Pk-a-boo's Geocaching Adventures: Geowoodstock VI

Ever heard of Woodstock? Well, this was the Woodstock for geocachers, appropriately titled Geowoodstock. This year it was held in Wheatland, a sleepy little town outside of Lincoln. Believe it or not, THOUSANDS of geocachers converged in our beloved region to socialize, geocache, and discuss the obsession. People come from all over the US and even other countries to attend this event every year. Talk about diehards...

We started the weekend by going to a Meet & Greet in Royer Park in Roseville on Friday night. We got there kind of late, but I was just amazed at how many people were there. I went with my geo-caching friends, waterlassie and goodblackdogs. We picked up our registration materials which included a real cool event coin and t-shirt.

On Saturday, we cached a bit in Rocklin along the way to the event in Wheatland. In Lincoln, I got the chance to meet a geocacher named Stealthcowboy (who is actually a girl...); she was the one who hid the "Where the Red Fern Grows" geocache at Willow Creek, the place I took Molly to on her last day. That was pretty cool meeting her, she told me how my log made her cry.

At the event, we checked out a couple of seminars and basically hung out and ate and had the opportunity to meet other geocachers. On the way home, we cached some more. That day, it was more about the numbers, than about the finding. There were so many geocachers out and about that most of the time you were basically just handed a log to sign as the cache was pretty much pulled out of its hiding place. Oh well, not my kind of caching, but I boosted my stats! This is a picture taken at one of the hiding places where geocachers were actually looking for a cache, in some cactus!

We went to a geocoin event in Rocklin in the evening. Lots of buying and selling of geocoins. I'm not really into the coin thing as it will just turn into another thing to spend money on. If geocoins didn't disappear (ie, get stolen) from caches, I'd probably be into it a little more.

My thoughts on Geowoodstock? It was fun, but I don't know that I'd travel to go to another one (next years is being held in Tennessee); I'd rather travel to go geocaching, not necessarily to an event like this. The geocaching wasn't exciting as I'm not really into having other cachers just hand a log over to sign without making a find. I guess it was more about the experience and a chance to meet other people who share an interest in geocaching. Although I'm not really good about walking up to a stranger and introducing myself either. But, I'm glad I went, I spent the day with friends, got to meet a few local cachers, and the dogs had fun as you can see from Skipper and Hope's picture below!