Travel Bug Feature #5 - Post GWVI UPDATE

I introduced my readers in TBF #4 to the various travel bugs I was bringing with me on my trip to California, and also had mentioned the ones I own that might also be making an appearance there. Now it is time to update you on what happened to the bugs since the big (bug) event.

Since I left my sheet at the hotel with the phone numbers of the people who had my bugs, as I mentioned, I had hoped I would see them in the bin for the Southeast states, but when I went through the trading area, there were only two bugs in that bin and neither of them were mine. I was looking at lanyards all day, hoping to recognize the names of the people who had my bugs with no such luck. This is what has happened to them since:

AJ’s Captain Jack Sparrow 2007 Racer : I mentioned in TBF #3 that this one was in a race to Bend OR, which was won by my racer. Tmkbk had grabbed it and was in contact with me before the event, but I never saw them. The bug was picked up then by lyonden_ut, who dropped it off in a cache in Utah. I am going to change its goal to come back to Houston.

American Heroes : CelticCacher had this one and had been in touch with me for a while. Too bad about the numbers thing (hey, but you know, I think I gave MY number to a lot of these people, and I didn't get phone calls either come to think!). Anyway, I kinda wanted this one to keep traveling anyway. It has gotten the best photos. It is a Army medal my husband earned while serving over in Iraq, and its goal is to be photographed with other soldiers. Here is my favorite photo from the gallery. It is currently in the hands of twobison and was recently placed near the General Patton Museum.

Partners in Caching Geocoin:

Oh wow, I gotta tell y'all about this one's journey! Okay, so I had gotten these Partners in Caching Geocoins when I first started out like two years ago - they are a set of two coins in the shape of dogs. I dropped them off at a park - one in a cache on the west side, one in a cache on the east side, with the goal for one to travel west and one to travel east and see who got farther. Well, the one on the west side was picked up by a newbie cacher who never let it go. He has had it for a year and a half and originally responded to my emails but has long since stopped, and hasn't logged into GC.com since April of last year. Anyway, this one got picked up and was moved WEST (was the east oriented one) and has all kinds of adventures and pictures taken with dogs. Well, after it left GW6, it was taken by WhirledCache to the Original Stash Tribute Plaque! This is a plaque erected at the site of the original geocache placed in May of 2000 that started this crazy game we love so much. The first cache was eventually destroyed by a mower, but there is an ammo can near this plaque for trading items, and that is where my coin was placed, and picked up again, and now is in a cache nearby. So I was lately in this quest to find the cache with the highest number of finds - this one has 1805 logged finds! The highest number I have found in Houston is around 250, to give you some perspective.

Sweet! This cool bug made to the event and was picked up by Scooby, Shaggy and Velma and dropped in a cache in Rocklin (nearby) after the event, then moved to a cache around Sheridan (on the way from Rocklin to GW6), at which point it was picked up. It is a cute little thing whose goal is to have pictures taken with candy.
I brought three bugs back to Texas that traveled to California with me. I did not plan to actually let them go in the exchange. Cameron's Flip Flop had a goal of moving to Florida and having its picture taken on the beach before heading back to California. I am taking it there in two weeks and will leave it in Florida in a cache near the beach after taking its photo. Yellow Bunny has not traveled to Florida and has a card to check off states it has visited in its bag, and is simply in a race with other bugs for mileage. I will leave this one in Florida, too.

Another one, Rubix Rings, was kind of a late edition to the group. It is a large bug and I have no idea why I did not leave it in the exchange or drop it in a cache along the way. Somehow it made it back with us, and I am going to try trading for a smaller bug at one of the events I am going to soon. I think my idea was to hang on to it for dropping in a cache along the way postGWVI, but I kept forgetting to bring bugs with me to leave, or to write their numbers down when I left them (since I had not pulled them out of the mega-event yet).

When I reached the travel bug trading station at GW6, I had eleven bugs in my hands. At the last minute, I decided NOT to drop Fly N Fish in the event. I suddenly remembered that I had wanted to try to meet its goal by taking pictures with it and fish in Sacramento and San Francisco. I totally forgot, and I handed it to Snoogans right at the TB station because I knew he was good at meeting goals of TBs and he was headed to Sacramento. He told me he was going to eat some sushi so he would be able to get some pictures.

I dropped the following bugs in the station for trading:

Fireman Flash: this one wanted to go to Maine, and is already there! It was picked up by kayakerinme and the last log says it is in Maine and going to have a photo before being dropped off again. How very exciting that taking it to GW has helped it reach its goal.

Georeynozo's The Girona Fire Salamander Geocoin, Engine,Path Finders , and Traveling Antenna Ball - all picked up by Scooby, Shaggy and Velma and headed for Seattle. They must have come through the trading area right after me. Here is a picture of their team I swiped from the event page.

Geocaching Zone USA - Eastern - Geocoin Proxy - picked up by wandering4cache and headed for MA, where it will be in the ET zone that it wanted

"Stanford le Hope-Corringham, United Kingdom" Unite for Diabetes Travel Bug: this one was picked up by scottyj and has already been dropped in the UK!

"Macclesfield, United Kingdom" Unite for Diabetes Travel Bug: picked up, dropped in a cache 27 miles away, and picked up again already

Georeynozos November 2006 Geocoin Club Geocoin - MaxB on the River : this coin belongs to a friend of mine and its goal was to be handed to MaxB, so that is what I did, in exchange for my Travelin' Tin Man, who is now safely home again after many great adventures with MaxB. I noticed that MaxB later checked this geocoin into a cache in Crater Lake, OR, which is near where we used to live and one of my husband's favorite places. After this, the coin was logged in some very exciting locations, including Montana and Saskatchewan! It is currently traveling through Canada with MaxB.

"Alabama Creek (AK)" Red Jeep and Zordnick the Straw-bearded Gnome have yet to be logged out of the event, as well as the one I gave Snoogans. Some people are probably still traveling, logging their finds, or just are late loggers. I saw that the travel bug station was completely taken down and no bugs were left, so I know they went somewhere. P.S. As I write this, the Jeep was logged out, but Zordnick still awaits a log entry.

The ones I brought home in exchange include:

Mack's 'Brokeback' Geocoin: this coin has a generic mission to"travel from cache to cache spreading goodwill and equality toward mankind!" It was marked to take to Texas, so I grabbed it, but I am not really sure why. I think the name is funny, and the coin owner says they don't know anything about the reason for the coin but they bought it because it has a cowboy butt on the back and they thought that was funny!

Groove Monkey: this is just a laminated groovy monkey postcard that is in a race to get to the Return from Project A.P.E. cache in Austin. I go to that cache fairly often - every time I go to Austin pretty much. It is this huge ammo can in the woods that is chained to a tree and is always filled with bugs. I think I can get some groovy pictures of this one at my job if I am very sneaky about it. I think the race is over, so pictures would probably be appreciated more than personally driving it to Austin at this point.

GaryM53's North American Challenge "Bobcat"

This coin wanted to go to Abilene, TX after visiting at least 20 caches. Each person that helps move it along will get their name entered in a drawing for a new geocoin. I think that is a pretty good idea to keep people motivated to move it and not keep it. It had my curiousity piqued because it was in a closed velvet bag, so I really wanted to grab it just to see what was in there.

Voodoo with his Mojo bag: I grabbed this one because it looked interesting. It is a very odd bug but there is no photo so I suppose I will have to take one and post it soon. I thought it was a doll wrapped in a piece of Asian cloth, but turns out the inside is like some kind of straw thing and it is kinda falling apart. It wants to make its mojo more powerful by having cachers "go to strange,mysterious or historical places and collect a piece from each place and put it in my mojo bag."

Then there is Hurricane G., who looks awfully familiar. Hurricane G was released in 2004 by a third grade class with the goal of traveling around the world and returning to Miami in 2005. It has not made it back yet, apparently, from looking through the places it has been on the travel bug page. So now I will bring it much closer to home.

At first I thought it was a bug I had a long time ago and really enjoyed, Cousin It. Do you see the resemblance? I think it is the same toy.

Picked up and going with me to Florida are:

Mrs IceCreamMan's Personal Coin #09 : This traveler would like to make it to Florida for the Fourth Annual Florida Finders Fest in the Osceola National Forest on the weekend of October 25, 2008. By dropping it in W Palm Beach, I can at least make sure it is in Florida four months ahead of time.
Angel of the Atlantic, a helicopter that wants to travel along the Atlantic seaboard, having pictures taken at Coast Guard air stations.

Son of Rodan: I picked this one up because I saw a Florida tag. The details include a goal of wanting to visit as many states as possible before reaching Florida, and Texas only makes three, but we'll see. I may or may not finally drop it there.
VDUB TrekNFind: this one wanted to visit California and then head back to Florida, so it will have done that, but it wanted to go traveling along the coastline and have pictures taken in the sand. That didn't really happen, but if I drop it in Florida, at least it is closer to its owner and returning home. Maybe I can take some cool pics of it in Florida.

I am actually planning on spending some time taking TB photos. I just hope no one from my conference spots me, as I might get labeled as that strange girl who plays with toys on the beach! I'll let you know how that works out!