Geocaching is full of ingenious and inventive cache creators. Meet Jody (pinkmonkey2), a creative geocacher who inspires and amazes her community with her imaginative and out-of-the-box approach to encouraging fun and unique cache containers.

With a strong passion for making geocaches, Jody hosts two annual Events called Maker Madness. Read more about Jody’s exciting way of connecting with her community and up-leveling the gameboard with creative new caches!

What is your background? How and when did you hear about geocaching?

I live in northern Minnesota and am an office manager for a truss plant and lumberyard. I’m also the geocaching chauffeur for my team, and I have two sons and three granddaughters.

A friend of my husband told me about geocaching in 2005; in 2006, we found our first three caches, but my husband didn’t care for them. Then in 2009, I decided I wanted to go geocaching again, so I bought my own GPSr and started going myself!

What is the Maker Madness Event?

It’s an event to excite cachers to create caches that are not pill bottles or peanut butter jars. They do not have to be gadget caches; they can be just caches that will make the cache finder smile when they find it. We vote on the most colorful, most creative, most interactive, least transformed, etc.; I never know until just before the Event what I will have them vote on, so no one can create a cache to fit a specific category.

What inspired you to start hosting Maker Madness?

In 2014 Geocaching HQ had geocachers create a ‘Maker Madness Event.’ In my hometown, we did it as a two-part Event. For the first Event, you brought something you hoped someone else would turn into a geocache. Those items got exchanged, and cachers had a week to create a geocache and bring it to the next Event. In 2016 I decided to continue with the idea of getting more creative caches out there. So cachers now have about four weeks to create their geocache.

What’s your favorite part about your Maker Madness Events?

Being able to see what kind of caches can be created out of a random object. And also to see the geocache in action before it goes out in the wild (some of our cache creators are also becoming good gadget cache builders).

What’s one of your favorite memories from Maker Madness?

One year if you didn’t trade an item, you could still participate in creating a cache by using a ‘baby’ item. The cache was a dirty diaper. The funny part came when some of us from the event actually found a diaper while going for a night cache that summer. No one wanted to touch it, and when it was finally poked at with a stick, it turned out it was a really dirty diaper and not the cache.

What’s one of the most unique items you’ve seen traded at the Event?

It is hard to choose just one, but maybe the plastic odd-shaped lamp shade that turned into a beehive or maybe a vacuum cleaner hose, or maybe the smoker.

What are some of the geocaches that people have created from the Maker Madness events?

Tennis anyone? (GC8RAZ8) – by Trycacheus
Head Pin (GC9F7DH) – by pm2’s chauffeur & pm2
PELICAN RAPIDS FIRE DEPARTMENT (GC73MRX) – by onionpond
S’mores (GC9ZYXJ) – by Trycacheus
Last Stop Saloon (GC8RAXK) – by Trycacheus

What advice would you give to geocachers who want to create their first hide or host their Maker Madness Event?

Geocaches don’t have to be complicated gadgets; most of mine are garage sale finds. Really just anything that can hold a bison tube or a pill bottle, like a turtle water bottle, a grumpy old man statue, and a water jug filled with rubber ducks.

Geocachers are so creative and known for making the most of what they’ve got! You never know what everyday object will inspire the next incredible hide.
Are you ready to host your Maker Event?