Mingo, The Oldest Active Geocache

 So by now you might have some pre-conceived idea of the what and where of Mingo based on all the hoopla of a 3 day celebration involving a thousand people from all over the US. You might be disappointed after reading this post. (Over 600 have logged they attended the Mingo Madness event as of this writing.)

The plaque was placed for Mingo's 20th birthday, May 2020. By visiting the plaque, answering a question and taking a selfie, credit was given for a type of geocache called a Virtual.

This is the Mingo. It is along a fence line off I 70 and County Rd K. It is a container holding a log book (notebook), trinkets people leave which geocachers call SWAG (stuff we all get), and travel bugs hoping to be moved to a new or special cache location. I'm quite certain the container was a lock 'n lock (Tupperware sort) of container when we stopped and found it in April 2014. At that time it was on top of the ground and held in place by a large rock. Now there is a concrete lined hole in the ground that holds the polyvinyl chloride tube. Stones are placed over the top. I know previous containers have gone missing every now and then. The local farmers know about geocaching and are used to all the traffic and visitors.

Some of the first geocaches were placed to test the accuracy of the satellite signals. I imagine an open area in the middle of Kansas was a good test site. Some caches were placed on mountain tops, some in forests, some along bodies of water. Some have lasted. Some have not.

Signal the Frog in the photo is the mascot for geocaching. This Signal (plush animal) was gifted to me by a fellow geocacher, Team 360. I bought a much smaller Signal that has traveled with me to some geocaching events and some geocaches. Signal will be the main character of the memory photo book I'll create from this Mingo Madness Adventure.

An Adventure Lab cache has been added to the location of the Mingo cache. Completing the trivia questions gave us credit for 5 geocaches in our cache total count.

There's a Bug on the Bump on the Log

This creative traditional geocache was across the road at a defunct gas station. We had found this cute decorated wooden container in April 2014 on our first visit to Mingo. It is quite awesome to have 4 different geocache types at one location. There were two mystery caches just down the road, less than a mile away. For the geocachers trying to accumulate 13 different icons (types of geocaches) in one day, 5 of those 13 are at the Mingo stop.

It was possible to get 13 icons on Saturday of the Mingo Madness event. They had to travel 100+ miles to do it, but 13 was possible and we know a number of geocachers who did it. We have 12 icons in one day and are very satisfied with that achievement.

This small screen shot of the area will give some perspective. The village of Mingo is on the far left around the yellow smiley circle. The next yellow circle is the traditional geocache, the bugs on a log. The third yellow circle is the Virtual geocache, the plaque. Next you see only one circle, but there are two nearly on top of each other. The first would be the Adventure Lab and next is Mingo. Just below Mingo was another traditional cache we found on Saturday. Across I 70 to the right are the two Mystery geocaches. They were field gadget puzzles. (You can click on the picture for a larger view)

Now to the village of Mingo. Mingo is so small there was no sign announcing the name of the community on either end of the main road, County Road K. The word Mingo was nearly unreadable on the white concrete elevators along the rail line. The only indication was the sign for the church.

We drove into the village because of this geocache, Geo-General Store. If geocachers are wowed or appreciative of a geocache, they can award a Favorite Point. The favorite points let the cache owner/creator know how much others like what he or she has created. The Geo-General Store has 953 favorite points as of when I am writing this post! (Mingo has 3153)

The outhouse was built to hold the log book. There was no puzzle to solve. Nothing hard to find. No batteries were necessary. Just walk into the large trees in front of the church and admire the handiwork of the cache owner. 

Ladies from the church were serving cold water and lemonade and offering cookies to the geocachers who stopped. Their generosity of free cookies was advertised, but we had no intention of partaking until we stopped to get Geo-General Store. We and others offered to give a monetary donation, but they said it was their way of thanking the geocachers who visit Mingo (the cache and the town) because we help the economy. "We love geocachers!" is what we were told.

It was a warm 81º Saturday afternoon so the lemonade tasted especially refreshing. I chose a sunflower cookie (because it had frosting!) and Hubby did his usual, chocolate chip. Some of the cookies were bakery products, most were homemade. A very nice gesture by the community.

We drove on to another community and found some geocaches before driving back to Colby for another event and opportunity to see friends. Thus ended the main events and doings for Mingo Madness weekend. 

Hosting the main event on Saturday allowed Sunday as a travel day for geocachers to get back home. We talked to a group from AZ who were traveling through the Dakotas, MN, WI to the UP and south through AL, AR before getting back to AZ May 24th. I met another couple at a geocache who were from WA and traveling through NE, the Dakotas and MN as they had not cached in the the Midwest. Attending Mingo Madness gave them the opportunity to add more states to their cache count. See-we aren't the only crazy geocachers!