If I was the irritating type of web page designer, I'd make sure that MxPx's ''Move to Bremerton'' was playing right now. Instead, hum it to yourself.
Fill the tank, hit the ATM, toss down some breakfast, and bring a sack lunch. Once we start the hunt, we’re not stopping until the daylight does, and then we’ve got one more cache to snag. Once we’re done, we’ll end at the Silverdale Red Robin to recap the day, quaff a few drinks, and tend to our wounds. No multicaches involved, since those’ll just slow us down :-)
Meet at the parking lot at the above coordinates at 7:00 a.m., December 28, so we can be on the trail searching for NAD Soroptamist (Plane) Park as morning twilight begins at 7:20 a.m. From then, I’ve got a list of 30+ caches, ending with Will O’ The Wisp (which is designed as a night hunt).
Twilight ends at 4:59 p.m., and assuming 15 minutes at each cache, and allowing 3 hours for travel time between the caches, there’s no way we’ll hit them all, but we’re sure gonna get as many as we can.
Bring multiple FRS radios or CBs if you’ve got them. We’ll use Channel 2 to communicate between caching vehicles.
This 6.1 meg PDF file holds my final plans. Sorry about the file size, but it bloated up pretty quick. If you'd like the file without the cache pages included, you can get this 3.1 meg PDF, and if you happen to have MS MapPoint, the 289 K .PTM file is here.
Note that the big PDF file contains decrypted hints for the cache pages, but they shouldn't be visible in Acrobat Reader until printed. I plan on printing up a few sets and sticking post-it notes over the hints, but I can't print out sets for everyone (20 sets is 1400 pages!) due to the cost. You should print this file and bring it along with you.
Suggestions and ''Count me ins'' are welcome below.
If you’ve already found a couple of these caches, that’s fine - give us a chance to find the cache, and then we may turn to you for a hint.
(And congratulations to Seth!, Kodak’s 4, and Moun10bike, who were their own little Bremerton Cache Machine on December 7, managing to find 23 caches in one day!)
Special thanks to Fledermaus, W7WT, and HeadLlama, for their advice on routing and cache seeking. I've incorporated most of their comments into the cache sheets in the PDF file above.
Answers to questions I've been asked:
When is it?
7:00 a.m., December 28, 2002.
Will it be one large group, will we be split into teams, or what?
Right now, I'm leaning towards having one giant group swoop down on each cache site, which hopefully means we'll find the cache quickly. Then it's on to the next one. This event is all about quantity.
It sounds fun, but I've already found all of them
Then come laugh at us.
It sounds fun, but I've already found some of them
Then come laugh at us, or guess when we'll be at the caches you haven't hit yet. Monitor FRS channel 2.
You don't have X cache on the route. Why aren't we getting that one?
I'm avoiding multicaches, and caches that I've heard are time consuming.
You have X cache on the route, but it's disabled/archived.
I'll generate a final route a few days before, with updated data. This should catch any new caches that get created in the area, too.
What's this gonna cost me?
Free. Or, at least, nothing more than it would cost than if you did the trip solo (e.g., paying for your own gas). I'm not collecting any money for this. I'm just organizing this 'cause I want to get a lot of the Bremerton caches at once, and figured it'd be fun to have a bunch of us try it at once.
But it's going to be cold/wet/rainy/cloudy.
Waah. Move back to where you came from. :-P If you don't cache in weather like this, you'll be limited to caching three months a year. Bring extra dry clothes, and make sure your car's window defoggers work.
What should I bring?
Spare dry clothes might be a good idea - particularly shoes and socks. You'll need a flashlight for the last cache. A trash bag (to trash out litter). A copy of the route and cache pages (see above). A sense of humor and flexibility. Money for Red Robin afterwards. And your typical geocaching loot bags.