Gilby Gone Wild

 I chose this particular weekend for our road trip to Gilby because the community was hosting their second Gilby Gone Wild event. I knew of the event last year but it wasn't until I had visited with a group of the organizers (at the MINGO event in May in Kansas) it became the September road trip for 2021. Hubby was skeptical of another road trip to northeast North Dakota, but I know he is willing to return next year. He had so much fun and met so many cachers he knew. 

okay, but how do you open it????

Factory Outlet

my other favorite cache on this trip

a post with lettered outlets on all 3 sides

and several electrical cords with plug-ins

it didn't take Hubby long to figure out what to do 

and...

the platform rose and the log book appeared in a plastic container

a Gilby farmer creates spinning metal works

and free standing metal sculptures

this one is for you Sherry & Jon

metal works of all kinds for sale

some horses near the road on another farm

Little Strong Man

no pounding necessary

hmmmm...how to open

this group had gathered at Strike Zone which wasn't working

we supplied the ladder to climb the tree trunk to reach the lever

that released the container when hit with the attached softball on a wire

the wire cables had a few kinks which were 'unkinked' with a pliers

it worked when we all left

town mural

some of the city park signage

cachers gathering for the group photo and raffle prizes

the schedule for the day

The Gilby community has a new community center; a place to gather for coffee or play games or cards, to socialize with others in the community. They (folks from the community) offered a $10 lunch of hamburger or hot dog, salad, chips, soda, and a cookie. It was so appreciated because there is NOWHERE to get food for miles and miles. (The bar did have toaster oven pizza which we did eat on Friday.) The cost for lunch was a fund raiser for the community which supports all the geocachers who come to visit.

cachers from CA, WA, ME

and places between

most were from the tri-state area

no Canadians this year

however, they did gather on their side 

of the border for a group photo

event host Trycacheus on the left and right-hand man on the right

vivacious helper Ariel in the middle

most of the crowd for the group photo

drone photo of the Gilby Gone Wild gathering

Hubby's door prize win

wireless water resistant speaker

my first raffle drawing win

my second raffle ticket win

a great haul of caching tools

in a very awesome bag

just one of about 20 raffle prizes

the Gilby Gone Wild geo-coin

back side

It was a great event gathering. The small community out in the country meant we were not fighting traffic or crowds. The 150-200 attendees (maybe more) was just the right size. If we saw somebody we knew, it was easy to find them and chat. We met folks from Facebook groups I follow. One of the attendees had attended one of my Watertown geocaching events in August 2016. I remembered him because he was from San Diego visiting his sons in Britton SD. We visited with geo friends from MN and our caching family from Sioux Falls, and friends from Aberdeen (the two Adventure Labs we completed last week in Aberdeen and Mobridge). The Fargo/Moorhead and Grand Forks geocaching community are so supportive of the event as is the community of Gilby. I, like our host Trycacheus, hope it doesn't become a MEGA event. 

Gilby, North Dakota

 Yes, it is almost a  month to the day since the last blog post. That is because the only happening was g'kids soccer and a wee bit (and I do mean WEE bit) of geocaching. Happenings picked up about two weeks ago, becoming so busy, I did not get any posts created. So here is the beginning of a few recent adventures.

Gilby ND has been on my list of places to visit for several reasons. It is known as the Disneyland of geocaching. I have seen YouTube videos of some of the caches. I have met the cache owner of those geocaches. (In fact, he and a buddy traveled to AZ before COVID-19 and attended one of my caching events.) I (we) had a taste of his cache hides when we traveled through the northeast corner of ND last summer. 

This past weekend was the Gilby Gone Wild geocaching event. After visiting my mother for a couple of days, we headed north and east to Gilby ND and a fun two days of geocaching.

we made a little pit stop on the way

(for a geocache!)

this ball is repainted regularly

Mario Brothers this time

a stop in the hometown of this NFL player

population: 245

over 500 on Saturday!

Trading Post

Am I Blue?

The satisfying and rewarding experience of Trycacheus geocaches is they are not hard to find or hard to solve. Most of them are very creative and in fact, of the twenty of his geocaches we did, we found each one immediately, but had to use our thinking caps to open the container and retrieve the log book. And of those twenty caches, I had only seen one similar geocache in our 9 years of geocaching.

Trycacheus is a carpenter and area handyman by trade. That was evident in many of the caches.

the tools needed to retrieve the container and log book

a jug of clear plastic film containers

an easy find

the key was to get the one black film container to come out of the jug

it contained the log

not hard at all, maybe a bit frustrating

I did get it out and Black Sheep became my 26,000 geocache find

twist and turn to spell a special word

use the game machine crane to retrieve the vehicle 

containing the bison tube and the log sheet

again, not hard but might be frustrating

Strong Man

use the mallet to ring the bell, making the

bison tube fly up and out

not as easy as it looks...physics

the mallet was broken by Saturday afternoon

too many people and too many whacks!

not hiding at all

this is one that is on YouTube videos

Driving Miss Daisy

hold the fan out the window while driving 40-50 mph

watch the lights and record their corresponding number

to the combination on the lock

FUN!!! but needs a caching partner!

Card Cache

insert plastic cards to reveal lights which reveal the correct card numbers

The Golden Bison

literally a storage tub full of gold buttons 

and one gold bison tube

golden bison tube contains the log sheet

the Gilby Adventure Lab

the Gilby Eve caching event at a nearby state park

Adventure Lab in the Turtle River State Park

None of the Trycacheus caches were hard. Some required more than two sets of hands. Some took a little longer to figure out what was needed to be done to reveal the cache log. Sometimes, another object was needed to complete the task and finding the second object took some thinking. But each one was very doable, creative, well-constructed, and so much fun. Well worth the visit to Gilby ND.