Planning a "Mary Hyde" Geocaching Event

Happy Summer Geocachers!

As our first official blog post of the summer, we wanted to check in and see who all was onboard for pirate adventures this summer? 

We assume by now you've seen the Geocaching(r) blog post about "The Lost Treasure of Mary Hyde" so you'll have some context about what we're discussing here!

Our good friends at Geocaching HQ have devised another fun summer activity for us all to participate in. So of course, the question becomes "will there be an event near me so I can get this souvenir and/or earn whatever rewards come of this?"

I took a look and there were no events near us, so we decided to host one ourselves. If it's of some help in your planning, here's some insight to our event.

Through an almost unbelievable coincidence, mere days after a mysterious letter in a bottle showed up near Geocaching HQ, a letter in a disappointingly empty rum bottle showed up near LANMonkey Studios. 

Here's the letter we found after thoroughly checking the bottle for rum.

  
So with some mad Google skills we determined that "15 score years" would be 300 years. And would you believe, 300 years from the date the letter was written turns out to be the weekend for "The Lost Treasure of Mary Hyde" souvenir events?

Given that information, we had now figured out that it was imperative we create an event at the given coordinates, and make sure all local Geocachers have the opportunity to break the curse!

If you'd like to see more about our event, make sure you check out GC77NRK 

And for some more ideas, take a look at these:

Need a Pirate Hat?

Download this image and print it on 11x17 for a large size, and legal size for the tots. Thanks to Chris of the Northwest from our Caching in the Northwest podcast for the design!

 Look to the bottom of this article for the full-size version to download!



How About Aome Piratey Games?  

Consider getting your scurvy attendees to walk the plank for a prize? Blindfold them, and they have to keep their feet within the sidewalk chalk "plank" you sketch on the ground. 

Pirates are often found around water - if you have the time, tools, and supplies you could put together a "portable water cache" - you know, the ones with the PVC pipe with various holes drilled in the sides? Of course your event would need to be near a source of free water, but it's another idea.

What are your ideas?
Share them with us, we'd love to hear what you are planning or what you did once the date for the event passes.


But most of all, have fun out there and cache safely, and cache often!
The LANMonkeys

Full Size CNW Pirate Hat image below:

Teaser - New Puzzles Series

 Spoiler alert! New LANMonkey puzzle cache series is coming soon to Metro Vancouver. 

We promise variety, creative hides, and challenging puzzles. But to give you a leg up, here's some images that will be used in one of the puzzles.

 In the meantime, make sure that you get out and cache safely, and cache often!

 

 

 

New Geotour in the Northwest

City of Richmond Announces New Geotour!

Word is out - on the City of Richmond website, as well as the BCGA and MetroVan Geocacher's social media channels. The City of Richmond, in partnership with the Government of Canada, is launching a brand new Geotour on May 6, 2017.



The Canada 150 Geotour will feature 17 traditional caches, 2 multis, and 1 earthcache. The geocaches will have fun, creative hides at each of the 19 physical cache locations, many courtesy of local geocachers layzee_bones and GeoNavPros.  

If finding 20 great geocaches isn't reward enough, be one of the first 150 geocachers to collect all 20 clues  and you will be rewarded with a limited edition trackable geocoin!

For more information about the Canada150 Geotour, and getting started with geocaching in general, click here to listen to yours truly talking to Janice & Cory about it on Roundhouse Radio this past Monday.

 
The launch of this fantastic new geotour will take place during the 3rd Annual Richmond Geocaching Extravaganza. Make sure you sign up for this event by logging your "will attend" on the event page. 

If you've never attended a geocaching event, download the official Geocaching.com app for your phone, create your free account, and come out to the Richmond Nature Park between 11:00am and 3:00pm Saturday May 6 2017 to have some local experts help you learn all about it in a family friendly environment.

For more in-depth information about the Geotour and geocaching in the City of Richmond, check out the April 6th episode of the Caching in the Northwest podcast.


And remember to always cache safely, and cache often!
The LANMonkeys.

Geocaching #GeekoftheWeek - gslink

Thanks for your patience everyone!

And now LANMonkey's Geocaching Adventures proudly presents the next Geocaching #GeekoftheWeek - gslink!

gslink - also known to listeners of the Geocache Talk podcast as Gary Slinkard - has over 160 geocaches placed, and over 1,000 found. Most notably in the Texas Geocaching community, Gary annually hosts "The Great Hunt of Hunt County" geocaching event.

Most recently, Gary has joined the ranks of Geocaching authors with the publishing of his book "Hide & Seek: Life Lessons of a Geocacher." Follow the link to check out more about his book on Amazon; available in ebook and printed copy.

Gary has worked in IT for over 25 years and lives in Greenville, Texas which is just an hour east of Dallas. He grew up in San Antonio Texas and anyone who's heard him on the weekly Geocache Talk podcast Sunday evenings can attest to the fact he is indeed a Texan!

Gary loves to travel and will often be found on a #GeocacheRoadTrip with his wife of 28 years, "SlinkyMama."  Combined with his Geocaching activities, Gary has also been participating in Weight Watchers for the past two years and has lost 100 lbs!

However, even more importantly than their accomplishments in Geocaching, writing, and podcasting, gslink and SlinkyMama are the proud parents of three sons; Joshua and Caleb who are 27 and Nathan who is 21.


You can catch Gary every week on the Geocache Talk podcast and watch him live on YouTube Sunday evenings at 6:00pm. 

Do you know someone who deserves being recognized as a Geocaching #GeekoftheWeek? Let us know by commenting on this post or tweeting your nominee to @LANMonkeyGC #GeekoftheWeek

Geocaching #GeekoftheWeek - witzend

Welcome to our second edition of the Geocaching #GeekoftheWeek, this week featuring true Renaissance man - witzend.

witzend has been geocaching since 2004, where he found his first geocache while visiting his hometown for a high school reunion. While he enjoys the hobby and has passed on his enthusiasm to several others you may be surprised that his "find count" isn't among the top in his area. 

This is because he continually seeks out innovation, quality, and social aspects of geocaching over find counts. This is evidenced by having finds in 20 states and four countries, being a frequent familiar face at geocaching events, and being a proud owner of an A.P.E. icon.

Growing up in Southern California, witzend is a true Disneyland junkie but also considers the Northwest home as he's lived here his entire adult life. Living in the Northwest has allowed him access to people and places where he can enjoy some of his passions including camping, geocaching, photography/videography, amateur radio, and schuhplattler.  

Like we said - a true renaissance man who is a life-long learner and always making something new or improving on something in his garage which doubles as his podcasting studio. Of course, when not attending to family, work, or these hobbies, he's helping with the local amateur radio enthusiasts or working as a freelance videographer (including 20 years on the crew at the Puyallup Fair).

He is proudest however of his family - "My children have grown into amazing and wonderful adults in spite of my parenting and of course my wife of almost 29 years is a big reason for that."

You can catch witzend every week on the Caching in the Northwest podcast recorded live Thursday nights at 9:00pm Pacific on YouTube. 

Do you know someone who deserves being recognized as a Geocaching #GeekoftheWeek? Let us know by commenting on this post or tweeting your nominee to @LANMonkeyGC #GeekoftheWeek

How to Get a Canadian TB Contest in 4 Easy Steps

How many of my fellow Geocachers are also tired of “residents of the USA only” Geocaching trackable promotions? Well, I’ve tried the route of complaining until I’m blue in the face and that didn’t work. But here’s an idea that will.

If all of us follow these four simple steps, we’ll get the attention of Canadian outdoors & activity retailers and soon have our very own Canadian Geocaching Trackable promotion. 

An important point to understand is that it is not Geocaching.com who decides where a trackable promotion will be active - that decision is primarily made by the marketing (and legal?) teams from the company sponsoring the promotion. So let's motivate some marketing teams to get on board with this!

1. Share the Message on Facebook and Twitter

Sample Twitter Messages:

Hey @MEC want a deep reach to 30k #Canadian #outdoor enthusiasts? Try a #geocaching TB promotion! https://www.geocaching.com/promotions/

@CanadianTire DYK there’s 30,000 active #outdoor enthusiasts across #Canada you could get to promote your message? https://www.geocaching.com/promotions/

Sample Facebook Messages:

There’s a huge marketing success secret that @TimHortons doesn’t know! Like and share if you agree they could get 30,000 Canadians passionately sharing their message if they launched a #Geocaching Trackable promotion! https://www.geocaching.com/promotions/

Like and share if you think @CanadianTire should launch a #Canadian #Geocaching trackable promotion for us 30,000+ awesome Canuck geocachers, eh! https://www.geocaching.com/promotions/

2. Make Sure to Attach a Picture

It’s a proven fact that photos add “stickiness” to tweets and posts, and attract more attention. Check through this post for some pictures you can use, but don’t let me limit your awesome creativity!

3.  Support Each Other!

If you see one of these posts or tweets from a fellow Geocacher, make sure to like, repost, retweet, etc. the message. The more activity these messages have the more the target companies will pay attention.

4. Share Your Awesome Ideas

I KNOW you’re smarter than I am, so if you can think of other companies we could all be targeting these messages to, share your ideas with all of us Canadian Geocachers by using the hashtags #Geocaching and #TrackableCanada on Twitter, and posting to Facebook groups like “You Might be a Geocacher if…” and the other various Geocaching online groups.

The more of us that get active posting these messages, and the more likely sponsors we target, the better our odds of getting a CANADIAN trackable promotion launched!