COLORADO CHRONICLES

We're not even going to talk

about where the first night went

Nor the morning after

Suffice to say, our plans pushed back

Midday is when we began to make strides

By a creek, down a trail, up a wall

Up a hill, by a rock, in a car

Fountain Creek, site of our first Colorado geocache, Family Reunion, where a local cacher named kwbforest had dropped off our very own travel bug the day before, with a note to leave it for us. This bug had the goal of making it to Colorado Springs, where we were, and was a tribute to our not-quite-perfect love.

Through the Garden of the Gods

We drove past the places of our past

Coming out into Manitou

The town of our youth

Then driving downtown

The streets of our passion

And finally a rest,

Youth not being ours

But belonging to the past,

Like this town, and our place in it

TRAVEL BUG FEATURE STORY # 6
IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL
I haven't written about travel bugs in a while. In fact, I had to go all the way back to last summer to see what feature # was next in the series I meant to write about my favorite ones. It's not that I am not as interested in them. In fact, I have a contest going on with my own right now that is kind of fun. I think I just moved on to other topics instead. Maybe I was having too much fun with my digital camera and telling stories to go along with all the pictures I've been taking.
Anyway something weird and wonderful happened to one of my travel bugs that I just have to share.
One of the very first travel bugs I ever made up and sent out into the world was Love Potion #8.5. It is a little vial of perfume with a charm hanging off it, something given to me by Pegah back in high school, and the name is sort of a joke about my husband and I's "not-quite-perfect" love spell. Anyway, I attached this item to the dog tag I bought off the website and sent it out with the goal of heading to Colorado Springs, where we met. I also outlined some very specific places I would love to have a picture of it in front of, places of significance in our relationship and the early months of our dating (like in front of the "Kissing Camels" rock in Garden of the Gods, where we had our first kiss).
Anyway, the bug managed to make it into the hands of a cacher who promised to take it to Colorado after three brief months, and after stopping in Arkansas and California along the way. I thought it would reach its goal really quickly. Then it didn't actually get dropped for several months, and then cachers started moving it the wrong direction in Colorado. Then, a year and four months into its journey (and on my son's birthday), it got picked up by a cacher who said he goes to Colorado Springs, and even Manitou, one of the places I mentioned, fairly often, and he had asked if I wanted him to hang on to it until next time he went.
So, a year and a half later, he finally makes it down to the Springs area. (Meanwhile he had taken it on a lovely tour of Paris with him). He drops it off in a cache.
But not just any cache. This is where the story gets weird.
I check out the cache he places it in, Weasel COS, and it strikes me that the name of the cache and the name of the hider are both familiar to me. This is a unique cache owned, partially, by h2o z, who lives in Klamath Falls, Oregon, the place where my husband and I moved right after our early courtship in the Springs area. This same cacher has a cache called Weasel in Klamath Falls that we found on our visit to that area this summer! (He is also a Charter Member of geocaching.com).
So, I think it is really strange that of all my 62 trackables I own, that the one that symbolizes my husband and I's relationship ends up in a cache on CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN BLVD for pete's sakes (the main drag to the zoo, where I worked when I lived there), in a cache owned by someone who lives in my husband's hometown, a town of 19,000 halfway across the country!
Weird.

JEEP RESURRECTION

So I am on gc.com looking at the list of Yellow Jeeps out there, and something strikes me as odd. One particular cacher has his hands on a lot of Jeeps. Jeep hoarding happens, but the weird thing is many of the Jeeps are listed as having 0 miles on them, and some of them are listed as dropped by him, which means he's not just hanging on to them. I go to where the Jeeps were "dropped" and they are not events, so it is not that the Jeeps are just being shown off at events. They are actually being moved. One of the places the Jeeps were dropped is called Jeep Paint and Body Shop. The Paint and Body Shop I can't look at because it "hasn't been published yet" - (is this how people have "home" caches? I could never figure out how to do that before but I think I am on to something....).

I don't know, I am curious, so I write the cacher and ask him what the deal is. This is what he writes back:

"I, and others, search for jeep tracking #s to find jeeps that have been lost, stolen, or just being hoarded by cachers. When we find a tracking #, off to wal-mart we go and buy us a matchbox jeep, make up a TB tag and send the jeep on its way....(he then explains the process for getting the tracking numbers, which I don't want to post here) I find it interesting and a thrill when I find a jeep that has not been placed into service. I claim it as a find and stick it in my paint shop. From there, I’ll search the stores for a toy jeep, paint it if necessary, attach a made up TB ID tag and put it on the geocaching road....

Something about jeeps will turn an honest cacher into a thief....

.....I’ve had a few people say that when I put out counterfeits, It takes the thrill away from finding a real Jeep. I just refer them to my cache “Yellow Jeep Hangout”. Good luck and happy caching. "

So, basically he has a system for finding tracking numbers from Jeeps that fell out of circulation, and then gives them new life.

Technically, the Jeep TBs belong to Chrysler, who probably doesn't care what happens to them after the contest is over. It's not like someone's personal TB that has the ID number hacked. I don't know, I am sure people could interpret this any way they want. Is it legal? Is it moral? What do you think?

Personally, I think it is ingenius. I like the idea that someone else likes Jeeps this much, and will go out of their way to put them back out in the geocaching community when they get lost, stolen, or otherwise disappear.

It's a Jeep Resurrection! Now that he explained his process, heck, maybe I'll give it a try....or at least try to find that Yellow Jeep Hangout next time I'm out near Dallas!