2022 Fall Picnic
2022 SLAGA Christmas Party
Bellefontaine CITO November 2022
Cachemas 2022 Bonus Day
SLAGA at GeoWoodstock 2023
2024 SLAGA Spring Picnic
2025 New Year's Day Hike, Fort Bellefontaine
Cachetur 101 Class - March 2025
2025 Winter Potluck
2025 Spring Picnic
2025 Spring Picnic
2025 GigaStock in Morgantown WV
2025 GeoWoodstock, Morgantown, WV
SLAGA at Ted Drewes 2025
2025 Christmas Event
2026 NYD Hike
Crazy Beards!
2026 Winter Potluck
Group Caching as It Ought to Be
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- Written by twolpert
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Pictured: L Frank, Denmother, Mikeinmo, Crowesfeat30, Repmul, Strider, Quailman2 (both of them), twolpert, javapgmr
On Saturday, November 19, ten SLAGA members went on a group hunt. A power trail? Reliving the glory of MOGAs past? Not so much. Most of us drove 190 miles each way - and one of us came from Iowa - to find a single cache. And it was worth it!
Mark Twain Lake Hosts Earth Day Activities
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The event featured several different activities, ranging from building a bird house to planting trees. It was held at the M.W. Boudreaux Memorial Visitors Center and the Frank Russell Reaction Area.
Earth Day has been celebrated at Mark Twain Lake for more than 20 years. The groups that work with the Park on the event include the St. Louis Area Geocachers Association, the Lakes of Missouri Volunteer Program, and several others.
Toni Lake and her family enjoyed all of activities at the event, ranging from geocaching to building bird houses.
"They enjoyed it a lot because they got to play with gadgets like GPS and they enjoyed getting bird houses made because that was kind of hands-on and they got to participate in that," Lake said of her sons.
She found Earth Day to be the perfect opportunity to teach her sons to appreciate the outdoors.
"You have to teach them, they're not going to learn without a good example. It's a lot easier just to sit inside and watch TV and play video games," said Lake.
Ranger Ben Sapp that the goal of the event was to get people back in touch with nature.
"Unfortunately, we're losing touch with some of the basic things that a lot of us did when we were growing up. We're trying to find ways to infuse that," Sapp said.
Gene Havens, a geocacher who volunteered to run a presentation about his hobby at the event, said there was another lesson to be learned from the event.
"Everyone should be familiar with their surroundings and need to help preserve them, because our kids will need an earth and their kids will need an earth," Havens said.
For Lake and her family, enjoying nature and taking care of it go hand in hand.
"We're teaching them about having fun outside, which is a good reason to protect it."
More than 50 people attended the event, which began at 9 a.m. and lasted into the early afternoon.
December 2025 Champ
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- Written by Terri Nealon
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Congratulations to Trailliart, Jesse McCarty, SLAGA's December 2025 Adventure Awaits Challenge Winner! He has participated in Adventure Awaits since August and won this past month, with these qualifying Cachemas caches and an event.
GCBEWXT Day 6 - 2025 Cachemas in STL
GCBEQKG Day 11 - 2025 Cachemas in STL
GCBDYTJ Day 9 - 2025 Cachemas in STL [FTF]
GCB1XZB 2025 Community Celebration Event-Last Chance
Amazingly, Jesse has only been geocaching for one year, even though he'd heard about it 15 years ago. In Jesse's short caching history, he's found nearly 750 caches, but is currently 'streak' caching with 333 consecutive days as of this article posting. He also only has 15 D/T spots left to complete a Fizzy grid, but already has six 5/5s. He also only has 18 upcoming days left to complete the 366 calendar day grid.
An achievement that amazes this geocaching journalist is that Jesse solved and completed 'The Architect' mega-multi just 6 months into caching! When asked about a favorite caching memory, Jesse stated that his, "most favorite moment geocaching was completing The Architect (GC4CQ9V). When I first learned of that cache, it was early on I my caching days and I didn't know where to begin. Eventually, I not only learned how to get started, but I did it entirely on my own in just under a month." Now that's impressive!
And what's even more impressive and makes Jesse a champ of another kind is a personal accomplishment he shared.
"I use to weigh north of 260 lbs, but got down to about 157 lbs by late October 2024. Following that, I wanted to take part in physical activities, such as walking a number of miles per day to stay fit. In the first half of January 2025, I remembered about geocaching and figured that might be an interesting way to stay active. I don't regret any bit of that decision at all."
Jesse has been an outdoorsy person since a child. He says he "likes to explore the woods and go on long hikes. Forest-Ghost caches have made it especially fun for me to go in the woods, because I didn't know you could find so many unusual things such as abandoned structures and decades old cars."
Geocaching certainly seems like the perfect fit for Jesse. Extending congratulations again to him on his December win, but also for his caching prowess and personal achievements and success!
Q1 2026 ‘Scrabble’ Challenge Winner
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- Written by Terri Nealon
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TerriBikes+ showed some “PIZZAZZ” in the 2026 first quarter adventure awaits 'scrabble' challenge. Having four Zs at 10 points each with the event Z doubled, added up to a whopping 55 point score to win her a $25 gift card to Paneras and this first quarter highlight.
Terri commented: "I trekked, biked, and even hobbled in a foot boot, the last few weeks, for many miles and many smiles this first quarter to achieve my personal goal of gathering all 26 letters. I wanted the chance to make any high scoring word I could. But after hundreds of finds, with multiples of most letters, I realized I actually had four Zs! It was an obvious choice then to pick the word I did, and soon realized I only used four of the 26 letters! 😁 It was luck really that I happened to already have planned trips to visit family and for other purposes where a Z cache awaited me. Many thanks to the SLAGA board for coming up with such a fun and unique quarterly challenge. I'm looking forward to the next."
Not only did Terri achieve the adventure awaits win this first quarter, but also ended up finding her 10,000th geocache in March as well!
Congratulations on this win, Terri, and keep caching your way to 25K as many more Adventures Await!
Smiling Again at a November Win
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- Written by Terri Nealon
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Repeat Adventure Awaits Winner MrsSpongy (Carolyn) is smiling again with her November 2025 win! Carolyn has been a loyal challenge cacher since the beginning of SLAGA's Adventure Awaits initiative. She first won in May 2024 and some of her caching history was noted in that May article. But since then, Carolyn has continued to accomplish more personal goals in her caching career, one being her continued monthly caching to participate in Adventure Awaits. For the month of November, Carolyn chose the following caches to fulfill the challenge of finding four geocaches each with a different size, plus one event.
Cache 1: Small-GCBEM7D Here's Barb
Cache 2: Regular-GCAMBWO Walker's Rest
Cache 3: Micro GCBDYQQ Stay in Love
Cache 4: Other-GCB9HXJ Found It!
Event: GCBEK4H SW STL Happy Hour
Carolyn still says, "Geocaching is my therapy, and my geocaching 'family' remains a big support as I continue playing this fun game." Since her past win, Carolyn has found caches in 5 new states, bringing her total to 35 USA states (including DC). Speaking of totals, Carolyn is at an amazing 18,281 geocache finds since she started in 2009. One of her current goals is to achieve her fifth Fizzy grid filler. She only needs two more D/Ts to complete that goal.
Carolyn's fondest geocaching memories are made while out with friends. "I really enjoy getting smileys with my friends, especially at events, either locally or travelling out of town to big events. This past spring I went with different girlfriends to both the MOGA in Abilene, KS and GeoWoodstock in Morgantown, VA!"
CONGRATULATIONS CAROLYN ON YOUR NOVEMBER 2025 ADVENTURE AWAITS WIN AND $10 GIFT CARD PRIZE!
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