One goal reached

Wednesday afternoon, I had some free time, so Capt TailWagger and I decided to drive up to Michigan to do a little geocaching. I had last been to Michigan for a Festivus event a few days before Christmas. (You can watch a video from the event here.) In addition to the event, I found one cache, leaving my at 97 finds in the state.

In October, I joined Kneel More, the creator of the YouTube channel Cache Tales, and we did a geo-art on the Kal-Haven Trail. (You can watch a video here.)

I’ve made other trips to Michigan, including a trip to Holland with Capt TailWagger and the rest of our family last spring.

Wednesday I drove up to Kinderhook, Michigan. I put seven caches on my list. Kinderhook is about an hour’s drive from Fort Wayne. I picked a couple of caches that have more than 10 favorite points. In one of my logs, I said more than 20. My mistake. In addition, I looked for a couple of cemetery caches and a couple in Coldwater Lake State Park, one of which is part of the geotrail celebrating Michigan state park’s centennial. Plus I found a couple of park and grab caches. In all, we found all seven caches on our list.

There was a bit more snow on the ground there than is down here. The snow helped me make one of the finds because there was a trail left behind in the snow from previous finders. I did not take many photos, two in fact.

When the day was over, my number of Michigan finds is now at 104, which qualifies me for a couple of tri-state challenges near where Indiana, Ohio and Michigan come together. To qualify for all three of these challenges, you need 100 finds each in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan. I have 1,167 finds in Indiana, 194 in Ohio and 104 in Michigan. My next highest state is Florida with 22. Utah with 15 is the only other state in double digits.

Geocaching HQ is offering a souvenir Sunday for anyone who finds a cache or attends an event that day. It’s a palindrome day — 02/02/2020. HQ announced the souvenir too late for create an event specific for then. Sunday’s usually a tough day for me to find a cache, but I’ll see what I can do. Hopefully there will an FTF available.

HQ is offering another souvenir on Leap Day, February 29. Four years ago when I was fairly new geocacher, I was fortunate to find a cache — two actually — on Leap Day. I’ve heard from several cachers who have waited four years to complete their 366 grid because they either missed caching that day or they started caching shortly after Leap Day 2016.