RallyIE on Route 66: Get Your Kicks-Off Event Cache

Well, if you ever plan to motor West, Just take my way that's the highway that's the best. Get your kicks on Route 66!

Well, it winds from Chicago to L.A. More than 2000 miles all the way. Get your kicks on Route 66!

Well, goes from St. Louie down to Missouri Oklahoma City, looks oh so pretty. You'll see Amarillo and Gallup, New Mexico. Flagstaff, Arizona don't forget Winona, Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino!

Would you get hip to this kindly tip. Yes and go take that California trip. Get your kicks on Route 66!

That's right, it's time once again for the West End Geocachers annual geo-rally. This time, we're getting our kicks on Route 66. Don't worry, we'll not be traveling the entire route, just the part that runs through the West End.

When?

Where?

There is no requirement to participate in the Rally. Everyone is welcome to attend the event regardless of their plans for the day.

The rally will take you along (what's left of) old Route 66, from the Inland Empire and west. This is a photo rally, so be sure that someone in your group/team has a smartphone and internet capability. During your day of adventure along Route 66, you'll be looking for many old and some new icons from yesteryear. Of course, we'll have a number of new caches scheduled to be published the morning of the event for you to find as well. The total number of photo opportunities and new caches to publish in the morning is yet to be determined, but we bet you can correctly guess how many we're shooting for! With 66 photo opportunities you will not run out of fun, and you can be sure to see something that you've not seen before!

At the kick-off event this morning, we'll be handing out everything you'll need to participate in and attempt to complete or even win our third annual West End Geocachers Rally. If you end up missing this morning's event, have no fear! The info handed out will be made available for download from the event page.

This year, the rally works out pretty simply (we think):

1. Make, find or get on a team. It's a lot more fun to cache with others, but you certainly may cache solo, as a duo or any number you perfer.
2. Go find an item on the Route 66 list made available. There is no minimum number of things to find. (fuzzy coordinates provided)
3. Take a selfie of your entire team with the "WEGs RallyIE flag" at or near to a Route 66 icon. Everyone needs to be visible and so does the icon.
   1. Designate a person to upload each photo as you go into a single note on this event page
   2. "Photoshopped" images are not allowed.
   3. Photos of your phone displaying an image is not allowed.
   4. There is an example 'Write note' and photo upload posted by West End Geocachers. There is no limit to the number of photos that may be posted to a 'Write note' log. (This is confirmed with HQ). Please use a title similar to the one in the example log so it is easier for us to find the note containing all of your photo ops for the day.
4. Point values will vary based on distance from the Celebration Event and will be listed on your hand-out for scoring.
5. Bonus points available for additional photo ops that are off of or modern to Route 66. This will be listed with the primary 66 photo ops.
6. Additional bonus points for finding any of the rally associated non-traditional geocaches published the morning of the event. No bonus points will be given for finding traditional caches or claims for FTF.
7. Additional bonus points available for driving a vintage vehicle and/or wearing vintage or Route 66 clothing during the rally (pre-'64). Value TBD by judges at time of the event.
8. Team(s) or individuals with the most points at the beginning of the Award Ceremony Event win prizes.

Disabled or Injured participants: We recognize the difficulty some geocachers may have with exiting and entering a vehicle in a timely manner and multiple times with an event such as this. A pre-printed facial image (head on a stick) of a participant that is currently disabled in some way may be used in lieu of that person physically appearing in each image. Just let us know before the event if you or your team will have someone with this exception. Your team will be responsible for providing the life size image. Photoshopped images are still not allowed.

We also recognize that some people may have exceptional reasons to not have an image of their likeness published on the event pages. In this case, an alternate image/icon on a stick or stuffed animal held in a way to obscure a person's face. Alternatively, the event 'item' may be held in a similar fashion. Please notifiy event hosts if you are seeking this exception.

Caches published the morning of the event hold no point value. Ok, maybe some of them will... a little. You will still want to set up a pocket query along the route so you can get notifications of the new caches scheduled to be published at 10am the morning of the event. Caching during the rally just makes it that much more fun, and you never know what you're going to find along the way!

Please obey all traffic and pedestrian laws when participating in the rally (i.e. no speeding or running across a busy street).

Attending this event is not necessary to participate in the Photo Rally. Likewise, participation in the Photo Rally is not a requirement to attending this event or the Celebration event. If for some reason you miss the Kicks-Off event altogether, all information made available during the event will be available via download on this cache page after the dispersal of the event.

At the end of the day, we'll have our award ceremony and opportunity to share in the fun and get our grub on with friends. Again, participation in the rally is not a requirement to attend any event. We hope to see everyone there!

Remember, the focus of the event is on discovery of Route 66.

We'll make updates and announcements on the event page as necessary, so keep an eye out for anything new!

Click on the map below to access a Route Query for Route 66 from Pasadena to San Bernardino.

(The plan is to have fun from San Bernardino to Pasadena)

Event T-Shirts are available this year! What size do you need?

We do not ask for fees or donations to create and put on these events, but T-shirt sales help offset group expenses. Purchase of a t-shirt is in no way required to participate in this or any other event.

Hidden waypoints on this event page contain downloadable files. These may be downloaded by those attending the event or unable to attend the event. GPX files described may be downloaded and installed on your GPSr device or smartphone for use in participating in the rally. Complete rules are also downloadable for reference. IMPORTANT: The Rally Flag download must be printed out and displayed in all photo ops to be considered for scoring purposes. Rally flags will be handed out at the beginning of the event to those who are able to attend.

Now for the legal disclaimer: ALERT! You are about to download a file(s) that contains further details about this rally. As the event owner, we represent that this file is safe to download although it has not been checked by Groundspeak or reviewers for possible malicious content.

The final results are in! There were 338 points available for finding all of the 66 photo ops listed. There were 11 bonus points available for photos of the modern iron works. There were another 122 points available for tasks, photos, and cache finds in the special bonus section. If a team had their DeLorean time machine running the route, they might have been able to amass a total of 471 points!

*We had one team scratch at the start, opting not to score in the rallyIE. One team did not return with a score sheet due to exhausted mini-copilots, but did post scoreable photos. One team disappeared into a black hole while looking for car keys. One team just went out to find some caches solo. Aaaaannnd, one team posted up two scoreable photos, found three non-traditional caches and then proceeded to get snookered to celebrate their success. A five point late penalty was assessed to this team for failing to turn in their scoresheet before 5:30pm.