Geocaching Block Party 2015: The Main Event

Wow, what a whirlwind weekend! I am exhausted but happy. I think I walked about 25 miles from Thursday evening through Sunday and I logged 78 caches in that time. My 300th cache was a lab cache from the brewery tour Thursday night. Most of the caches [64] were labs which now represent number two in my statistics for types of finds. I guess that is what happens when you attend a Mega event!

Here are some of my stats from the weekend:

• Seattle Brewery Tour [6 labs] finished 143 of 817 [Thursday 8/13/15]
• Ballard at Night [16 labs] finished 179 of 636 [Friday 8/14/15]
• Quirky Seattle Tour [9 labs] finished 599 of 752 [Saturday 8/15/15]
• Seattle Adventure [9 labs] finished 727 of 769 [Saturday 8/15/15]
• 15 Years of Geocaching [8 labs] finished 661 of 1423 [Saturday 8/15/15]
• Explore Georgetown [11 labs] finished 435 of 620 [Saturday 8/15/15]
• Going Ape Adventure [5] finished 152 of 808 [Sunday 8/16/15]
• Discovered 51 trackables [more are written down to be logged]
• Found 18 traditional Geocaches
• Met people from Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, England, Denmark, Germany, Canada, Massachusetts, Georgia, California, Wisconsin & Florida [I’m probably leaving a few out].

Originally we had planned to get up early and complete the Georgetown tour before the main event at HQ. We were so tired from the previous late evening we stayed in bed a couple hours longer and headed down to Freemont for the kick off. We were still looking for parking when the Block Party event cache went live and found a spot 200 feet from one of the labs. We were 2nd and 3rd to find that one and quickly headed the couple blocks to Geocaching HQ.

On our way to the event we passed Freemont Brewing and I had to take the photo opp. If you can’t read the sign it says “Hey you, yeah you in the plaid. Come drink a beer! [Or buy some to go!]. It IS Seattle after all.

Just a few blocks from this sign is Geocaching HQ. Below is a statue in Freemont called Waiting for the Interurban. People frequently “dress up” the people and dog standing there. That day it was all about Geocaching.

It was a madhouse.

Some thoughts on a Mega event. I don’t know if I will ever attend one again, if I do it will be a while. Being my first, I was uncertain of how things worked and didn’t want to miss out on anything. The amount of humanity at Geocaching HQ was really quite overwhelming. I got to the point where I had to leave the area and chill with a beer before I could continue. It all worked out in the end and I did enjoy myself once the crowds depleted.

While we were at Freemont brewery decompressing we met a cacher with this ukulele trackable.

We met up with our newbie to Geocaching friends Teresa and Sandra who apparently had a blast and were so glad to have made it to the Block Party.

Teresa had discovered a rare traveling cache called Brogan’s Caching Karma Stick which we then found and logged later that day. Because of this find you get a souvenir for the state of New York. The cache is a five foot tall walking stick with a silver knob handle at the top. It has a trackable on it as well. Pretty genius idea I think. If you click on the link above and view the Gallery you will see a lot of photos from Block Party.

That day we completed the Quirkly Seattle Tour which took us to all sorts of crazy Seattle landmarks such as Archie McPhee’s, Bruce & Brandon Lee’s gravesite, Edith Macefield’s House, Elephant Car Wash, Greenwood Space Travel Supply Store, Gum Wall, Salmon Ladder at the Ballard Locks, The Freemont Troll & Volunteer Park Watertower.

We also completed the Seattle Adventure tour which took us to Century Link Field [the Clink home of our Seahawks], International District, Kerry Park, Olympic Sculpture Park, Pike Place Market, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Public Library, Seattle Center & Waterfall Garden.

The lab caches that went live that day were different types of caches like the HQ Geotour. We found one in the parking garage with a UV light, there were t-shirts hanging with letters printed on them we had to unscramble, there was a Goonies themed one [that was our 2nd and 3rd to find], there was one where one person had to blow in to a tube and the other had to look through swim goggles to find the code word.

We wrapped up the Block Party lab caches and were winding down. Sausage [Dug’s corgie] was absolutely done walking. Dug carried him to his van and I took Toby and Gus [his other two dogs] with me to Norm’s a dog friendly restaurant where there is a geocache. B met up with us and we sat outside to eat and drink and visited with cachers as they came to log the cache. Normally this one is a micro but this weekend it was cabled to the fence in an ammo can.

Our final destination of the night was Georgetown for that lab cache tour. One of the stops was the Georgetown Trailer Park Mall.

About half way we stopped in at Machine House Brewing to quench our thirst and rest.

We finished up at Oxbow park with a large pair of boots and cowboy hat.

They used to be at the site of a Western themed gas station built in 1954. They have since been moved to this park. They even found their way in to the opening credits of National Lampoons Vacation.

Tomorrow – Ape cache day!