and once again the temperature started to drop.  This night turned out to be the the coldest yet, but we could not stop.  The van's heaters on full we pushed and pushed until we hit 800, but why stop there right!?  We did an extra 41 more (total daily count 848) before we were all just too tired and too cold, and with that slid the van door shut for the night and drove on to Tonopah where we stayed at the Clown Motel (do not go here if you have Coulrophobia, a fear of clowns).
Here we learned that it was supposed to snow that night, which did cause some hearts to sink.
After a quick dinner and clean up we turned in to sleep once more, wondering what tomorrow would bring.

ET Highway Day 1: The Start of The E.T. Highway

We roused that day nice and early to get a nice start at 6am to drive to Alamo the only city with fuel along the ET Highway before Tonopah.  We stopped here for breakfast and fuel for the van and found that the nice folks here at the Sinclair also make fresh sandwiches, so we ordered a few of them and were on our way.

We did 5 in this area before the turn off to the ET Highway.  This put Just Leafy and I in position to get our 2000th cache find on 0001-E.T. - GC2ZK7J.  This has been long awaited and planned for find for by us, and boy am I glad to have gotten it done.  It was a great ammo-can painted light green with an alien on it.  We all gathered around and set up the camera on the tripod to take a quick group photo.
With that out of the way we were on our way to get this geo-bucket list done. 

The caching was fast, and furious.  It is unlike anything we have done before!

Really you don't have to put any effort into it at all, the caches are all visible from the road hidden under a little pile of rocks.  You just jump out, open, sign, replace and you are on your way again in seconds.  The faster you go, the more you get done.  To some that may sound monotonous, and to the extent I would agree.  But as a team working together you can take nice breaks and watch the wondrous scenery.

As we cached along we arrived in the little town of Rachel (population 47), the little big mecca of all things extra-terrestrial since it is so close to the mysterious Area 51.  This is the cutest little place with a UFO being towed by a tow-truck, and little cafe/bar that serves fantastic food and is staffed by the most wonderful people (they love cachers)!

But this was not our destination, so after a quick lunch we were on our way again.

We cached on and on and on, and eventually we ran out of light.  We cached as long as we could after, but the temperature drops significantly after nightfall so eventually we had to turn back and head to Alamo once more to check into our motel.  Completely exhausted we all turned in after dinner, and dreamed of the day to come.

We ended day 1 with a total finds of 639 geocaches.  I think we could have found more!  But with the first leg of the trip from Las Vegas to Alamo, shopping and getting over the learning curve, the smaller but impressive count was to be expected.

E.T. Highway Adventure: Travel Day & Event

Well the time finally came and gone, but on February 4th Just Leafy and I started our adventure to the E.T. Highway powertrail series.  This adventure started with us leaving Victoria at 8:30pm with a flight to Edmonton.  My health was seriously not at it`s  best, as I was hit with a pretty crazy cold the week before.  Little did I know that the lingering chest congestion would hinder my adventure later on, but blissfully we traveled onward.

After arriving in Edmonton we were put up in hotel compliments of Westjet.  They really messed up a few months ago and cancelled my flight replacing it with one that had a 6 hour layover in Los Angeles, effectively causing me to be late for my own event in Las Vegas.  This would not do, and a comprimise was made with Westjet that would include the above overnight in Edmonton, but would get me to Vegas 6 hours before my event.  And so on February 5th we flew onward in the early morning hours to our destination.

We arrived in Las Vegas without any problems and was very pleased that our bag was the 6th one off the ramp onto the conveyor belt.  We proceeded outside and grabbed a taxi to our hotel, and soon met up with one of our caching companions seekandsail in the lobby of the Excalibur Hotel & Casino.

Since we could not check in yet (too early and rooms not ready) seekandsail let us store our luggage in his room, and we walked over to the food court in the MGM Grand to have a quick breakfast before setting forth and adventuring for a while!

Wanting to show Just Leafy and seekandsail everything I could, I literally wore myself right out.  I had walked myself too far and stretched my energy too thin, and I could not stop coughing.  It almost got to the point that I would not be able to get myself back to the hotel.  But I did, and Leifa and I checked in and retired to our room and presently I passed right out from exhaustion.

The rest of what happened that day resides in Leafy's mind.  But all it consisted of was running around and meeting up with Paulboy and some of the other crew and renting the vehicle.

I awoke at 5:30pm and started to get myself ready for my event.  I felt like crap, and moved slowly about conserving energy.  And soon enough the time came and Leafy and headed out way over to the Luxor Hotel & Casino to where I was hosting the event in the food court.

I have to say Las Vegas cachers are as bad as us BC cachers!  I arrived early to find I was late!! 

It was a great time, over 30 cachers from all over came and attended the event.  Lots of laughs were had, and I got to reconnect with others that I had met at the event I held here in May 2011.  Even Clay4 creator of the E.T. Highway series was in attendance.  Paulboy made him a honorary member of our team and gave him a customized team shirt.

After the event, we all sat and had a quick meeting to discuss the trip.  And soon retired to our rooms to get what we could for sleep before heading out!

And So The Adventure Begins!

Well the time has come, and spirits couldn't be any higher!  Today is the day we embark on a journey filled with laughs, good times, and tons and tons of geocaches.  Our geocaching team called the CIA (Canadian Island Aliens) are heading to Nevada to attempt (to us) an unprecedented number of cache finds!  We are expecting to possibly find 2800 to 3000 geocaches total along the E.T. Highway, surrounding area and Route 66.  It will be go, go, go.. And I am sure we will be pretty bagged (and sick of geocaching) once we complete it all.

Today is more of a get ready and travel day.  We flew out of Victoria to Edmonton and are spending the night at a hotel compliments of Westjet!  The reason of this is that they buggered up and cancelled our original flight, rescheduled us with a completely unacceptable flight with a 6hr lay-over in Los Angeles on Tuesday.  This would have us arrive in Las Vegas 30min late for the event we are hosting at the Luxor Hotel and Casino that very night.  Upon calling them and explaining my situation they came up with this solution, which is way better as it will have us arrive in Vegas at 8am'ish, whereas my original flight would have had me there at 2pm.

So here we are in Edmonton excitedly awaiting our next flight.  Keep checking back to read more about our grand adventure, I am sure we will have tons to tell you about!

The CIA Is Looking For You!

With the clock ticking down the days to our big trip to Nevada to do the ET Highway cache series, it was time to hold an event.  The event's purpose was threefold get us all together in one place for the first time, collect trackables to take with us, and for people to see us and wish us well before we left.  Since we The GO! Team are hosting the event in Las Vegas, the CIA Director Paulboy took the time and energy to host this event.

As usual the turn out was amazing!  An event hosted by Paulboy means fun, prizes, good company & conversation, and even more fun!  And in that Paulboy did not disappoint.   Everyone had such a great time, and soon the event came to an end.

With the team fully assembled, uniforms ready, and trackables collected, The CIA (Canadian Island Aliens) are ready to travel and tackle the largest collection of geocaches that any of us have dreamed of.

See you when we get back, I am sure we will have lots of stories to share!!

Strollin on the Next New Year 2013

2012 was a very eventful year for us The GO! Team.  I would go into everything as a recap, but why should I...  So much to say, yet pretty much all of it is covered right here on this blog!  Just read on down the blog list of 2012 to see all the fun events and adventures that we participated in!

But now lets talk about Lumbo-Tire's famous (or infamous) New Years event, aptly dubbed with his notable "Stollin on" title "GC42RCY - Strollin on the Next New Year".  

Lumbo always holds this event at his mess at the Lt. General Ashton Armory, which is great for a large group of people like us.  I actually think this particular event had more in attendance compared to last year.  We had a photo session down on the parade square, and sadly we didn't end up with any usable pictures.  But check out the video of the attendees we got at the bottom of this blog post!

Lumbo-Tire goes all out, with a no-host bar, to pot luck style food (provided by the attendees), to fun parlor games and fun for the kids. It is always a blast and everyone has a good time.

And lets not forget the trackable bonanza!  People who love to move or log trackables are never at a loss here.  It was a blast for me to show newer cachers my trackable tattoo, and get the gasps of shock...  It really gives me a good laugh to hear them say "Now that takes dedication"!  

As the night came to an end Lumbo announced that a particular cache nearby (one I had found before) was getting archived.  This cache "GC3GCN6 - The MiB go to Washington" usually gives people a hard time, causing people to search for over an hour leading them to give up!  So I took the time to lead 2 groups of people to assist in the find!  On this particular icy and cold night the people I took were very grateful, as it cut down the search time and meant less time in the cold.

After all that, Just Leafy and I stayed at the mess talking with Lumbo-Tire, sdkonkle and his family, and A-Team to almost midnight.

What a great night!  Thanks again to Lumbo-Tire for his hard work setting up yet another fantastically fun New Year event!

And a thanks to all that came!  I wish I could have spent more time talking with all of you, and let's strive to get in some conversations at future events.  Oh and by the way......

Happy New Year Everyone!! 

Out With The Old, In With The New - Happy New Year 2013!

Well just wanted to do a quick and last blog post for 2012.  Just Leafy and I wish everyone a very happy new year.  May 2013 bring everyone the very best, tons of amazing adventures and of course lots and lots of geocaches!

Happy New Year!!!!!

12-12-12 Events and Night Caching with Giant Pickle

So 12-12-12 the last time the date could be the same numbers consecutively for about a hundered years has come and gone, and we geocachers really did it in style. 

There were three events in the Victoria area today, and we The GO! Team had all events covered;  while I Shadowcaster attended the Grifung event in View Royal, Just Leafy attended the Oak Bay event...  Ahhh the convenience of being a team under a single banner!

The events were "The end is near!  Flash mob - GC40KTG" hosted by Grifung, "12-12-12 Behind the Tweed Curtain Flash Mob - GC3YHWT" hosted by AnnieMaroo, and "12-12-12 Event - End of the Mayan World - GC40MRX" hosted by Landsharkz.

The Grifung and AnnieMaroo events were earlier in the day at about the same time on opposite ends of town, while the Landsharkz event was in the evening at a local pub!

I will take my turn first and write about the event I attended,  "The end is near!  Flash mob - GC40KTG" hosted by Grifung.

As I pulled into the entrance to the park in View Royal where this event was being held, I could tell this would be an interesting one.  There were already a lot of people already there, and the parking lot was totally full.  Figuring that the line of cars properly parked were cacher cars, I parked blocking them just like many others had done... Only to find shortly after that they were not, as a group of grumpy dog walkers returned to the lot to vocalize their displeasure at our presence.  

Oh well sucks to be them really, we just moved the cars around a bit and stayed as planned.  There was not a chance that these grumpy ladies were going to hinder our plans for a 12:12pm on 12-12-12 group photo.  

Soon the time got close and as we all arranged ourselves into position for the photo, Dave (Pracademics) came whizzing into park, jumped out of the car and ran into frame...  Talk about good timing!!

Grifung began to count down, smiles were plastered onto our faces, and then it was done.

As people took off to return to jobs and/or return to caching on this day, many stayed for a few min to log trackables and chat.  I stayed for as long as I could, but then slid out and headed for home.

While that was taking place Just Leafy was in Oak Bay at the event she attended, "12-12-12 Behind the Tweed Curtain Flash Mob - GC3YHWT" hosted by AnnieMaroo.  Now she will tell you about that event herself.  So Just Leafy take it away...

What a neat day to host an event on 12-12-12! I love numbers so I can really appreciate this kind of thing. As there were two events taking place at the same time Shadowcaster and I thought it was a great idea if we both attended one event each since we're a team now...and that's what we did! I guess you really can be in two places at once!!
It was great to see those of you who attended this event (Behind the Tweed Curtain Flash Mob) and hopefully there will be a larger turn out for the event being hosted by Landsharkz tonight!
I LOVED trying to get my photo with the dogs that were there...it was quite comical!
Thanks AnnieMaroo for the chocolate, I enjoyed every last bite!

Later that day we got out and did a few caches out near home that we were saving and went home to prep for the evening event  "12-12-12 Event - End of the Mayan World - GC40MRX" hosted by Landsharkz.

At this event we had a great time.  It had been many many years since the last time I was at Ma Miller's Pub, but the food was as good as it was back then.  Sometimes at these kind of events it is hard to socialize due to people sitting in groups and not really migrating around, but we did what socializing we could.

As the evening progressed the pub set up for it's weekly Karaoke.  Some of us were brave soles that went up and sang our hearts out.  This included Wrooster doing "Sweet Sixteen", Nanakatz doing some song (sorry I don't remember), Wrooster with Just Leafy and I doing "It's End of The World As We Know It", Steve of Islandfinders with Just Leafy doing "Love Shack", and myself rocking "Enid"!

After the event Giant Pickle asked us to join in on some night cache adventures, and we headed out to do "Quest for the Nocturnal Shark - GC1R8RN" and while attempting it knocked off "Rocky Horror Shark Show - HAG VI - GC23NP1" by chance.

What a great day for caching, and attending a series of fun events.  Thanks Grfung, AnnieMaroo and Landsharkz for putting it all together!

 Oh and check out the newest geocoin to join our collection too!

ABRUPT ENCOUNTER WITH REALITY GEOCACHE With Paulboy, Cougar Kid and Pracademics

Well back in August I did POINT DEFIANCE GEOCACHE with Mr. Moss Troopers and Pracademics and attempted ABRUPT ENCOUNTER WITH REALITY GEOCACHE but we were met with a closed gate, that impeded us in getting there. A decision was made that we would just not do it that day, and we moved on to get other caches in the area and come again in the fall in hopes that the gate would be open.

Time went by and plans were laid, but sadly this time Mr. Moss Trooper had to decline... This then required us to find a new team to go up with us. I first tried to get alyseluvsmike involved, but they had plans to be in Nanaimo with Creaky Clan Chris the weekend we were planning for, so obviously they could not come!
So who else would be up for coming with us... I thought and thought and thought.. Ok I didn't think that much becasue the answer was obvious....  Paulboy and Cougar Kid.

I met up in the morning of Saturday November 24th with Pracademics, Paulboy and Cougar Kid, and started the long drive out to this wonderfully beautiful area. Laughs and jokes kept us lively the whole way up, but the ever present wish of an open gate for easy drive up was in our minds.

We first stopped at a familiar location to let Paulboy and Cougar Kid get POINT DEFIANCE GEOCACHE, and once we did that we were on our way to the most important one of the day.

But sadly when we arrived our hopes at finding an open gate were crushed due to active logging in the area, and this time we had to resort to plan B... Walk the 4.1km up!!

 This is a steady uphill climb, but with steeled hearts we trekked all the way to GZ, me being the slowest of the group yet the youngest..  Guess all my weightloss this past summer didn't increase my uphill stamina at all!  When we arrived on site where the hide would be we began the search and made a quick find.  It was really cool to find that the original lid was present at the hide site.

Of course we took the time to take some goofy photos, and had a bit of a rest and headed back downhill.

It is nice to get another iconic TEAM cache found, and even nicer to find it with fun and wonderful cache friends.

Thanks for keeping it alive!

The Return of Hobo & Miss

Hi there everyone!

Just Leafy here!!  I'm excited to write my very first ever entry to our geo-adventure blog.  Why is it that I get a chance to write one??  Well, the answer is because Shadowcaster for once could not attend the event as he was working that evening.  I thought it would be a good idea to attend so I went without him.

As most of you may remember back in May of 2011, Hobo & Miss of jolly ol' England came to town and hosted an event at Swans Pub here in Victoria.  I believe that this is a previous entry in our blog marking our 999th cache back then!

Hobo & Miss were back again on November 9th and they held an event to check in with old friends and to meet some new ones!

I brought a girlfriend along with me who is curious about geocaching so she could start meeting the geo-caching crew within the community and to hopefully boost her interest further with the social aspect of the game!  I can't wait to show her some of most creative caches out there once the weather gets warmer and so that a full day can be made of it!

We enjoyed the company!  There was lots of laughter and we had a great time playing music bingo!  The food was terrific and can't wait until I return to have those nachos another time!! 

It was sure nice to see Hobo & Miss again!

A big thanks to them for hosting the event bringing some of us together and a big thanks to all the cachers who showed up too - it's always great to see familiar faces!!