Travel Bug Feature Story #4

I know it has been a while, fellow cachers, since I talked specifically about travel bugs. I had planned on posting a travel bug feature story once a week, but...I've had other things on my mind to write about. I think I might be doing more of these, though. I have a shoebox full of bugs right now that are going with me to California in ten days (!) for GeoWoodstock VI, and I can't wait to see the bugs there.

Let me share with you what I am carrying in my shoebox:

Yellow Bunny : Wow, I have never seen Baby K adore a travel bug quite like this one. He wants to get it out of the bag every day and carry it around the house. We even took it on outside adventures to look for other things that are the color yellow. He likes the fact that it has tags on it that have pictures, including the one pictured here, and a card as well in the bag with the same picture. He likes to hold Yellow Bunny up to the computer and match it up with the picture on the travel bug page. It is going to be hard to let this one go, but I think I am going to try to hang on to it through GeoWoodstock and take it to Florida in June to release it there. The goal is mileage, and it has a card to check off which states it has visited. It has not been to either California or Florida. So it is going to both. So is another bug,
Cameron's Flip Flop: This one has the goal of going to Florida, then California. We are going to do that backwards, then release it again in Florida. The owner is cool with those plans. I picked this one up on the way home from the Texas Challenge specifically because of the Florida goal. Meanwhile, I have been carrying it and Yellow Bunny around to various geocaching events around town, checking them in and out again. Much like a couple of other travelers:

Moochie the wanderer: This one's goal was to stay in California. I found it around Christmas time with another bug, Tassie, whose goal was to stay in Oregon. Both of them were in a cache right on the California-Oregon border, which I thought was kind of funny. I am taking both of them to GeoWoodstock and dropping them at the event so they can resume their goals.

Fireman Flash wants to get to Maine. I just picked this one up at our local World Wide Flash Mob Day event and it has never made it closer to Maine than Oklahoma, so I think I can give it a big help by putting it in the right box at GW.

Zordnick the Straw-Bearded Gnome

This gnome is too cool. We found him in this awesome cache that I didn't expect to stop at on the way home from the Texas Challenge. Coincidentally, we had ran into one of my caching buddies from home when we started along the path, and she didn't have the waypoint in her GPS, so we made the find together. It was a fun find and grabbing the little gnome was a cool bonus. We had our travel bug High Gnome with us on the trip, and we took this cool pic of them riding on the dashboard together. They will both be making the trip to GeoWoodstock. Zordnick is the smaller one in the back and HIgh Gnome is waving.

Flatty Patty This one wants to head towards flat land. I don't know if the part of California we are going to counts, but this TB is small and fits in the box easily, so it's going. We might drop this one in a cache along the way.
Fly N Fish - This one's goal is to make it to all the places Alaska Air flies and have its picture taken with fish. This is an interesting goal. I have flown Alaska Air a lot because they are the ones that run the little DC8s that take you from Portland OR to Klamath Falls, my husband's hometown where we used to live. Klamath is one of the places listed on the card accompanying the TB. So is San Francisco and Sacramento, where we are heading. So I guess I'll have to find some fish while I am there!

Alabama Creek (AK) Red Jeep .

This Jeep confounds me. Every year, Jeep Chrystler releases Jeep travel bugs out into the geocachers to participate in a contest for a real Jeep. The geocachers compete by finding the Jeeps and then taking a photo with the monthly theme that must include the Jeep TB. The monthly winners get the latest GPS unit and the annual winner gets the Jeep they are promoting that year. I really want to win that Jeep, and each year when the contest starts, I am on the hunt for Jeeps and taking photos. This particular one is a Red Jeep, the model for the 2007 contest, but somehow it was never grabbed and released into the "wilderness" until February of this year. What a mystery. Anyway maybe I can move it towards Arkansas.
United Together: This is a cool coin with the American Flag on it that reads "United Together in the Fight against Terrorism". It is not a trackable coin so the owner gave it a TB tag and just wants to share the coin.

FuRbRaT's Sierra Autocars Travel Bug Dog Tag and The Traveling Antenna Ball I just picked up today from one of my caches during a maintenance visit. The Antenna Ball wants to go to the UK and the Sierra Autocars wants to go to places bears would like. I think I can take it to those kind of places, since we are planning on caching in the El Dorado National Forest the day after GW6, and the cache pages warn about the potential for bears, among other dangers.

Then there are the geocoins.

Two of them are owned by my caching friend around here, Elisa. One of them wants to meet MaxB on the River, the number one travel bug mover in the world. MaxB is running the travel bug booth at GW, AND happens to have one of my TBs in their possession (whose goal was to be "tagged" by them and it got to them after only passing through the hands of seven cachers (seven degrees of seperation?). I'm gonna ask them if we can exchange my TB for the coin to move along. The other coin of hers is the coolest, most gorgeous coin I have ever seen - the Girona Fire Salamander Geocoin. Isn't it beautiful?

Two of them are owned by Caching Coins, who is the sister of my friend WhippetTx. I have never met Caching Coins but I have moved a lot of her coins. She puts a lot of effort into the. They all have laminated info tags, travel bug buddies with her gc name on them, and unique, specific goals. This time I have Engine, who wants to be in "front", and Pathfinders, which wants to be placed in caches with "find" in the title.Then I have this Peace Flag Geocoin, which is pretty cool and has no specific goal in mind.

Oh and I havea couple of Diabetes Bugs that want to go to the UK. I could not be less concerned with the Diabetes bugs. I think it is a great idea to make travel bugs to promote awareness of a disease. Fabulous. However, due to market saturation or lack of variety, I have become completely apathetic to the poor underrated Diabetes bugs. I will help this ones end up in the EUA (Europe/Africa) bin, though.

As I was going through them just now, I was placing them one by one back in the shoebox. Help! It won't close now! I still have to tag 'em and bag 'em, and I have one more event to attend before I leave, so there might be some rearranging.

Travel bugs, tallyho! Here we go!