2nd Annual Combat Cachers' Reunion Event Cache

A Combat Cacher is someone who has found and/or hidden Geocaches in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, or Kosovo. The first event started out as two Arizona caching friends and their families getting back together after tours in Iraq. You don’t have to be a Combat Cacher to attend; …we encourage every type of cacher to attend and we hope for a big crowd. You don’t have to be “for”, or against the conflicts we’re in either to show up and show support for our combat cacher friends that have represented our sport honorably in the most adverse of conditions. Heck, you can show up for no better reason than just to attend a cache event. Even if you can’t make it, posted notes are appreciated. Six Gun City has its own closed in arena with a Western set and lots of picnic tables. There is also indoor seating and a full service bar.

*Friends* in the credits refers to C&K Desert Dwellers, Team Loki, Team Piggin Out, Mule Ears, and Shadowace ...all have contributed significantly with pulling this thing together.

Friday Night “Prevent” and Command Post Info:

--Attendance is non mandatory but we will conduct early registration provided that you will be attending the Saturday night official event.

--This is a Bring Your Own Stuff (BYOS), communal, laid-back deal. BUT, we have lots of leftovers from the CITO so don't worry if you got no stuff......

-We have an over-abundance of chips and hot dogs, and a few burgers.

--There's only 42 beers leftover so if you have a big appetite for that kind of carb you might want to BYOB. For you hard-lickers, we have a basic supply for a few cocktails but we will warmly accept supplemental donations to the Cache In Bar and Grill .

--We’ll have a pavilion tent set up with extra coolers, free ice, a big ol’ grill, a stove, a fridge for condiments, tables, chairs, etc.

--We'll try a test run of the projected slide-show for the main event.

--We will run a campfire well into the night. Everybody that attends will get a chance to hot-iron brand their very own piece of souvenir Tombstone boardwalk lumber.

--The pavilion will be open for use all weekend if you need a place to stop and have a drink (we’ll keep the water and gatorade coolers filled), cool off in our little pool, take a nap, rally-up, or cook some food, or whatever. A lot of cachers are staying in and near us so something should be happening all the time. We’ll be prepared to launch rescue missions into the desert too if anybody gets stuck out there (see POC info below for comms).

--We’ll have wireless, a public PC, and extra internet hook-ups so you can log your finds, etc. We'll have a projector in the tent so you can discuss maps and other things caching without huddling around a little screen. We'll have a paper map poster of of the area pinned up too.

--If you want to store quads and/or trailers here that's fine too. We have a connector trail out our other back yard across the street that will get you onto Tombstone's perimeter trails. Our grounds are fenced in, and we've never had a problem with theft ('cept for that one guy but they never found his body ;-) but we recommend always running a lock and chain to something, if even just your own rim.

--We have an air compressor and plug kit for tire repair.

--We will have an armed guard on site when we are all at the main event.

Saturday Day:

Enjoy the attractions of historic Tombstone, and/or go get ya some local caches:

New Caches: Team Loki Went all out to hide four new Tombstone area caches that won't be published on-line until 5PM Saturday or later. BUT: Print-outs will be available at the Slither & Crawl Inn at O-Dark-Thirty (0500 AM) Saturday morning. There will be a stack of printouts next to the coffee urn in the fest-tent. PUZZLERS (you know who you are) might even be challenged(?) You'll be going to what is "The Last Place on Earth" for many folks. These new caches should help soothe you die hard weekend cachers that have already cached-out in Tombstone.

Loki also added a helpful bookmark to the page for quick reference to other Tombstone area caches. If anybody is coming a distance and generated Caches Along A Route KML files, please feel free to post them too.

Saturday, 4PM SIGN-IN BEGINS …at the hosts table on the front porch of the Crazy Horse Saloon. Please enter through the main gate of Six Gun City along 5th Street right at the corner of Toughnut Street. The official posted coordinates should be pretty close-on. There’s lots of free parking on the east side of 6th Street nearby. We can’t begin sign-in earlier than that because Six Gun’s last regularly scheduled gunfight show for the tourists ends at 3:30. At the host table, we will log you as “Found”, issue you a color coded meal ticket according to your pre-paid selection (more on the meal deal below), give you one door-prize-drawing ticket per team, and we'll give you an official, personalized, laminated, event name tag. The wearing of camouflage, western attire, Official Café Press Event Apparel, or any other silly clothing is highly encouraged.

4-5 PM: Happy Hour / Meet & Greet! …drinks will be available inside at the bar or served by waitresses at the picnic tables. For this event they are setting up an additional small outdoor bar with soda, bottled beer, margaritas, and bottled water too. Mixed drinks (cocktails) are only available at the indoor bar or from a waitress.

~ 4:45 Introductions and Announcements by Darren of Team Scrawlinn and Greeny's Ghost

5:00-5:30 The Wild West Gunfight Re-enactors Show. These folks are professionals and the skits are narrated and based on historical events. The lead actor, and our close friend, Joe Munoz, was featured in the October 2006 issue of Arizona Highways magazine.

IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTE: Please don’t let children, or adults, past the ropes and onto the “Old West” set area of the show at anytime except for immediately after the gunfight show, when the ropes are lowered and you can have pictures taken with the actors. This is for insurance reasons. Thank you.

5:30-6:00: Door Prize Drawings

6:00 Meals and Music Begins. Sorry if you are late finding this event, we can't except any more meal orders. Everybody will be served within 1 hour. Our first performer is Ritchie Rhinehart. Ritchie is a very talented Blues Slinger acoustic guitar player and vocalist with a jazzy edge and an accompanying bass player. Ritchie will play until 8 and we’ll probably give him a break after everybody is fed and do some more prize drawings and other event announcements. When it gets dark enough we’re going to try out a projected slide-show presentation in the background. This slideshow will hopefully have at least one picture or other graphic from each team attending, please see the OTHER ADMIN NoTES section below.

8:00-10:00 Music and Mingling Continues: Traditional Western , Country and other Oldies music by Six Gun City’s very own Jake. We’ll squeeze in any remaining door prize drawings or other event announcements during this time too.

9:45 Last Call For Alcohol

10:00 Close of Business at 6 Gun and end of the official event. However, other saloons like The Crystal Palace, Big Nose Kate’s, and Johnny Ringo’s stay open until 1 or 2 and we’ll surely have a campfire and pavilion operations back at the compound for a while afterwards too.

Sunday Morning: It’s probably inevitable that we will have some ordeal Sunday morning involving Deuce-and-a-Half (Army truck) desert safari rides, shooting, bloody marys and mimosas, at and from our compound (The Inn) and all are welcome to stop by for postvent activities. See last year’s event page in the links below for an idea what a Deuce-and-a-Half ride is like.

Use the links already on the page and you should be able to find the hotels I am going to list. We do run a small hybrid hostel sort of thing (the Slither and Crawl Inn) but our three cottages are already reserved by some Combat Cacher friends who are coming a distance. But, if you’re ever in the Tombstone area on a non-event night please look us up. We are holding some tent and camper space for some of our other closer cacher friends too.

Trail Riders, Tombstone Motel, Larian, and Adobe are all an easy walk to the main event, all the uptown (Allen Street) attractions, and still an easy walk to our place. Adobe Lodge is the closest to 6-Gun and is offering discount rates for this event; advanced rate is discounted and cash is discounted even more. Tell them you are with ‘The Combat Cacher Reunion’ or Darren Jessop. If that doesn’t work, ask for the manager, Ellen, she knows what’s going on. We haven’t attempted to negotiate any other discount rates for this year’s event but I think next year will be no problem.

Tombstone Motel was recently remodeled and has a lot of rooms. Trail Riders is nice and laid back and closest to our place. Sagebrush Inn is another neat little place where John Wayne and other Hollywood greats used to stay. It’s not too far from uptown or us either. There’s a nice new Holiday Inn Express outside of town and an older but still OK Best Western too.
Bed and Breakfasts: I can’t vouch for too many of these but there are many around town. Curly Bills is real close to us and we like them. Tombstone Boarding House is historic and has a little restaurant and bar (The Lamplight).

Slide Show Pictures: (if you haven't already...) We’d like to have you email us a favorite picture or two of you (as a team if applicable) with your “handle” or profile name on them. We'll also take team logos and anything else (tasteful) that you want to share. Combat Cachers are encouraged to send favorite pics from "over there". If you are a combat veteran from before the days of caching, you can send a picture from then if you like too. If you don’t know how to add your team name in text to the picture we’ll handle that for you. Please email to Dirk of Team Shadowace at: shadowace.az@gmail.com ...if we don't get a contribution from you Dirk will go to your profile and grab your worst one or worse yet he might just make something up. If you already sent one to us don't worry, we sent them to Dirk.

NAME TAGS: (if you haven't already...) Please send us an email with the numbers in your party and your real (i.e. non-caching) names. I know you know that we already know this for a lot of you but please do it any way so we can easily copy and paste you into our tracking tables. This will also be used to pre-fab you a name tag for the event. The name tag will have your Team/Caching Name (handle) e.g. Scrawlinn) and the name you “like to go by” (e.g. Melissa). If you got one last year and still have it please let us know so we can save some ink and time.
--Our EMAIL: dwjessop@hughes.net

Travel Bugs and Coins: We will not have an open grab/drop table but rather will manage transfer at the host table. We will record who drops and who grabs what. Please feel free to drop bugs. An angel gets its wings everytime you move a bug! Please manage personal coin discovery exchanges on your own. Please delete bug drop notes from the page after you post, thanks.

DESIGN CONTEST We are still looking for contributions to create the best design/logo for future Combat Cachers' Reunion events. We haven't got any yet. We don't want to pirate Mule Ear's forever. Designs should not be exclusive to Combat Cachers but must be something that all attendees can relate to, in future years to come too. Please email to us ahead of time.If we get more than one we'll have a vote at the event.