sumajhuarmi and I left home at 6 a.m. We might be some of the earliest risers and travelers to get to a WWFM event in the US. We had to travel from High Point, NC to Evergreen, Alabama today. Since today holds special significance for geocachers around the world, and particularly for fans of the Podcacher podcast, available on iTunes, we just had to plan to attend one of those events somewhere along the way. I began by searching for events along Interstate 85. Soon I found
WWFM X:Atlanta, GA: Dazed and Glazed (GC454NM). It looked like my best option since Ground Zero time would be 1 p.m. If we left at 6 a.m., calculating distance, speed, a ten-minute leg stretching break every hour to prevent blood clots in my legs (doctor's orders...and good orders at that), and a little time for food and gas, we'd make it in time to participate in our first stateside WWFM event. Last year we hosted Peru's first ever WWFM. We had a whopping four participants! Maybe this time we'll do a little better!
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| The good folks responsible for this event |
We traveled south on Interstate 85 under overcast skies, stopping every 50 minutes or so to look for a cache. As we neared Atlanta we found that we'd made good time so we rewarded ourselves with an early lunch at Cracker Barrel. Once back on the road the rain picked up. Our next stop was a Krispy Creme Donut Shop in downtown Atlanta. Once off the Interstate we made our way through downtown Atlanta to the location of the event. We were early so we went inside to get out of the rain and sample the donuts. It looked like others had the same idea. We didn't introduce ourselves nor did we have the geocaching hats and shirts that others did. We were covert as you should be at flash mobs. We saw a well-dressed lady standing off to the side enjoying a cup of coffee. "Certainly she's not one of us", I thought. At 1 p.m. we converged at the GZ and met our host, Nixant, representing the Atlanta Area Geocachers
. We were probably 25 participants in all. The well-dressed lady was there among us. It goes to prove that what Sonny and Sandy of
Podcacher say is true. We geocachers are a fine looking group of people! After signing the log we each received a ticket for a drawing to come a few minutes later. Nixant had us tell our geocaching names and immediately had a helper draw a name from the hat. I rarely win at things like this but I had sumajhuarmi along and she usually does win. She was busy getting a photo of a travel bug tag when she realized she'd won the prize:
a brand new WWFM X geocoin from Podcacher! Wow! I'm proud of her! We got a few pictures, took shots of several travel bug ID tags and headed outside to try to find another cache on the property. The owner of
Krispy Kache (GC202R7) encouraged us to go for it in spite of the rain. Off the mob went. There must have been ten
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| sumajhuarmi (the winner) with Nixant |
of us gathered around the GZ in the parking lot. One of the gang actually found the cache and tossed it thinking it was something repulsive. Suddenly we were all looking through a fence at the cache two full arm lengths away and out of reach. We were beginning to work like a team. I had my hiking pole extended to
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| The big prize! |
the max and someone ran to the car for some duct tape. We were preparing to use the sticky part of the duct tape to retrieve the despicable cache container and get to the log. Just then the cacher who had tossed the cache appears on the other side of the fence. I have no idea how she found a way in as it looked completely closed off. She retrieved the cache and we all signed our names. The rain was coming down harder and we'd overstayed our time at the WWFM so off we headed in our car into more torrential rain as we headed south on I-85 into Alabama. As we crossed into Alabama the sun came out and the temperature climbed from 51 degrees F to 68 degrees F within a half hour. It was nice to see the sun again. We had a great WWFM this year!
I'm eager to hear about the total number of cachers who participated worldwide. Thanks Atlanta Area Geocachers for the event!
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