We arrived at the event shortly after the 9:00 AM opening and we were quickly escorted to our parking spot on a very large field. The attendants did a great job bringing us ‘in for a landing’ with their cool little orange flags!
We were greeted at the entrance gate by a large banner welcoming us to the event.
Once inside we were met with a bevy of tents housing everything from first-aid to fire tacks! There were tents for the information booth, the Travel Bug center and quite a large series of tents for the raffle items. The largest area of tents was the Vendors area called Swag Alley. We never seen so much Geocaching swag in one place! As you can imagine, this was a VERY popular spot.
Another popular spot was the display for the O.C.B, the Original Can of Beans. It is the only remaining trade item from the world’s first Geocache that was placed in May of 2000. This was certainly a thrill to see!
Signal, the GC.com mascot, was there and happy to have his picture taken with anyone who wanted to. This was very popular with all the Cachers, both young and old.
Since the event was held at Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm, a farm adventure park, it was well prepared to handle the large amount of Geocachers that arrived. They also offered a variety of attractions to keep the younger cachers busy including a petting zoo, a ride-on railroad, a tree house, slides and Wild West playhouses.
There were a lot of other activities to keep everyone else happy and busy too, including a Card Run, Name That Cacher game, GeoCoin Mine Search, Gold Panning, a cache packing race, GeoCoin Poker and a whole lot more!
We were able to get to a couple of the many seminars that were held. We learned about making polymer clay signature tokens with ‘Workerofwood’ and were introduced to advanced GSAK techniques with ‘Hynr’. Both of these seminars were entertaining and very informative, and packed to the rafters, as we are sure the other classes were too.
The Paperless Cache Throwdown was a hot and heavy battle to see which cacher had the best method for paperless caching:
There was live music throughout the day by ‘Second Time Around’ which kept the place rocking. A special music treat was ‘Johnny Cach-er’ who sang rock and roll favorites with a Geocaching twist!
Feeding 3000 people must have been quite the chore but from our side of things it went quite smooth. We just had to line up and the line moved quickly. Supper was a choice of chicken, beef or vegetarian lasagna. We opted for the chicken which tasted great. The pumpkin cake and cream cheese icing was to die for!
Here are some more photos showing the great time here at GeoWoodstock VI:
Although the day started off with rain, (yep, you read that right – rain, right here in California), the off weather didn’t affect the day’s festivities. Being from the North, and the East Coast, this was like a fine summer day for us. 🙂 And fortunately, the rain stopped shortly after the event started. It was cloudy and overcast for the rest of the day but everyone was warmed by the camaraderie and the excitement of the event.
Hats off to all the volunteers, the organizers, the supporters, the attendees and especially the River City Geocaching And Dining Society and the Northstate Unusual Treasure Seekers for hosting such a great event! It was an experience that we won’t soon forget!
We met so many great people and had such a wonderful time that we hated to see it end. I guess there’s always next year. See you all in Tennessee in ’09!
Keep on cachin’!
Mike Barlow
Great Photos! Thanks for sharing. I wish that we could have bumped into each other.
Bob
Thanks for the update. It looks like you had a nice time.
Hick@Heart
What a fun time. I looks like you more than doubled that towns population for the weekend. I’m sure the locals will be talking abut that for YEARS! I’m only left with one question. Did you do any caching?
Geocaching With Team Hick@Heart
Richard
Very nice summary of the big event. I concur that it was a great experience and that a great time was had by all. My only regret was that I didn’t get to meet the go_man team; even though it looks like we were within inches of each other (I have the same picture of the cache packing race, but from the other end of the table, in my blog post). Oh well, maybe I’ll catch ya next year in Tennessee!
tonka_boy
Looks like a good time. What were the pigs for?
go_man
Mike, man, that’s too bad! We’ll have to make sure we meet in Tennessee!
Richard, again, too bad! Next year for sure!
Hick, we got to do a bit of caching. Hope to get out a post about it soon!
Bob, yes, a great time!
Tonka_Boy, The pigs were part of the petting zoo. The pic is there because they were located right ouside one of the seminar barns. ‘Wild roses’ they were not! 😉
P.J.
I would have loved to have attended this event and would really like to plan making next year’s. We’ll have to see what happens, the timing, $$ and work. But these geowoodstocks look like so much fun!