2022 Fall Picnic
2022 SLAGA Christmas Party
Bellefontaine CITO November 2022
Cachemas 2022 Bonus Day
SLAGA at GeoWoodstock 2023
2024 New Years Day Hike
2024 SLAGA Spring Picnic
2025 New Year's Day Hike, Fort Bellefontaine
2025 New Year's Day Hike, Fort Bellefontaine
Cachetur 101 Class - March 2025
2025 Winter Potluck
2025 Winter Potluck
2025 Spring Picnic
2025 Spring Picnic
2025 GigaStock in Morgantown WV
2025 GeoWoodstock, Morgantown, WV
2025 SLAGA Summer Picnic at Klondike Park
SLAGA at Ted Drewes 2025
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- Written by Robert Klemme
- Hits: 812
2 months in and first place distance wise is still sitting pretty. However, much like summertime, things are still heating up!
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- Written by Robert Klemme
- Hits: 975
The travel bug race is underway! We're only one month in and we're seeing some good movement so far! It's very early in the race though so it's still anyone's game! Here's how things currently stand:
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- Written by Terri Nealon
- Hits: 1029
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- Written by Terri Nealon
- Hits: 1262
Congratulations to Dean Meredith, deancmeredith, who's name was drawn to win the $10 gift card and sticker for April's Adventure Awaits Challenge! As prolific of a geocacher as Dean is, it might surprise some to know that he only started geocaching in January 2021, yet to date has over 6900 cache finds ... No Foolin'... he started caching as a way to keep active and entertained during the Covid pandemic, and he caches almost continuosly. He has cached on every day of the calendar, including leap day (366 days) and has found every D/T two times or more (Fizzy challenge). Dean's found caches in 40 states and 10 countries.
As for Adventure Awaits monthly challenges, Dean states, "I enjoy these challenges as they give me something to work towards on my daily caching." For the month of April, Dean chose the following caches with different terrain ratings.
GC4FGF9 Pendleton, Trad T1.5
GCA549 Origins of Alexandria, Virtual T1
GC1V1WR Westledge Mountain: Masters Series #1, Trad T2.5
GC33Z7E Westledge Mountain: Sands of Time [Master Series], Trad T3.5
GCAMQMR CVGA Adopt-A-Highway CITO, Event T2
DEAN MEREDITH
with county-run buddy cootie_man at the CITO Event in Virginia
Part of the enjoyment of geocaching for Dean is taking county caching trips with friends. He says he is 'getting to see every corner of America," and loves it! Besides the monthly challenge, Dean has challenged himself from the start of his caching history in a unique way. In 2021, he found 2021 caches. In 2022, he found 2022 caches. Last year in 2023, he found 2023 caches. Adventure Awaits Dean not only every month, but every year as he continues his personal challenge. I'll let you all guess how many he intends to find this year!
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- Written by Terri Nealon
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CONGRATULATIONS
John Layman, vorlon40,on your SLAGA Adventure Awaits Monthly Challenge win and $10 Gift Card prize!
On 3/20/24, John marched his way to find four of his five geocaches, each with a different difficulty rating, after having attended some D1 events earlier in the month. He found the four on the same day, in the same area, that all fit the challenge. Speaking of a challenge, John stated "I love challenges [and] solving puzzles, although I'm not always good at it. I try to seek out challenge caches that I qualify for or can work towards." He's currently working on completing his fourth FIZZY and his second JASMER! And some of his other geocaching ventures include focusing on completing series of caches like 'Hidden Creatures' and 'Legends of the Sword.'
As for his March Adventure Awaits qualifying caches, John, of course, chose a few 'challenging' caches:
GCAK97T: D1 Event: Tuesday Penguin Event
GC3NTV6: D4 Unknown: Top Ten Christmas Songs - TTCS
GC2M6X7: D3.5 Unknown: The Two Flutes Tree - TFT
GCA3TOA: D3 Traditional: Spanning the River
GCAB7G4: D2.5 Traditional: Duck
John started geocaching in January of 2015 after he and his wife, Cindy, had exhausted their hunt for all the St. Louis 250th birthday celebration cakes in 2014. They were looking for something else to do together to explore the area. Since he'd taken a geocaching class and used a Garmin eTrex GPS, finding some hole punchers hidden in the area, John thought that this outdoor 'game' might be the next fun adventure. So he signed up for a geocaching account under vorlon40 and "found his first cache close to home with a Garmin Nuvi car GPS, but quickly switched to using Cindy’s smartphone, since he didn’t have one at that time. [He] eventually got [his] own smartphone and a GPS." As stated in his SLAGA officer profile also, John mentioned "one of my favorite cache adventures was a 5/5 which involved solving a two stage cypher and then hiking a 6.5 mile, two stage multi up the ski slopes of Copper Mountain, CO from 10,000 to 12,000 feet."
Since that beginning, John has found nearly 7100 caches, has hidden (some adopted) 50 caches, has acquired a love for challenging caches, and has already cached in 37 states to date. It's obvious he thoroughly enjoys epic adventures which include his SLAGA area group accomplishments of finding 'The Architect' and 'Mysterious Treasure,' both D5/T5s. These geocaching achievements and goals all point to John being an avid and well-rounded geocacher, who enjoys caching thrills and looks forward to his next adventure. Does Adventure Await you too?
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- Written by Terri Nealon
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Java1369 (Nikki) leaped, or as you'll find out-maybe rolled, into action this February and was rewarded by becoming our next Adventure Awaits winner. Logging all of her qualifying caches on Leap Day itself means she just snuck into the running for the drawing. Nikki was halfway through her caching day when she remembered that there was a monthly challenge, and looked over the caches she'd done and realized that she qualified. "It was a good time, and next time I will come at it with more planning." Her challenge geocaches (four different sizes with one event) are:
GC8AQPZ (Regular) Regular Ol' Cache
GC842DF (Large) Swamp's Edge
GCA465M (Small) Dial P for Penguin
GCAJ10E (Other- Event) Leap Day Lunch
To date, Nikki has found 775 caches. She started geocaching in September 2008, just before her second son was born, because she wanted a fun activity to do with her oldest. Being the young muggle that he was, however, he was "utterly uninterested in treasure hunting and to this day prefers chucking rocks into lakes" instead. So caching has become a solo activity for Nikki and besides giving her time in nature, away from the house, it has also brought her to places she would not have otherwise gone. Although she had almost a 3 year slump at one point, this Leap year Nikki is trying to get as many caches as she can. She said, "originally I wanted one a day, but after a couple of 'off' days, now I'm aiming for 1000 by the end of the year."
Besides her geocaching hobby, Nikki keeps plenty busy as a school bus driver, a wife and mother. But if that's not enough, her extensive list of arts and crafts keep her occupied, as well as her really awesome hobby of roller derby. Yes! You read that right. Nikki skates for the Confluence Crush roller derby on the B Team. Her derby name is Java Sparkles, because it was her kids' favorite choice from a provided list. And her derby number is 1369, which she claims is because she is a particulary unlucky person. So now you know why her geoname is Java1369. But Nikki...with this February Adventure Awaits win, I think your luck has changed.
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