Some of Texas’s most diehard cachers have been working on a project for the last few months. You all have no doubt read me talking about my first and most proud accomplishment, the Texas County Challenge. Well, the TXGA, with the help of other cachers in the state, has been working on a new challenge called the Texas Two-Step. The TCC only requires a cache in each of Texas’s 254 counties; they can be any type (except Adventure Labs because they can’t be tracked and, well, Labs). I’ve certainly taken advantage of that on a few occasions. How many counties have I claimed with a Virtual? Roby was a Multi because it was the easiest option. Denton was an EarthCache. Heck, Fort Worth was a Mega! The Texas Two-Step, on the other hand, is slightly more difficult. It requires two caches in each county: one Traditional and one of another type. This is not for the faint of heart! I don’t consider myself a noob cacher or anything, but I only have 61 counties with both caches. That would mean going back to 193 counties, mostly for other types, a few for that Traditional! I’m going to get some chance for that because finishing I’ve Been Everywhere will involve a few places I’d need, but honestly, there are a few places I just don’t want to go back to.
Normally, I would note the GC of the new challenge, but therein lies the root issue. It hasn’t been published yet because, according to the rules for challenges, at least ten people in the region have to qualify for it. When it was announced at Texas Challenge in March, nobody in the world qualified for it. Now, three months later, twelve people do! But that also runs into a different issue. Among the twelve are a three-person team from Germany and a couple from Arizona, which means it still can’t be published because there still aren’t ten people in the region who qualify. But believe me, people are working on it.
And even though I don’t have a lot of drive to do it myself, I may have to start. My caching daughter has expressed interest in working on the Two-Step. It won’t be as aggressive as when I was there on my own, but I may be going back out to the far-flung counties of Texas again. We shall see.
Geocaching While Black 