Early-February freeze break with your geo-buddies :)
First fully-in-February weekend. Quite possibly freezing and/or slushy* in NoVA :( Here's a warm social event where there's hot tea/food nearby and underground parking. Mostly just this month to go now before regularly above-freezing high temps each day, phew (for those of us who appreciate the lack of bugs and prickles but otherwise don't thrive in temps below 50).
Mid-morning meetup in the Worldgate lobby (which is very airy and has assorted seating), between the Panera/Weird Brothers entrance and the escalator/elevator. Unless it's magically really warm and nice out (mid-50s AND not raining AND not too windy, etc.), in which case we can try the *outside* tables by Panera. 95+% likely inside.
2026 is the 250th anniversary of US independence in 1776 so that's the theme for this year. Plus filling in our event calendars ;)
Get yourself some some morning refreshments or just stop by to socialize. Mini-cachers, family, friends, the caching-curious, the caching-retired, visiting geocachers, and friendly muggles all welcome. Trackables and other geocache-related things for others to discover/take are encouraged. No purchase required. **Outside food/drinks are fine.**
Plenty of surface parking out front, or there's a parking garage to the side/underneath if you prefer (if so, you can come up the escalator/elevator into the lobby).
Since it'll almost certainly be indoors and there's underground parking, this event will ONLY be cancelled if the roads are awful (I still remember the winter we had a ton of ice storms*), so please watch the weather/this cache page if it looks questionable and you want advance notice of cancellation.
Fairfax Connector bus schedule
If you might have COVID, the flu, etc., please skip this one and get together with us when you feel OK/are clear. Thank you for helping your geo-buddies out :)
* My memory has it as 17 ice storms that winter; weather site says closer to a dozen:
https://www.weather.gov/lwx/winter_DC-Winters
January-February, 1994: These two months saw an unusual assault of ice storms on the Washington area. It began in mid January with an arctic blast that sent temperatures below zero over northern Virginia and western and central Maryland for a couple of mornings. The sudden cold wave shot up the use of electricity and natural gas. The effect was over such a large portion of the Eastern US that the power companies went into rolling black outs so as not to lose the grid entirely and requested people to conserve energy.
Between mid January and mid February, about a dozen storms hit dropping snow, sleet, and freezing rain. The most devastating storm struck February 10-11 leaving a coat of ice, one to three inches thick, from freezing rain and sleet! The hardest hit was an area from near Fredericksburg across southern Maryland and Annapolis. Some counties lost 10 percent of their trees from the heavy ice. Roads were blocked and impassable. Electric and phone lines were down with as much as 90 percent of the area's people without power. Even with help from out-of-state utility companies, many people were without power for a week. A presidential disaster declaration was given. Damages were estimated at near 100 million dollars for the region. There were numerous injuries from automobile accidents and people falling on ice. It was likely the iciest winter the Washington area has ever seen.
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