Favorite Point Geocaching

Since introducing friends to geocaching, Hubby has had a renewed obsession with the activity. The friends are leaving at the end of the month to return to their home in Colorado. Hubby is trying to introduce them to all aspects of caching. I think of it as hoping you have given your kid all the tools/skills they may need to be successful before sending them off to college.

This week we have been looking for geocaches that have many favorite points. A geocacher can give a favorite point to show the cache owner how much they liked and appreciated the creativity, talent, time, money, etc. the owner put into the cache. A favorite point is a way to say thank you.

how many people does it take to get to the log???

a jail house!!!

complete with toilet

and secured wall bed with water bucket

The detail JFOW put into creating this detailed cache is awesome. Rocks glued onto the wall. Research sharing info about early jails in the area. First, we had to figure out the combination to the lock and then figure out how to open the jail door. I certainly gave it a favorite point.

palo verde trees hold many geocaches

another simple, but cool cache

repurposing buttons 

and a beautiful handcrafted wooden container

almost stepped on this horned lizard,

also called horned toad

it posed for us before crawling away

a repurposed camera holding the paper log

the boys walking and chatting

more repurposed materials

Gone Fishin'

the cache owners left a fishing rod to help reach

the container

but someone climbed the tree before 

noticing the supplied Tool of the Trade (TOTT)

One of the reasons for the renewed geocaching activity is a challenge encouraging geocachers to get out and about looking for geocaches with high favorite points. The more of these caches we find, the more souvenirs we earn on our geocaching profile. A way to challenge ourselves and compare our activity with other geocachers. There are 5 souvenirs we can earn during this 3 week challenge plus a special one for attending a specific geo-event.

The virtual souvenirs are based on Carnival. I did not realize Carnival was celebrate all over the world. The one in Cologne is the Germany's largest and most famous.

The carnival in Nice along the French Rivera was first recorded in 1294. It is rumored to be the oldest and is still a two week event each February.

The Venice carnival was started during the Renaissance and is known for its elaborate masks, baroque costumes, and balls.

The New Orleans carnival dates back to the 17th century. 

The largest carnival in the world is the one in Rio de Janerio. 

This was the final souvenir we earned for this challenge. We got it when we logged our attendance at a special creation geocache event. Hubby and I created 2 geocaches for the event's contest. Neither of us won, but we had fun creating. 

These are the two geocaches we created for the Saturday event:

Hubby's birdhouse

lock combo was 'hidden' in the description

I've had this rubber snake for a couple of years

hauling it around for just the right situation

log container was secured in its mouth

There were 15 or so cache containers created and submitted for the event contest. Needless to say, neither of us were winners. But we had fun!