This Year Ends

Soon this year will be over. As of this writing, I have been caching for 1,662 days, and I am on Day 1,659 of a streak. This year I have made six hides; hosted five events; and found 1170 caches (including 353 FTFs [mostly resulting from group attack of a new Geoart in the area]), hundreds of trackables, caches in 101 new counties in nine U.S. states (resulting in the completion of Kansas and Washington) and a new country; and traveled more miles than I care to count at this point. I also attended two Mega–Events, my first Giga-Event, and the 20th Anniversary Headquarters Celebration, at which I spoke. Further, along with the caches I found, I completed the so-called Geocaching Trifecta, visiting the APE Cache outside of Seattle, the Original Stash Plaque outside of Portland, and Geocaching Headquarters. I was invited to appear on Podcacher, returned for a third visit to GeocacheTalk, and did a follow-up interview with Groundspeak. And despite all that, I still managed to write 215 entries (including my one thousandth entry), totaling somewhere around 84,000 words, and finally began preliminary edits on my (first?) book. I’m going to call 2022 a successful year!

I hope your year ends well. I hope you’re enjoying something sparkling with people you love and who love you in return. I hope that 2023 brings you joy and adventure. I hope that your final caches of the year are as fun and interesting as the first. And I hope you find whatever you’re seeking, whether it’s around your neighborhood or in a far-off county, country, or continent. I’ll try to do the same. Good luck, and, as hoary as the joke is, I’ll write again next year!