zzephyr: I am truly sorry to do this, but after months of deliberation, I must finally accept that this series has to be archived. In the past, I was able to get out and maintain this series about once or twice a month, but recent changes in my life have all but eliminated any opportunities to geocache at all.
It's been an absolute joy to set up and maintain this series. It took two years to set all the caches up, and I was delighted to see the series get well over 2,000 hits over the 31 months that it was active. I tried to place all 26 parts in locations that I wouldn't mind going back to again and again, and I really wish that I could keep doing this for another ten years or more. But as things stand right now, too many of the caches are either falling into disrepair or are having their permission from the forest preserve districts expiring. Up to now, I've been able to keep up with these issues without a problem, but in the future that will be next to impossible.
Many congratulations to soundstoofishy, KeeganC, herbs2, dnfu, superior_o, riccar79, michigan_chris, NatalieD!, j3yoda, geckl69, behmSquad, sgauss, scottberks, sgibbs33, TrekkerDuo, evr180, soon2bff, cubdad7, maleki, and Geo-Credibles for solving the puzzle.
Special congratulations to badlands, Geomutt95, Corp of Discovery, and moodygrrl for solving it within the first week.
And grand prize congratulations to BAT and TeacherMike for their collaborative efforts at solving the series within 55 hours of it having gone active!
There are many others too many to list who have faithfully been chipping away at the series and have gotten close... If you were almost ready to solve it before I archived it, I am truly sorry. Please know that I appreciate all the work and fun you've put in getting as far as you have!
I'd also like to thank the dozens and dozens of kind-hearted souls who have given such wonderful accolades about this series over these last couple of years and who have nominated it for awards. This has been a part of my life that I'll truly miss.