The 3rd Great MEAT-n-Greet at Cooper’s Rock
Last year I’d volunteered to provide primary back-up support for Captain OCD (aka wvhunter) when he took over the MEAT-n-Greet. This year I volunteered to be the Organizer with him as my second and the entire MAGPI gang as life support….do I ever learn?
The day started with a small mishap that involved my Dad (Foxtrot Bravo), his truck, my grill and I-68. We’d loaded the grill up into his truck, complete with cover and bungee corded it in. Yeah, that was fine until we hit the interstate. One minute Dad’s there and the next minute he wasn’t. Hmmm…apparently the billowing grill cover acted as a parachute and tried to take the grill out of the truck. Fortuntely the cover ripped free before Dad had an incident on his hands. I then missed the turn to Pavilion 3, despite that a) I am the one that reserved it and b) we always have the MnG here.
As if that wasn’t enough to get the day going, imagine my shock as I was standing in the back of the truck trying to right my grill when a van load of people appeared. Um…uh oh, surely they couldn’t be cachers. The event didn’t officially start for another hour and a half. I was trying to figure out what was going on when they disappeared toward Rock City. Whew. A few minutes later the MAGPI reinforcements arrived.The Winners
Ammo Can Toss (aka Toss This!) – Nicely done 89SC! He outgunned everyone except sidekick, who I disqualified, thought it might look bad for my sidekick to start walking away with prizes.
The prize? A gently used ammo can. We eagerly await the placement of his upcoming cache. Perhaps he can call it Toss ThisFind the X (aka How slow can you walk?) – Well placed, Aquacache. His Garmin Vista got him within 3 feet. The prize? A silver unactivated Australian Geocoin…. Frank n Beck donated this coin that they won for nominating last year’s Find the X as a WAY COOL game on the geocaching.com forums. We rock!
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Speed Pack (aka Put All that Carp BACK In The Can) – We now all know that Beck (of Frank n Beck) will never be caught by muggles! Her winning time was 24 seconds! The prize? The giant plastic ammo can filled with carp what I found in my house!
What’s in SSPG’s Geo-Bag? (aka Getting Personal with the GeoBag?) – Ok, so this is embarrassing…I can’t remember who won. But I do know that the winnner got 8 of the 11 items correct. UPDATE…I’ve been told ANTHUS wond this game….I also know that I clearly need to carry a poncho. BUT WAIT! There was a second prize in this game for “Most Creative List” which was won by Rock_Rat. His prize? A very nice Magellan GPSr complete with VHS instructional tape and manual. No more DNFs for him!
Grand Prize – Hiking Staff by Gentleman-Carpenter – This beautiful hiking staff with a WV state quarter mounted in the top was won by Determined2. I suspect there were a lot of envious cachers at the end of the day.
A few highlights…
- TeamOVCacher arrived bringing Brenda’s Birthday Bus Stop TB prompting shouts of “LOCK YOUR CAR!” to echo through the trees. We proudly displayed the sign but it wasn’t long before it had disappeared. Somehow it ended up poorly hidden in The Toy. Come on Rock_Rat you have to try harder than that…CLCombat’s truck was ripe for the picking. I retrieved the sign and put it back on display, heck there was plenty of time left and unsuspecting cachers will still arriving. After being hidden (and found) in several vehicles, including Rock_Rat’s Jeep, the TB made its way home with the very unsuspecting Rabbit Cops.
- Frank n Beck prevented the grill related melee of last year from repeating itself by showing up with a brand-spanking-new gas grill. All hail the mighty grill! I understand there were in fact several worshipers of said grill, but I have not received photographic evidence.
- Nightowls01 having me present wvhunter with a mystery bag full of “something he’s been wanting for a while”. Even after seeing wvhunter open the bag and reveal the stuffed kitty cat, someone had to explain it, I’m a little slow.
THE BIG SURPRISE
And finally, we had two surprises. Most of MAGPI already knew that wvhunter was going to receive a gold ammo can commemorating his 1000th find. It’s a pretty impressive number and it nearly killed him, I know, I was there at The Fellowship of Tater Cache. But I swear, I didn’t have anything to do with it. Honestly. Anyway, people were giving me the ol’ “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” about the gold can all day long.
So it was not a great surprise to anyone but ‘hunter himself when I climbed back up on the table with the Giant Gold Ammo Can and started shouting for everyone’s attention (again…yeah, I like to be the center of attention!). I think he was pleasantly surprised with liquid contained within the can as well.But wait….what’s this? Another milestone to commemorate? It isn’t’ every day someone finds his 100th FTF and it sure as heck isn’t every day that you meet a cacher who has at least one FTF every month for 36 months (yes, you read that right, 36 months in a row).
No way was I going to let Aquacache’s milestone go by unnoticed. But what do you give someone to commemorate FTFs? How about a giant blank log book! Judging by the look on his face, I’d say Aquacache was surprised.Much more happened, of course. But I’m only one Pony and I could not be in all places at all times…..So go check out the rest of the pics and leave your stories in the comments. And get ready for next year, because it is gonna be a blast! Continue Reading »
chris on July 21st 2008 in Geocaching, Links