Wednesday, December 22, 2010

The Nevada Alien ET Series Trip

Okay today is Dec 22 and I am so excited.

We have booked the trip for tomorrow and are heading to the desert in Nevada for the Alien Series of 1000 geocaches in 100 miles.

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=4df1b726-d993-45ff-915a-27c3ce5e9905

I have talked to so many cachers about this now since finding out what it was about three days ago and doing the impulse purchase of plane tickets and hotel, etc to make the journey out there.

Here is the deal as I know it now.

There is a stretch of highway outside of Las Vegas where two guys put 1000 geocaches along the road and placed them .10 miles away from each other. People travel from all over the world to do these caches. They are placed in the desert near the area where "area 51" is located. I mean...Not located. LOL

Your task is complicated by the fact that there are no gas stations. Routes must be chosen by how much distance you are from the next town and you absolutely must carry with you an extra 5 gal tank of gas for the last leg of the journey in order to make it back.

Thankfully we are making the trip in the dead middle of winter and not in the summer when you also have Rattlesnakes to deal with and scorpions !

You pull up to the first cache, jump out and find it, take the film canister with you and drop in the hide a pre-made log and canister which has your name already on it. You jump back into the car and in the 528 feet to the next one you have to open this one, sign your name on the log, close it, take a photo, slam on the breaks and jump out again to find the next one where you put the one you just signed and move on to repeat that for 100 miles and 1000 (plus an extra 20 or so for good measure) caches !

There are those who begin and do it for 15 hours straight and complete the task in only a day and there are those who do it and when they run out of gas at the end they fill up with the reserve tank and make a push back to the town for more fuel and rest for the night and begin the journey again tomorrow.

I feel driven to do this and am trying to be honest with myself. I think it will take me two days to complete the task.

The weather is also a big concern. You are at around 6000 feet above sea level on the last leg of the caches and in December that can be very challenging all on its own in Nevada.

I dont know if I have ever felt more excitement for a journey to begin.

Our flight lands in Las Vegas on Thursday and it will be my first time to see it. We scheduled the flight to land at dark so that when we arrive it will be all lit up on the strip for added effect.

We chose the hotel to fit Mikey. The Circus Circus which I am certain he will love. The trip will also include viewing the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. Both of which I have geocaches picked out at already :)

We will make the journey over to California to pick up a cache there as well and I think it may be possible to do a Utah cache before ending the trip.

I laughed that we may need two rental cars because the whole point in the journey is the geocaches but Mike and Mikey will want to do other things and as to not have them slow me down we may get a second car. LOL

The Goal....I dont know that it can be completed....But In this advance blog post I will say that My goal is to come home with no less than 1200 geocaches completed. Now listen, I have cached now for about three months. Hard ! I am totally addicted and In that time I have managed to find 360 caches. To complete this task and walk away with 1000 caches in a two day period is going to be super hard physically and mentally and I am certain now that I will cry at the end. Goals are a beautiful thing and no matter what they are...it is always satisfying to achieve them !

If everyone works hard and I get good weather and conditions go according to schedule it is possible that I may be able to achieve the goal that I have set in my mind for what the idea number would be.....I have 360 finds now...I would love to reach 1640 ! (hehe) That would bring me home to West Virginia with a total of 2000 and make me rank in the top ten geocachers in the state of West Virginia :) Big goals but probably not even close to what I will be able to complete with the husband and kid going along.

I figure the trip will certainly include lots of fussing between us about how that is "enough" geocaching !

However, I did buy the tickets and plan the trip for no other reason than to get the caches so I have told everyone now in advance while I am still in WV that I do not want to hear any whinning about how they dont want to find another one or on my next adventure I will leave them both in West Virginia !

Wish me luck.....

I would like to note that a few months or a year or so ago I did a blog post on some of the places that I want to visit before I die and The Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon were certainly on that list.

The trip is 8 days long so lets hope we can get it all in there.........

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