Travel Bugs in Space

Event souvenir from geocaching.com

Last night, I attended the ‘Geocaching rockets into space (again)’ event in San Diego (link).  This was a special event, as we were gathered to watch a Travel Bug launch into space!  Well, it was an astronaut who was launched and he happened to be carrying a TB with him, but still… it is only the second time that geocaching has been brought to the ISS, so we were all stoked.  Attendees who logged this event also earned a special souvenir for their geocaching profile (shown on left).  You can read some of the background on the story (here). The cache on the Space Station is listed here. If you want to follow the travel bug, here is the page.

Courtyard crowd

The event was held at Acoustic Ales Brewing Experiment, which is located off Hancock Rd near the airport.  Turnout was great! I don’t have the official attendance figures, but early estimates are in the 60-70 range, which is pretty good for a weeknight event.  Particularly since there were two similar events in the greater San Diego area.  The beer here was very good. I had a sample of one of the cask beers (the name was long and had Chinook in it, so it must be good, right?) and also tried the Mosh Pit.  It was a little tamer than a real mosh pit, but was tasty. Thanks to ClanCampbellChandler for springing for my beer, I’ll buy the first round at the next event!

No TBs made it to space here

Some of us attempted to launch our own TBs into space using stomp rockets, which was a lot of fun.  Prizes were awarded for highest launch etc, but we all hoped that the real Russian rocket would fly higher (and straighter!) than our feeble efforts.  After the courtyard was littered with the debris of a thousand failed launches, it was time to eat.  Fish tacos out front (yummy), sandwiches and cupcakes inside.  The cupcakes were A-mazing!!!  Thanks to brilynn.d for bringing them and for braving the crowds to grab the last one for me! I made time to chat with Loookin4u about a possible new quest for the Red Top caches.  I’ll have some blogs about my previous adventures at Red Top soon.  Deniel3 needed some help with a puzzle cache involving DNA, so I gave him a little shove in the right direction.  LLOT and I talked about his sailing adventures.  CCC (who is also JP92071), brilynn.d, and I also talked about Munzee.  Had to keep these discussions very hushed, lest we get thrown out of the geo-party!  It was great to have so many folks I knew there last night!

Flagman in his space suit

Just after the launch

Eventually, Flagman (our wonderful host!) called the geo-crowd to order and made a few announcements.  We were hoping he was going to volunteer to go up on the next ISS mission (I mean, he’s got the snappy space suit, what else do you need?) but he was just offering up a few more prizes.  Then, with the bar silent, the volume on the TVs was raised to hear the final countdown (cue the Europe song).  It was a bit surreal.  The bar, deafening only moments earlier, was completely silent (the non geocaching patrons were surely wondering what was going on).  Moments later, there was a thunderous roar as the Soyuz rocket lifted smoothly off the launch pad.  As they approached space, a capsule shot showed them reading some kind of manual, leaving some to remark that it was a little early to be checking the hint on the ISS cache. 

Suspicious mob spotted near airport

With the TB safely on its way to the ISS, many people started heading for the exits.  We weren’t done for the night, though.  Bar hopping?  No way… about 15-20 of us went off in search of a nearby cache (GC4QMH3).  We had to walk several blocks and cross over the train tracks to get to an isolated area near the airport.  I’m sure it is cool here during the day (and probably very busy!) but aside from a few FedEx trucks and some homeless muggles, we were the only ones out last night.  Osteado made the find and Trixxster signed us all in.  Fun times, but I think the locals were really wondering what this pack of folks was doing out so late on a Wednesday night!! Just a bunch of crazy San Diego geocachers.  Unfortunately, in my excitement to seek this cache, it turned out I didn’t sign the event log… apparently the one in the bathroom was only a replacement! 

Not the event log!