Editor’s note: Groundspeak Lackeys are traveling thousands of miles from H.Q. throughout the year to share smiles, shake hands, and make geocaching memories at nearly twenty Mega-Events worldwide. Arne Moen, aka, RandolphAgarn, attended the Lisbon, Portugal Mega-Event 12 years Geocaching – Portugal (GC35GH8). Arne has been a Lackey since 2009 and is a Software Developer. Here’s Arne’s account of his trip.

Written By: Arne Moen

I was in Lisbon, Portugal to celebrate  12 Years Geocaching Portugal with local geocachers.

I was delighted to meet all these geocachers from Portugal. Of course, I knew that there are geocachers all over the world. But to talk to them in person about FTF’s (First to Finds), Multi-Caches, and Trackables in person made it all more real.

Everyone was very kind to me and I was excited to give away some Geocaching.com merchandise like Trackable tags. I strongly suspect I would have felt equally welcome without the swag. I met many interesting individuals and some really sweet dogs. I met a geologist who was born in Mozambique, an underwater archeologist, an Olympic athlete, a C-130 pilot, a cartographer, and many more individuals whose backgrounds we didn’t discuss. Each one of them was a treat to talk to.

While chatting with a geocacher, I recalled that a significant amount of the world’s cork – as in a bottle or on a bulletin board – comes from Portugal. I had heard that it was the bark of a tree. Though I had seen a lot of bark in my lifetime and I couldn’t imagine how the thing in the wine bottle was attached to the outside of a tree.

I mentioned this to my new geocacher friend.  He told me cork trees can be found all over Portugal and immediately set off trying to find one in the park. A few minutes later he returned to bring me to a cork tree.  The bark was thick, and firm yet spongy. And suddenly I could see where cork comes from.

I found a couple of geocaches at the Mega-Event. But my first evening in Portugal I went out and found some geocaches with some new friends.

We began our evening with a traditional Portuguese meal: cod, ham, and fried potatoes, covered with a kind of hollandaise sauce. We also enjoyed “vinho verde,” which means green wine in Portuguese. The greenness in this case is in reference to the newness of the wine. The grapes had been picked, squeezed and fermented in the last year.

After our meal the four of use set out into the streets of Lisbon looking for geocaches. This was in an old neighborhood, between the eleventh century castle perched on the hill, and the Rio Tejo, the river from which some of the great explorers like Ferdinand Magellan and Vasco da Gama began their voyages of discovery.

We started in front of an old cathedral across the street from our restaurant. There was a geocache, Catedral (GCZWBV), just down the street. As the guest, I was allowed to make the first attempt. I was nervous with three experienced geocachers watching me. I was still suffering the affects of from jet lag. I skipped over the geocache at first, then found it a few seconds later.

The next geocache, Portas do Sol (GC1F9NG), was in a little square that overlooked the river. We took several seconds to enjoy the view before looking for the geocache.  We found the geocache in one spot and a second log book in another. This was my 100th find and my furthest find east of my home coordinates. It was a fantastic spot to hit a milestone.

Then we went down the hill towards the plaza at the site of the former royal palace. This area of town was relatively new.  An earthquake and tsunami wiped out this neighborhood in 1755 so it had to be rebuilt. We knew exactly where the next geocache, No Paço do Terreiro [Lisboa] (GC13Z3E), was hidden from a spoiler photo. Before we were finished signing the log, a police offer walked up to ask us what kind of tomfoolery we were engaged in.

I felt like I was back in high school, getting caught by an authority figure. Here we were, four adult men, each with full lives running around downtown in the middle of the night. Isn’t there something more we should doing with our lives?  No, it turns out. We were having an adventure. What could be better than that? We explained we were geocaching. He told us he knew what that was and let us replace the cache and let us go about our evening.

All of the caches we found that night were traditional urban micros.  They were good geocaches. But the food, the company, the hunt, the adventure that evening, and the Mega-Event experience, made my trip magical.

Editor’s note: Groundspeak Lackeys are traveling thousands of miles from H.Q. throughout the year to share smiles, shake hands, and make geocaching memories at nearly twenty Mega-Events worldwide. Nicole Bliss, aka Louie Bliss, attended the Iowa, USA Mega-Event MOGA 2012 (GCQM9C). Nicole has been a Lackey since 2010 and works in Customer Relations. This is Nicole’s account of her trip.

Written By: Nicole (Louie Bliss)

Location: Rathbun Lake outside Moravia, Iowa, 60 miles south of nearest large city of Des Moine.

Time: 1pm, April 28, 2012

Who: 200 cachers competing (more than 1000 in attendance), including kids, elderly and one stroller

What: Midwest Open Geocaching Adventure 2012, aka MOGA 2012

The Goal: Find as many caches as possible in 2.5 hours

Terrain: Bushwhacking through prairie, sand dunes, climbing trees

Weather: Luckily dry, mostly cloudy and a mild 60°F

The scene: Everyone lines up at the starting lines. Teams plan out their strategies. The 40 caches are all downloaded. Most people have already found 1 to 200 caches in the last few days on the way to MOGA and they are hungry for more. Director Bumanfam makes a motivating speech and blows a whistle. The competition is on!

Most people go to the closest cache and then quickly disperse.  To make the process faster, each cache is a decon container with a nail punch inside. Each team has a punch card. They punch this card when they find the cache, and then run on to the next. It’s a race against time and other cachers.

MOGA is different from many other Mega-Events. It is mostly based around this competition, although there are plenty of other activities and side events.  There are 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place medals for three different age groups and three categories – male and female individual, two-person and four-person teams. This gives ample opportunity for people to get an award.

I’m proud that I participated with my new caching buddy, ScorpioRed48, and we found 13 caches with minutes to spare. Three other teams found all 40 caches within 2.5 hours. The overall winning team found all 40 within 1 hour and 41 minutes, and one of the participants even swam across the lake to race ahead. Very impressive!

This year’s theme was a 1950’s sock hop. People dressed in poodle skirts and danced to Elvis all weekend. The traditional night-before-MOGA event even had a live band to keep people dancing in the brisk night air.

This was my 6^th Mega-Event including the Groundspeak Lost & Found Celebration and Geocaching Block Party, so I thought had a good idea of what to expect going into it. I had no idea the competition would be so much fun. Most people joined for the social aspect, but of course there were the die-hard athletes.

At the event, I spent some quality time with past and present the MOGA organizers. It was really eye-opening to see the detailed planning that goes into an event like this. Given all the possibilities of what could go wrong, I was amazed at how smoothly it ran and any minor hiccups were quickly resolved and attendees had no idea.

I think this is because the directors of past MOGAs stay on as advisers and support organizers each year. This way, they don’t have to reinvent the wheel and start from scratch, especially with the Mega-Event being in a different location every time.

This is the 9^th annual MOGA event and fourth one that’s achieved a Mega-Event status. Well over 1,000 people pre-registered and plenty more showed up that day to join the festivities.  For a very rural area that was suddenly bombarded by 1,000 cachers, I’m sure the local farmers were wondering why there was so much traffic and people were pulling over to the side of the road every .1 mile. Nothing to see here folks, just a Tupperware container at a road sign…

MOGA 2012 (GC3GN2E) will be in Shelbyville, Illinois. Next year’s theme: Cachelot – Quest for the Dragon’s Cache. If their YouTube video is any indicator, it’s going to be epic.

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