Our expectations of GeoWoodstock XII in St. Charles, Missouri lived up to the billing. We got to meet so many cachers from all over the world and it was awesome to talk about our ever so growing hobby of geocaching with fellow cachers. We were looking forward to experiencing everything that GeoWoodstock had to offer, but one experience that will stick with us forever is getting the opportunity to go out in search of gadget caches with some of the more well known geocaching vloggers.
You never know who you might run into at these geocaching events. Geocaching is such a world wide sport now that you rarely get the opportunity to meet, let alone go geocaching, with some of the more famous geocachers. We were excited to finally get to meet some of our favorite Geocaching Vloggers at GeoWoodstock XII.
We have been watching Joshua, The Geocaching Vlogger, Justin, The GCDoc, and Dave form Geo Dave’s geocaching vlogs on YouTube for years. And our new friend Elliot came along to help us crack some of these puzzles to get into the caches. Here in the heartland of our beautiful country, we all met each other to enjoy the GeoWoodstock festivities and to do a little geocaching.
Setting out on our Geocaching Voyage
We met up with these guys after the group photo, and made a plan to get together that afternoon to go out and do some geocaching together. Liz and I were looking forward to this, we could tell these guys were going to be a lot of fun. So we did not want to miss out on this experience!
We regrouped after lunch at the iconic Lewis & Clark Statue and set out on our journey. This very spot is where Lewis & Clark set out on their voyage to explore the West, so it was only fitting that our expedition of discovering new caches begin here as well. We decided to make our way down the Katy Trail, along the Missouri river bank in St. Charles, to go after some of the gadget caches. We set out walking alongside the river bank and enjoying the scenery and the natural beauty of the river. The Katy Trail is quite scenic and well maintained, so you will enjoy walking or biking along this route.
Gadget Caches at GeoWoodstock XII
We enjoy discovering creative caches all over the world, and these cool gadget caches did not disappoint. Gadget Caches are extremely creative caches in which you may need a battery, a flashlight, or just a really good thinking cap to be able to discovery the all might Log Book. Liz and I enjoy solving puzzles, and using science to cache; so these types of caches are always fun to figure out and discover! Together, our group of geocaching experts were ready to crack some codes and sign some logs.
As we approach our first cache to go after, we see that there are several cachers already at the cache. Being that this is a Mega Event, you will find that sometimes the best way to navigate to caches is to follow the crowd. At first we were a little disappointed, then we just decided to wait patiently for our turn at the cache. Sometimes cachers will just pass the logbook around to sign without attempting the cache, but we wanted the full experience. So we waited our turn to crack the cache open and sign the log ourselves. We are glad we did because these were a lot of fun!
The first stop was an electrifying cache. You had to use your body as a conductor of electricity to figure out which color would light and therefore giving you the combo to unlock the cache. This was a tricky one and one that could have you guessing for days. Luckily Elliot used his brains to get the right code to open the cache. This was a really cool cache and one that took some time to make. Awesome time with this one.
As we continue to walk down the riverside, in and out of the woods to caches, Liz and I were just smiling ear to ear. Not only was Joshua keeping everyone entertained with his energy (yes the videos you see on his channel are extremely accurate with his energy) but we had a great time getting to know everyone along the way. It was really cool to think that an event like this was able to bring in cachers from all over the world to have cool geocaching experiences; just like this one.
We enjoyed the creative gadget caches along the Missouri river bank, but we did find one that had us stumped a little bit. We came to this cache and pulled out the tools we needed to figure out the code to unlock the cache. We attempted to use some of the tools and realized that we had some spare parts. We knew that they had to serve a purpose, so we stepped back and re-thought it out. This is where having multiple people can help because you can all put your brains together to figure it out.
Luckily, we came to the realization pretty quickly of what we had to do in order to use all the tools. Man was this a creative cache. There were 4 different size bolts that were labeled. You had to place the bolts on one side and use washers to make it balance. Once you had it balanced you needed to count the number of washers needed to make it balance, and that was part of the code to open the cache.
It was simple, yet extremely creative. This one ended up being one of my favorite caches we found during our entire trip to GeoWoodstock. After going through all the bolts and calculating the number of washers for weight on each, we cracked the code to get in the cache. Such a great cache to discover.
We went into this Gadget Cache Voyage just like Lewis & Clark; with high expectations, but unknown possibilities on how it would turn out. This voyage is one that Liz and I will remember fondly. We were already fans of these awesome Geocaching Vloggers and we walked away feeling like we were now Geocaching Buddies. This was such an awesome experience and one that we know a lot geocachers out there would love to experience. We want to thank Joshua, Justin, Dave, and Elliot for going out geocaching with us and making lasting Geo-Memories!
VIDEO
You can check out a video of the experience done by Joshua, The Geocaching Vlogger. Click HERE to watch
You can also check out a video of the experience done by Justin, The GC Doc. Click HERE to watch.