The BomberBoyz Hit GW5

It was months ago that BomberJohn and I began to plan our trip south to North Carolina to attend GeoWoodstock 5 (GCZKVX) and this past weekend, it all came together. Last Friday, BomberJohn picked me up from school at 11 AM, after my madatory high school graduation rehearsal and we started our 12 hour drive south. The ride was long, but I as we'd find out the next day, it was well worth it.

It was an early morning for a vacation weekend, as we woke up to be over at the NC Fair Grounds in Raleigh for our first ever Mega Event for 8 o'clock. After registering, receiving our complimentary things, buying a t-shirt and geocoin, checking out all of the geocoin vendors, and, of course, meeting Sonny and Sandy of the Podcacher Podcast, we decided we'd spend the afternoon geocaching around town and return for the evening events.

The first few caches, ATM 3, ATM 2, ATM 1, and Jacks Not Evil...Really! were all caches along a well kept bike trail which passed close-by to our hotel. At the cache, ATM 2 I found a small collection of transportation tokens, which I took through a swap, as I have always enjoyed collecting coins and tokens from around the world. After these finds, it was over to Eastgate Park, where we found Jack's Magnetic Keyholder, with the accompaniment of a fellow geocaching family attending the event, and Ahhh..I Don't Know Hon..., both of which were a bit tricky, but failed to stump the BomberBoyz as the nearby micro Sticking Around in Eastgate park did. With these cache finds under our belt, we picked up lunch and headed back to GW5 groundzero.

The fair ground was now completely buzzing with hundreds of geocachers. Dinner was an amazing BBQ buffet with chicken, pork and steak tips, many sorts of salads and a choice of either strawberry shortcake or a moist chocolate cake. Our stomach full, we met up with Sonny and Sandy once again and had a better chance to talk. They were even nice enough to give me a Podcacher pathtag, despite the fact that I had none to trade. After chatting with the Podcacher crew, BomberJohn went on to find some other cachers that had pathtags for trading and swapped for a few which he had yet to collect and we then headed back to the hotel, but not before stopping at That's a fairly good sign..., which we saw cachers finding and logging as we drove by all day.

The next morning was another early morning as we packed up and went on our way back north. On the way back we plotted out a few quick caches off the highway to stop at in order for me to claim the states we drove through as cached. First was Roadrunner: What's love got to do with it? in Virginia, Easy Pick Up at a Park & Ride in West Virginia, The Lost Cache and Bowman Buisness Park Cache at an industrial park off I-95 in Maryland, and after stopping in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to get a room for the night and eatting out at a Damon's Grill for dinner, we searched for An A-Plus View of Some Super Stores. Monday morning we hit the road again and stopped in New York to find Not Big, Not Blue, which was another micro at a Park & Ride parking lot. From there we drove straight home with plenty of memories, geocoins, and my ambition to create a pathtag to repay S&S back for their own.