And Finally…

…the final day arrived. On the final day there are two events: a regular event and a CITO. At the event the location of the next Texas Challenge is announced. And when we gathered, the next location was revealed to be in West Texas, specifically, Cisco. But what you see above isn’t the event. It’s the CITO. At the end of the event, the heavens opened up. The storm that we were afraid would would wash out the big show the day before finally and unfortunately arrived. The entire thing was moved inside because there was business to be conducted. The winners of the Challenge were to be announced! At this point, I’m going to put on my partisan hat considering I was captain of Team CenTex.

Third place? East Texas!
Second Place? Southeast Texas!
First place? North Texas!

This was not entirely unexpected. Southeast Texas has won a few times in the last decade. North Texas has a slew of victories. Heck, they were the presumptive favorite anyway. East Texas was our real competition but they got over on us this time. And Team CenTex? Fourth. 😦 Oh well, thus is life.

And I want to take some space to show you the greatest team anyone could lead…

Goofygrams, Racer57, Winkys, the forehead of Falling Aeroplanes, and Super Owen, a.k.a. Team Alpha!

Kcleve, Kittydcota, FinderLea, and Gerfmeister, a.k.a. Team Bravo!

Buckandi, J2dad, DrPflug, and GiGi and JoJo, a.k.a. Team Charlie!

Our dedicated communications team, The Wee Mouse and Razorbackgirl!

And lastly, em_adventuring, Moosiegirl, Dagnyhugsyou (who also won the Individual Women 18-30, so GO Dagny!), and finally the team captain, your humble narrator!

Unfortunately, there were others who couldn’t make it. A couple didn’t make it by door close time. A few others weren’t properly recorded as being on the team. Some opted to stay home because of the looming global pandemic. All were missed. And hopefully they’ll be back with us next year! Cisco 2020! Victory or Mild Annoyance!

Oh, and knowing you’re about to accuse me of burying the lede here, the Texas Geocaching Association, the organization that puts on the Texas Challenge, also held elections for regional board offices. Well, I was elected to be the new Central Texas Representative. So now I’m on the board for the next two years and helping make the decisions and crap. How ya’ like dem apples?

You know something? I didn’t mean to make an entire week of entries out of the Texas Challenge. It’s possible that I could have summed it up well enough in one long one (ok, maybe two). But, that said, I had so much of a good time that exhausting as it was, I can’t help but rave about it. Maybe I should do more megas. I’m already planning for Mingo Madness and the 20th Anniversary and Geowoodstock again. Maybe I should try Going Caching in Georgia or get over to Europe and hit a Giga… Whatever happens in the future though, the book is closed on this one. Time to get back to the world, but we’ll always have Round Rock.