Geowoodstock 2020 (+2)

 GeoWoodstock has been amazing. Hands down, without question, the best part has been seeing friends from Canada, Europe and the US who I haven’t seen since the pandemic started. It was supposed to be in 2020, then postponed to 2021, and finally in 2022. Like many friends, I was hopeful but not confident it would actually happen until quite recently. 

Thursday we took the ferry from Vancouver Island to the mainland and delivered Matt and Julie to their car. We then (and I really hope you’re sitting down as you read this) found more than a dozen caches, mostly with other cachers we’d never met from Massachusetts, South Carolina, and I forget where else, and managed to deliver the item we imported for a Canadian friend. Eventually we caught up with Rick (lobotomy) at a place (er, a cache) where a few goats were grazing on a roof. That’s not a typo, I really do mean the top of a building. We found a few cache with Rick then drove out to the 6-bedroom Airbnb in Harrison Hot Springs where we’re staying with friends from Germany, Switzerland, France, Ontario, Alberta, New Jersey, and the US west coast. After lots of hugs and laughter among the early arrivals, we walked across the street for a taco dinner before calling it a day as most of the others had just arrived in the pacific time zone.

Friday our caravan of 3 vehicles and 11 people did an “icon run” meaning we found a variety of geocache types (total damage was 12 for most of us as we didn’t make it to the regular event and remained in Canada all day). Then a few of us popped into a fast-food place and were followed immediately by some Oregon cachers, and headed to the Geowoodstock event area to volunteer. I started out distributing water bottles, then was asked to assemble VIP packets which I did except when I found process issues that I couldn’t resist improving. I think the person I was working with was surprised at the number of times I got up to hug someone I knew from reviewing, cruising, or caching. Friday evening was a reviewer dinner – I can’t say much about that except that David and Derek were very generous significant others to Alison (“sister long legs”) and me while we meandered around our area to greet friends from around the world and share hugs and stories. It was another early night after a busy and fun day.

Saturday was the big event. Also David’s birthday. We started out by caching (surprise), then a couple carloads of friends ate lunch and took pictures at the Dead Frog Brewery before heading over to the event to watch Alison be on stage with other Canadian reviewers (she did a fabulous job). David and I were the first to sign up for a Mediterranean Cruise in April/May 2023.

After the event ended, we went to a grocery store to get burger and dog fixings for the house. We weren’t able to use a shopping cart as they are chained together and the way to unchain them seems to be to pay a 25-cent deposit. An interesting way to require coin use in a mostly cashless society, and one that didn’t work to our advantage as we haven’t used cash on our trip so had no Canadian quarters. The workaround turned out to be the plastic carrying baskets, and ours got rather heavy after shopping for 13 people.

David wanted to cook on his birthday. He’s lovable and a little meshuga sometimes, but I wasn’t going to complain, and he prepared a tasty meal. Our “roommates” gave him a birthday card and sung to him in German, French, Hebrew and English.

After dinner and birthday cake, we sat together near the kitchen nook, exhausted and satisfied. I was touched that one of the whiskey toasts was to me for coordinating the Airbnb house. Then Rick asked everyone what the best part of Geowoodstock was, and we went around the circle sharing our thoughts. Many of us talked about seeing people we hadn’t seen during the pandemic, and about how easy it is to reconnect with and expand our reviewer “family.” One of the most special, meaningful and memorable group discussions I’ve ever participated in. I’m so honored to be part of the “family” and delighted that David is now a member of it and has shared some experiences.

Sunday we did some caching as a 3-car caravan with 12 people as one person left early to go to Vancouver Island. After lunch we returned to the house for some lazy time, then most of us went caching while the recent birthday boy took a luxurious nap. I was with Ben and family (from New Jersey) and we drove rather than walked, and took time to get into the lagoon. It seemed quite warm to my fingers, but by the time I got my feet and ankles in I realized it was much colder than water I’d been in for quite some time. Eventually Ben’s 9-year old daughter joined me and I ended up getting in above my knees but not as deep as my bathing suit. By the time I left the water after about ten minutes, my feet were rather red and it took awhile to warm up….but I felt quite refreshed.

It will be sad to conclude the second chapter of our trip tomorrow, though I’m looking forward to downtime in Leavenworth and to the second weekend of geocaching events in Seattle next weekend.