Not The Giga You Think It Is

Yesterday, I went for my daily cache, a fairly new one near a factory, a so-called Gigafactory for electric vehicle components. Ground zero was along the side of the road leading into a local toll road. I am philosophically opposed to toll roads, but I tend to keep my resistance to them local. When I’m out in the middle of nowhere (though, technically, places like Wichita and Hood River can’t exactly be classified as “nowhere”), I will not quibble over a few dollars, but that’s not important. I decided to park on the side of a crossing road and walk over. No big deal other than the fact that a large retention pond was in construction where the satellite maps showed a field. Somehow, I managed to walk the extra few hundred feet around the construction to make my find. Inveni, inscripsi, reposui.

As I walked back to the car, I logged the find and noticed that I had parked almost literally on top of an Adventure Lab location. Since I was there, I figured, free smiley. Then I saw that the rest of the series was along the road to the factory. I had to pass at least a couple of them to turn around, so why not finish the entire series? I drove up to the main gate answering the questions (the road was deserted as nobody was at work on a Sunday). They were all multiple choice, so I completed them all and gained a few more smileys for my map. That was nice and all, but it felt somewhat lacking.

I think Adventure Labs are a good idea. (I know some people don’t care for them at all, but they don’t have to find them if they don’t want to.) Labs fill a niche between the all too rarish Virtual and the seemingly semishunned Whereigo. They also offer a simple entrée for new folks and a useful way for people with disabilities to participate more than they might already be able to. And though they have a few issues when it comes to specific use cases (as a stats person, I would love to have their locations viable for tracking, but I get why that’s not a thing), I feel they have brought a new dimension into the game. However, I think they’ve become oversaturated. I have a Lab credit, but I haven’t used it because all the places I could think of that were interesting to place a series have been taken at this point. I have seen a few other interesting uses for them, but replicating those ideas seems gimmicky; the “interesting” part comes from their uniqueness. But now, Labs have gotten to where they’re lining the road to a factory because why not. That’s a sure sign to me that there are a few too many out there.

I think I’m going to donate my Lab credit to a possible Geoart of Labs that has been posited. I need to start figuring out better uses for them because I may want another credit in the future.