Nickelodeon, the kids' cable network, had a show on, years ago, when our girls were young, called The Elephant Show. It was hosted by three people named Sharon, Lois and Bram. One of the songs that they sang on the show went something like this...
"Friendship, friendship, just the perfect friendship,
when other friendship have been forgot, ours will still be hot!
When other friendships have been fergate, ours will still be great."
Well, this Travel Bug sort of exemplifies this idea. The basic purpose is to form something like a daisy chain of trips, from geo-friend to geo-friend. Think of it as a sort of geocaching Peace Train; Every geocacher is part of the track, and certain geo-friends are the Stops. And at each Stop, a new token of friendship is to be added to the chain.
The first Stop on this Bug's epic journey will be any cache owned by Webfoot. The reason's are two-fold. First off, this T-Bug was actually acquired by him, and passed along to us to do with as we chose; we decided that this was good way to go about it, despite that it's taken us forever to get it going. Second, we both started geocaching at about the same time, as a result of our activity in Where's George, which he and Jim both got into at roughly the same time, as well.
Once Webfoot picks up this Bug, he will have three tasks. First, he will add something to the Bug's chain that, in some way, represents him: an interest, a special place he's been, a favorite whatever; anything at all that is important to him. As an example, we added a laser-cut, enameled hummingbird keychain fob to the chain, to show our strong interest in the Natural World. Second, he will need to designate the next Stop in the chain, that is, a geo-cacher who will be the next Geo-friend, the next to add a Token of Friendship to the chain. He should designate this person, and their location, on the Bug's card. Lastly, he'll need to put the Bug in a cache that is likely to help get the Bug moving to its new goal. In his log, he should name the next geo-friend (Stop), so that we can update this web-page accordingly.
Thus, everyone, whether the designated geo-friend or not, has a purpose: to be as friendly as possible by moving this Bug along towards the next stated Stop :-)
It would be great if each Stop along the chain is able to post a photo of the Bug with its new Token of Friendship. Any photos taken along the way would be nice, too :-)
To all and sundry, PLEASE do not take any of the doodads off the Bug's Chain! If the chain should get full, e-mail us, and we'll figure out something. But that should be a long way down the line, and we don't expect to have to worry about it for a while. With luck, this Bug will travel extensively around the globe, and collect a nice assortment of Tokens. If our "leaders" can't show friendship and respect for each other, maybe we can show them how it's done :-D
Thank you!
"Friendship, friendship, just the perfect friendship,
when other friendship have been forgotten, ours will still be rotten!" ;-)
Next Stop: a cache owned by Webfoot, who lives in the vicinity of Claremont, CA