The nine-year-old member of the Team Sedor18 geocaching crew had the whole week off school this year before Christmas so all three of us sat down to brainstorm what we could do to fill the time.
We've got it! Let's just travel the world, take some pictures and HIDE A GEOCACHE!!!
And that's what we did. A mystery cache in fact. Don't go to posted coordinates, that's the Braddock Road Metro Station. You can even get to Dulles from there now!!! N3 and W07 are given so you're solving for N3M AB.CDE and W07F GH.JKL
Now we know that no one EVER wants to see your vacation photos -- even when they're great -- in any form. But that's what we're going to make you do. TBF, we did make it to all seven continents this week so the pics may be more exciting than most. Hope you enjoy!
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A. This was our first stop. If you've read our logs you know that the kid LOVES to climb. But honestly, we didn't expect him to do that there. We had to get out quickly once the bi-planes started circling around him and shooting but luckily we got a good photo.
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B. Is this the view from the selfie station? It totally is, we think. But who expects a giant lion to appear to re-enact a fight from the ancient past. And who expects the nine-year-old member of Sedor18 to get MUCH bigger and take up the battle? Not us, that's who. Luckily we got a picture.
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C. Did the kid suddenly get even bigger? Giant-sized? Seems so :-? Let's hope we won't have to buy two plane tickets for him alone for our next destination.
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D. Top o' the world, mom! That's what he said when we took this photo. Who knows how we scored the permit on such short notice but sometimes life smiles on you.
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E. After all that physical exertion at Stop D we felt that some relaxation was in order. So we headed back to our home continent, lounged for a bit on the Caribbean coast and checked out some pre-Colombia Mayan ruins. Wait, are those sharks in the water?
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The first half of our journey was EPIC. Wouldn't you agree? But we still had half of our trip left! Check out where we went next:
F. The plan was to arrived at this magical locale on the summer solstice so that we could see how the Incans arranged various parts of its construction to align perfectly with the sun. Let me check my journal: we did! We also got this great picture of the city with the kid and a llama. Or is it a vicuña, alpaca or guanaco? We can never tell.
G. The aim was to meet a one-time leader here on top of this amazing seemingly unending structure. Or at least a statue in his honor. But maybe we got sidetracked when the dragon appeared and wanted to take a walk. Who were we to say no?
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H. Just two stops ago we were on top of the world and now we are on the bottom! This time he dressed more warmly. Just as we were about to snap the shot that fuzzy gray mammal jumped into the kid's arms. So cute!
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J. From there we journeyed to a curious place in the middle of the Indian Ocean for another unforgettable animal experience. These amazing Aldabras were so gentle and sweet. Breathtaking scenery too!
K. Here's where our trip got EXTREME. Maybe we missed the thing we were supposed to include in our photo -- it's just to the left of the shot we promise -- but when you see your kid bungee jumping off the top of a cathedral you can't help but make that the centerpiece.
L. We were all a little melancholy when we realized this would be our penultimate stop. But it also marked the first time we had been on the mainland portion of this continent. And what a beautiful sunset. Which side is that you ask? I'm not sure you can tell from the photo but even if you can it might not be correct. Where we were we could see flags that had an orange eagle on it and only three stripes. Also, yes, the kid parachuted in so we were a little pre-occupied.
M. We were tired after so much traveling but we still had one more continent to see. And any world tour needs a trip to this architectural icon. The kid even got some conducting in while wearing his new GEOCACHING sweatshirt. Take note where this number goes in your solved coordinates. If you've gotten this far you probably know what this number is anyway.
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When we re-returned home we rued the awful late December weather and wondered why we didn't just keep keep traveling? Because we had a cache to hide, of course. We never got around to logging any of our stops in the above places because, well, that just wouldn't be right. That doesn't mean that you can't look and log our cache though. CACHE ON!!!
Geochecker below will confirm the coordinates. FYI, hide has a surprisingly-high level of muggle traffic -- at least when we made the hide -- so be stealthy.
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.
Or you can use the Groundspeak checker below. Your choice.