On the day after tomorrow, I leave for four days of geocaching bliss - the Midwest Geobash. This is the fifth annual bash, and it will be my third time attending. It will be the first time, though, that I'll be able to stay for the entire bash. In 2006, had to leave for the weekend to go to my nephew's wedding. Didn't get to go in 2007. In 2008, had a weekend campout with Da Bears, so only got to go to bash the first day. But the calendar is clear and off I go bright and early Thursday morning.
I've (sorta) taken the plunge into paperless caching. There is a great program out there called GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) that downloads cache information into your computer. I have all the information on the computer now for 500 caches within a 25 mile radius of Wauseon, Ohio (where the geobash will be held.) The only problem is that the maps only show up when you're online. So I'm "sorta" paperless. I still printed out a bunch of location maps and will hopefully be able to find caches without too much trouble.
I had been given a link by my caching friend Macho Homemaker to download this same kind of info into my Nuvi (the car GPS) which would have been perfect. Trouble is, I've gone through all the steps twice now, and all goes well until the end where the POIloader (points of interest) can't find the file generated by GSAK. I'm hoping that I can find someone at the bash who can help me out on this. Otherwise it's a bit cumbersome having my computer with me and running just for cache information.
I plan to be leaving Thursday morning shortly after 7 a.m., heading over toward the east side of the state, picking up some caches along the way. I have three counties along the route that I don't have any cache finds yet: Livingston, Wayne, and Washtenaw. My route will take me through all three. Then south to the Wauseon area and to the nearby state park where there will be a welcome party Thursday afternoon. There are events taking place on Friday and Saturday as well, plus of course there will be lots of caching opportunities - about 100 caches within a 10 mile radius. I will easily make my 1800 milestone on this trip, and perhaps my 1900 as well! That would easily put me in range for the big 2000 on or before my trip up north for Mackinac Rendezvous in September.
Steve and Eric will hold down the fort at home. Steve was planning to go to another rally, but (read some previous posts) that isn't gonna happen now.
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