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Adventure Awaits Jan 24 3nina Millie and hubby 

Congratulations to 3nina, Millie Nagel, on her January 2024 SLAGA Adventure Awaits Monthly Challenge win and $10 Gift Card prize!  During the frigid month of January, Millie braved the elements and found her five geocaches, each from a different CO (Cache Owner) with one being an event.  Millie participates in the Adventure Awaits challenges because they are fun and force her to choose exciting geocaches for her submittals.  Being from Red Bud, IL, it's a bit of a drive for her to get to some of the events, but she enjoys meeting, chatting and putting faces to geonames of other cachers once there. The event for her January adventure was one of her favorite events – SLAGA Winter Potluck. She said, "There are so many people to talk to and it seems like there is not enough time. I like volunteering at this and other events when possible."  Millie's entries for January are: 

GC5HX50   CO: St Louis Game Jam,  Wherigo,   Meet Me in 1904

GCA49MT  CO: Crazy_Kid13,  Traditional,  There's a hole in the bucket!

GCA9AJC  CO: Java1369,  Traditional,  Guess What?

GCAFEV4  CO: ABagbyGSSI,  Traditional,  Girl Scout Silver

GCAG053  CO: L Frank and Denmother,  Event,  SLAGA Winter Potluck & Cabin Fever - 2024

When asked how she got started, Millie mentioned, "My high school classmate 6dancer, Denise, got me started geocaching in January 2009, but I was not immediately hooked. It actually took a few years to appreciate the places and things I saw while caching. Once I retired in 2020, it was full steam ahead! No matter where we go, the geocaching app is always open and I am searching the area."  These days, 3nina leaves behind her muggle husband once or twice a week to go caching with 6dancer.  She currently has found over 3700 geocaches. 
 
As for a fun or memorable geocaching experience, Millie replied that, " I must be a slow learner (because) it seems 6dancer talks me into things that we should not be doing. One time she had me driving on a walking trail, she kept saying it looks like a road to me!"  And recently, they were caching in National City - Brooklyn, Illinois area, which she describes as a BAD area. While caching, a policeman pulled up. Millie shared their experience. "We told him what we were doing and he seemed to know what it was. He proceeded to tell us we were on private property, which the owner has trespassers arrested, plus this is the area that dead bodies are dumped! He was nice and kept an eye on us until we were out of the area. All in a normal day caching!"
 
Bet you SLAGA geocachers didn't realize that 3nina was so adventurous.  Millie, more adventures await you, so have a blast, stay safe, and report back if you ever do find a body while caching.  Inquiring minds will want to know!    

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Winter Potluck 24 group

On Saturday, January 27th, more than 75 SLAGA members attended the Winter Potluck & Cabin Fever- 2024 Event (GCAG153) at the historic Jefferson Barracks Park along the Mississippi River in St. Louis County.  The event was held in the main gymnasium and front room inside the large and comfortable Pavilion at Lemay facility, which was cost-free for SLAGA thanks to the generosity of the St. Louis County Parks.  Event hosts, LFrank and Denmother, did a fantastic job, but they couldn't do it alone. They received a lot of volunteer assistance from start to finish. 

Winter potluck 24 L Frank

To kick it off, the set-up crew consisting of spiritwolf922, vorlon40, and SWAseeker with the help of Cootieman, organized the event space nicely.  Since this fun event was a potluck, there was plently of great food available which was provided by each attendee's family.  The food line was set up by volunteers MrsSpongy, jray131, and StormRider22, and included tasty entries such as chillis, BBQ and other meat dishes, various 'sliders,' fruit and veggie trays, a wide variety of salads and yummy deserts.  The lunch spread as always was a feast for the eyes and tummies.

Winter potluck 24 table 2  Winter potluck 24 table 3  Winter potluck 24 table 4  

Besides all the eating, attendees played Geo Bingo, which was run smoothly by your registrars 3nina and 6dancer, and many also entered the 50/50 drawing, because who could resist Ibew ret's selling prowess. Over $150 was collected this year.   As always, there was a raffle table with some great items, which was successfully run by Uga_Mom, and a trackable exchange table too attended well by Kevinusmarshall. 

Winter potluck 24 Geo bingo   Winter_potluck_24_Uga__mom.jpg

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Here are the final standings of the SLAGA Travel Bug Race! Congrats to Hobit Taz, bluedaisy, & MrsSpongy! Thank you to all who participated!

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AA Dec Winner Geokid12

Santa Cachemas got a Christmas gift too! SLAGA's very own VP, Geokid12 (Robert Klemme), is the winner of the December 2023 Adventure Awaits challenge!  The officers had to laugh, during their monthly meeting, when the random number generator happened to draw Robert's number. Obviously the task of qualifying was easy enough for him given his 12 Days of Cachemas duties, since nine of the caches were hidden by elves, so he was able to find them along with other geocachers this past month. 

As a SLAGA officer, Robert feels that it's good to set an example by participating in the monthly challenge, and as one of the brains behind Adventure Awaits, he also believes it's a great way to drive community engagement within SLAGA. Besides Cachemas caches, Robert chose the SLAGA Christmas party event as an entry because he felt it thematically tied into the December qualifications. His entries were:  

GCADHZ6 Day 6 - 2023 Cachemas in STL

GCAE56C Day 7 - 2023 Cachemas in STL

GCAEBQV Day 8 - 2023 Cachemas in STL

*GCAFWP9 SLAGA-land Christmas Bash. Event*

If you've ever wondered how a geocacher chooses their caching name, here's Geokid12's back story. In 2007, when Robert was just 12 years old, he was introduced to geocaching on a Boy Scout troop outing at Whitecliff Park. He was enthralled by entering coordinates into a Garmen eTrex Legend, then being able to hunt and find a cache container at ground zero.  So he bought his own eTrex, decided he'd register with GC.com and chose the username Geokid12, since he was a 12 year old kid who was now a 'Geo'cacher too. 

Young Robert didn't start off as an avid cacher though, due to his schooling, scouting, non-driving lifestyle, followed by intense college studies. But once he graduated all that changed. His 575-day caching hiatus (Aug 2014 - Feb 2016) and only 400 total finds would soon be a thing of the past.

Starting in 2017, as a driving, employed young man, Robert got back into geocaching and became involved socially in SLAGA, which was a huge geocaching motivator. Since then he hasn't stopped. To date, he has over 10,800 finds and is working on conquering that 575 no-find streak of his with an even greater find streak. Adventure definitely awaits Robert on his geocaching quest!  

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Best of SLAGA, Favorite Caches Placed in 2023

Of the 390 new caches published in the 100 mile radius SLAGA territory in 2023, these are the top caches, as determined by % of favorite points awarded.

By cache type
 Traditional   The Dial of Destiny - MtO Gadget #2   knowles5150   GCACMQB
 Multicache   Floating the Meramec with a Park Ranger   StormRider22 & jray131   GCA9HWH
 Letterbox Hybrid   Letters to Signal   Forest-Ghost   GCAE5PR
 Puzzle   The extreme puzzle hike   paulgracie   GCA4JE3
 AL Bonus   Exploration Garden Adventure Lab Bonus Cache   NEgirl55   GC9W6J5
 Earthcache   Daily Dose of Happiness US # 14 Chert in Missouri   Iamgrateful   GCAAPX1
 Wherigo   Reverse Wherigo - High Ridge   Mike Fitz   GCA4A52

 

By overall % of favorite points awarded
 92   The Dial of Destiny - MtO Gadget #2   knowles5150   GCACMQB  Traditional
 75   Mount Olive Fire Station 1 - MtO Gadget #4   knowles5150   GCADM3D  Traditional
 70   Floating the Meramec with a Park Ranger   StormRider22 & jray131   GCA9HWH  Multicache
 68   Appletree/Bridgeway Park   cootie_man   GCA7Q0C  Traditional
 67   Gadget Golf   L Frank and Denmother   GCA8018  Traditional
 67   BYOL?   JoeBum   GCAGG20  Traditional
 64   Letters to Signal   Forest-Ghost   GCAE5PR  Letterbox Hybrid 
 62   Woodie   tiname55   GCABJR3  Traditional 
 60   Stars & Stripes at 314   nan-d1955   GCAG5FB  Traditional
 60   The Pullet Surprise Returns!   stevendede   GCAF8DG  Traditional

 

Congrats and thanks to the Cache Owners and everyone else who continues to create and support quality caches in the St. Louis area!

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FTF Magz

The bi-monthly publication of the FTF Geocachers Magazine is enjoyed by thousands of geocahers as it is a forum to share their stories, photos, advice, milestones, and more.  Our SLAGA VP, vorlon40 (John Layman), was surprised when he received his copy, which was a special 'Golden Seal' trackable edition!  John was honored  because he was one of the few drawing winners of the past edition's "Were You Puzzled?" contest called, 'Catsup or Mustard."  "It was cool that it was close to home and one I had visited," said John.     

 FTF John Layman2 FTF Puzzle

In addition to John's accolade, both PaulGracie (Paul Williams) and TerriBikes+ (Terri Nealon), the SLAGA reporter/article writer, were also thrilled to see their names in print.  Terri's August 11,2023 article, which has been viewed nearly 800 times, entitled, "Bike 'Across America' - PaulGracie's Adventure," was chosen as a Feature Story in the same FTF Geocachers Magazine as vorlon40's win!  "It's exciting to see that Paul's adventure could now reach geocachers worldwide, and I'm psyched to be a 'published' feature story writer in the magazine," commented Terri.  When Paul was asked how he feels about his article in the FTF Geocachers Magazine, he exclaimed, "It's cool...I'm famous now!"

FTF Article FTF TERRI

If you subscribe to the magazine, you'll notice your local cachers being honored in the edition.  Kudos to all three SLAGA members!   

  1. November Adventure Awaits Winner
  2. A Most Wonderful Time
  3. Caching in the Cold 🥶
  4. OCTOBER ADVENTURE AWAITS WINNER!
  5. SLAGA 2023 Travel Bug Race November Update
  6. SLAGA Fall Picnic 2023
  7. SLAGA 2023 Travel Bug Race October Update
  8. ADVENTURE AWAITS - October Challenge LIVE!
  9. ADVENTURE AWAITS - A New Monthly Challenge
  10. SLAGA 2023 Travel Bug Race September Update