The purpose of this simple park and grab is to remember and promote International Geocaching Day. IGD happens on a particular Saturday every year in August. Each year on that day, I try to spend a good portion of my day doing some sort of geocaching activity- be it attending events or finding caches or both. Then, at the end of the day, I hide a cache. The purpose of hiding a cache is twofold. First, it gives me a written record of what I did on that day that year. Second, it hopes to encourage other cachers to make IGD something to remember. The following account is how I spent my International Geocaching Day in 2023.
I always try to attend an event on IGD, so I was pleased that there was one nearby today. I was prepared to travel a distance if need be, but was glad to stay close to home instead. The event was hosted by sialis at the Newburgh Locks and Dam Park and started at 9:00 am local time- so I had no problem making it on time. In fact, I had plenty of time to stop by the Indian Hill Overlook and grab a traditional cache that was on my radar for awhile. I escaped misfortune there, as I discovered three different wasp nests on a potential host without getting stung. Eventually I searched the proper beacon and made the find unscathed.
I was the first to arrive at the event, and before long others began to show up. By the time it was done, we had about a dozen folks there. It was really nice to see some old friends and also to meet some new ones. It was a beautiful day to sit in the shade and enjoy conversation. As often happens at events, we stayed well after the scheduled end time as we shared stories and info about our hobby. It was a great time and was the perfect way to start International Geocaching Day. Many thanks to sialis for hosting.
After the event I headed further east to grab a few caches. I had a few particular ones that I was after. I wanted to finish off the Spencer County Benchmark series, and I am always up for whatever else is in the way as well. I found 7 additional caches after the event, which gave me a total of 9 smileys for the day.
After finding the majority of my target caches for the day, I spent some time collecting waypoints for some caches that I have had in mind for awhile. Currently they are just waypoints on my phone, but soon enough I hope to have a nice series of new smileys for others to collect. We'll see how quickly that happens, but at least it's in the works.
On the way home I began to consider where to hide my yearly IGD cache. I had a few places in mind, and decided on this spot relatively close to home. I found a cache here once, and later I used to have a hide near here before the beacon was removed and I had to archive it. So this will be the third cache this area has seen the last few years. You might say it's a "recycled" geocache location. All told, my day included 9 smileys, a new digital souvenir, some great conversation with alot of neat folks, a new hide, and the early workings of quite a few more new hides. I'd say that's a great International Geocaching Day!
You are looking for a magnetic key holder. Log only. BYOP. The pile of trees in front of the host seems to be permanent at this point, so I decided to include it in the terrain rating. If the county ever decides to come clean it up, this will be the easiest 2.5 terrain rating ever.