2020_Leap_Day SLAGA_at_Ted_Drewes_2021 summer_picnic_2022 rich-Charolette-2014 Grilling_Meat 2022_Fall_Picnic_Group 2022_Fall_Picnic_2 SLAGA_Bellefontaine_CITO_Fall_2022 SLAGA_Christmas_Party_2022 Cachemas_2022_Final SLAGA_at_GeoWoodstock_2023 geo-101-class-maplewood-4 IMG_7656 2024NYD_Hike SLAGA_Board_Choke Spring_Picnic_2024
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2020 Leap Day Flash Mob

SLAGA at Ted Drewes - 2021

Summer Picnic 2022

Rich & Charlotte - a couple of the founding members

Grilling Meat for the 2022 Fall Picnic

2022 Fall Picnic

Checking for new cache notifications

Bellefontaine CITO November 2022

2022 SLAGA Christmas Party

Cachemas 2022 Bonus Day

SLAGA at GeoWoodstock 2023

Geocaching 101 Class at Maplewood Library

GeoGolf 2023

2024 New Years Day Hike

Choking the life out of our president

2024 SLAGA Spring Picnic

 "July is a POP of Color, a Burst of Sunshine,

and a Promise of Adventure," 

as is SLAGA's July Adventure Awaits Winner, 

brantole (Lena Dowers)!

brantole july24 Adv Awaits 

Congratulations to Lena on her spectacular win and gift card prize.  She began geocaching on the 4th of July 2010 and was immediately hooked. She chose to participate in the SLAGA monthly challenges because they keep her motivated to go out geocaching. Lena commented, "I have been participating since the beginning when I was still working full time. Work made it difficult for me to find time to geocache. Sometimes the only caches I did find for the month were the five caches necessary to complete the Adventure Awaits. Now I am working part-time and my cache finds per month have increased! I like the variation of the requirements for each month." 

Lena has over 5000 geocache finds and 32 hides. She has completed her Fizzy challenge, geocached on every day of the calendar year (366 days), and cached in 5 different World Countries. It might surprise some geocachers to know that Lena's favorite type of caches are gadget caches. Her least favorite are Earthcaches.  She loves tree climbing caches, but doesn't much care about getting First to Find. 

Thankfully that was not a requirement for July's challenge. Instead, it was finding caches with at least 5 favorite points (FPs) and all qualifying finds had to add up to more than 40 FPs.  During this July, Lena knew she would be traveling to visit family which would make it very easy to qualify. She was also on a 'mini' mission to find a lot of multi geocaches and most of her multi cache finds had significant favorite points attached to them which also helped.  Her challenge entries included:

GC74ZB6: 50 Souvenirs Challenge  (17 FP)

GCJVBR: Round Mound of Sound  (19 FP)

GC947FC: Cascade- Goodbye 2020  (20 FP)

GCWMDF: West of the Mississippi in Illinois  (37 FP)

GCAN2WG: SLAGA Summer Picnic 2024

When asked about her most memorable geocaching adventure(s), Lena expressed her thorough enjoyment in doing the extreme caches placed by Forest Ghost, such as Grant's Fear Factor and The Architect. ("Thanks Ethan!")  She also fondly remembers  some great geocaching road trips through the years. But said, "Although all the road trips have been a blast, I am truly thankful I took one with my mother driving up through IL, IN, and MI into Canada in 2016."

Lena is a fearless, fun and friendly geocacher and no doubt awaits more spectacular geocaching adventures, not unlike every  SLAGA monthly challenge which holds a promise of a new adventure.  Join the fun and find and submit your entries for the August challenge soon.