Hot Potato VA-MD

This bug has two goals. First, to promote some friendly competition between the geocachers of Virginia and the geocachers of Maryland. Second, to give people an excuse to visit some caches a little farther from home.

How? With a game of "hot potato".

Current Score as of 8/20/06
Virginia: 67
Maryland: 51


The Maryland Team wins Round One by a score of 792 to 285.

Before grabbing this bug, please read 'Should I grab this bug?' below.

The rules are (fairly) simple.

1. Pick a team to play for, either Virginia or Maryland. You can pick either team, regardless of where you live. Just pick a team and stick with it.

2. If someone on the Virginia team finds the bug in a cache in Virginia, they should try to move the bug to a cache in Maryland. If someone on the Maryland team finds the bug in a cache in Maryland, they should try to move the bug to a cache in Virginia. In the interest of keeping the game moving, please only take the bug if you can place it in a new cache within two weeks.

3. The bug should always be in either Virginia or Maryland. Please do not take it out of these two states.

4. Please don't cheat. Don't claim that you hid the bug in a cache in the other team's state, then keep the bug in your sock drawer for six months.

5. The bug must be placed into an existing cache. Putting the bug in a cache that has a high level of difficulty is fair. Moving or modifying the cache containing the bug to make it harder to find is not.

Should I grab this bug?

I've had a few people email me to ask whether or not they should grab the bug under certain circumstances. I won't copy and paste all of the questions here, but I will provide some guidelines that I've come up with.

Don't grab the bug unless you can place it in a cache within two weeks.

Don't grab the bug unless you can make a significant contribution toward moving the bug across the state line.

Some examples of significant contributions are:

1. Moving the bug across the state line, obviously.

2. If the bug is in your state, but is a long way from the state line, then moving the bug much closer to the state line would be significant even if the bug stayed in the same state. How far does the bug need to be moved before the movement is considered significant? I don't have a firm rule for this.

3. If the bug is in your state in a cache with a high degree of difficulty, then moving the bug to a more accessible cache would be a significant contribution, even if the bug didn't move any closer to the state line.

If you can't make some sort of contribution to moving the bug across the state line, leave the bug for someone who can.