Share Your Trackable Stories

Eric Schudiske on September 12, 2010, 10:13 am

Trackable Items | Trackable Week | Travel Bugs

SDFD fire patch bug travels from coast to coast in the US

This is your chance to share your favorite Trackable stories. Trackables have completed missions to travel the globe, find famous landmarks and compete in Travel Bug races.

An example of an powerful Trackable story was recently sent to Groundspeak.

buttaskotch emailed the story of SDFD fire patch bug. She wrote in the log, “I am very thankful and honored that I was able to complete this Travel Bug’s mission.”

In January of 2010 caduckhunter placed the Travel Bug in a California, USA cache. It’s mission was to travel to New York City to be hand delivered to a FDNY. It traveled more than 7000 miles before fulfilling it’s goal on Septmeber 8, 2011.

SDFD fire patch bug route

Post a comment below telling other geocachers about your favorite Trackable experience.

The story with the most likes will be highlighted at the end of the week of September 12th, 2011. The author of the comment will receive a special gift of Trackables. Please leave your Geocaching.com username.

Editor’s note: Both Binrat and vante will receive a set of Trackables for submitting their Trackable stories. Thank you to all those who submitted stories. Look for Trackable Week again on the Latitude 47 blog in coming months.

NoNameYet202

My name is NoNameYet202, and my favorite trackable story has to be one I picked up recently while visiting my girlfriend in Georgia. I myself hail from Alabama, and while down there, noticed there was an event nearby while I was down. I had several travel bugs that I had brought with me, including a small car to help complete it’s mission to see race tracks (though it turned out I was unable to do so…my girlfriend’s stepdad, who races, ended the season the week before I came.) So I went to the event to trade TB’s, network with fellow cachers, and have a good time.

While there, I found a cacher who was going to the Nascar races the next week, so I passed on the small car to help complete it’s mission. Another cacher brought a larger car called ArcherDragoon’s Racer (TB1FB70) who’s goal was to go to events.

Being from Alabama, the people at the event begged me to take the Racer. Apparently it had been racing around Georgia events for years. I don’t get to many events, but I liked the idea of trading one trackable car for another, so I graciously accepted it in trade.

The racer is now in Sweet Home Alabama, and as soon as I can get to another event, it will be on it’s way again. But now with the stipulation that it not return to Georgia!
Brianna Forest

Hi everyone, my name is Bri and I am part of team kevnbri,

I have a favourite trackable story, and it happened quite recently…also a lot by luck! I was looking at caches near my house (in Milton, Ontario, Canada), that I had not found yet (there are still lots), but specifically mystery caches, as I had some time on my hands to solve a few puzzles. Well, I found one nearby that had a travel bug inside (I have an addiction to finding them and moving them along), so I thought, let’s give this one a try. Well, it turns out that there is no longer a puzzle (it used to be locked), so the hardest part would be getting there to find the bug. No one had been there in a while and the last person said the bug was “too big” for them to pick up…yikes…sounds like fun!

In the meantime, I was fantasizing about going to the Geocaching Block Party…on the other side of the continent. OH, this would be SO FUN I thought. But it didn’t look promising. That is, until my husband came home with the news that he was going to a conference in Seattle…on August 22-23…2 days after the Block Party…and he wanted me to come (and pay my way). OK, now I was getting excited. “Can we fly in on Friday?” I asked. He said “OK, but why?” So I told him about the Block Party. He said that would work. So with the flights booked, we were heading to Seattle, Washington.

Oh, right, back to the travel bug…I forgot to mention that this travel bug sitting in a cache less than 10km from my front door was actually FROM Washington…and wanted to go back there to meet dad (it had been all the way to Afghanistan too!!). This was too good to be true, I HAD to get him!! So I set out. Hopped a fence to get in (for some reason couldn’t find the easy way in that day). Found the giant cache, TB was still there, so I retrieved “I am Panda, Hear Me Roar!” and stuck him in my bag safe and sound to go to the Block Party.

3300km later, on August 20, we were at the Block Party and we dropped him off in the bin for Washington trackables hoping that he would land in the hands of someone who could bring him all the way home. And that’s what happened…1 week after the Block Party, the little Panda that could was retrieved by the owner, where they stated “Thanks to all who helped getting this guy back home safe. The TB made it back home safely just a week after Bryan did.” Oh yes…teared up at that one, knowing that I was a part of this journey!! Coincidence…maybe….luck, yep, some of that too, but you know all things happen for a reason, and in this case, lots of pieces came together nicely for this reason to happen
chasekeelan

I created a trackable in memory of a very close friend that lost her fight with cancer. It is called “A Bug for Billie” Attached to the bug is a notebook and it’s goal is to travel the world and collect the names of people that have been lost to this horrible disease. So far it has collected a number of names and I have read some sad stories in email and logs. The names will ensure that their memories never fade. I hope to one day see no more name appear on the log, not because the bug gets lost, but because we find a cure. chasekeelan
Binrat

Ok, a quick background. When I do a major trip or head to big Event I try to find a “plush” TB to act as the trip mascot and it logs all or most of the caches to track my mileage for the event.

Now, with Summer 2009 approaching I retrieved “Beaglescout” (TB211TD) with his jaunty Scout hat and backpack and the fun began!

Trip #1 – 8359.9 kilometers or 5194.6 miles (16 June 09 – 25 June 09)
This was an epic train, plane and automobile trip from Brockville Ontario all the way British Columbia and down to Oregon visiting such famous caches as GSHQ, Mission9 -Tunnel of Light and the Original Stash Tribute Plaque before returning home for a rest.

Trip #2 – 2,175 kilometers or 1,351 miles (01 July 09 – 04 July 09)

A fantastic trip From Brockville to Perce Quebec in the Gaspe Region by train.

Trip #3 – 1,591 kilometers or 988 miles (22 July 09 – 26 July 09)

A fun trip from Brockville to Windsor and on down to MWGB in Ohio. My first time down to “The Bash” and together we met some amazing cachers and some very cool TB’s

Trip #4 – 1,873 kilometers or 1,164 miles (31 July 09 – 05 Aug 09)

This was a major league epic trip that saw all of us drive from Brockville to North Bay Ontario then continue on to Cochrane to board the Polar Bear Express to Moosonee Ontario just for an Event. Beaglescout even too a trip down the Moose River to James Bay.

So, after 4 major trips what has Beaglescout accomplished.
14,000 kilometers or 8.699 miles

Visited Ontario, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Quebec, New York and Nunavut.

Tasted salt water on three different coasts(Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic)

Met many great cachers and had one fantastic summer of excitement

Binrat
P.S. Sadly shortly after I handed him off he was picked up by a newbie/muggle and vanished never to be seen again, but I still remember all the fun including meeting Miss Jenn.
http://www.coord.info/TB3QF25 Scorfman

When I attended Geowoodstock VIII in Carnation Washington I purchased an APE Cachekins with a special mission in mind. Some time and miraculous circumstances later I dropped that trackable in APE Cache Mission 4: Southern Bowl with a mission to get back to APE Cache Mission 9: Tunnel of Light (now Revisited). He’s on his third continent but getting closer! TB3QF25
vante

My dad (who caches as The Frito Bandito) and I (caching as
vante) are in the middle of a good ole fashioned horse race. As my dad started
becoming more and more interested in geocaching, I used to explain the
different aspects of the game to him. When we got on the subject of trackables,
I told him how people held travel bug races and competitions. He liked the idea
so we found a couple of plastic horses and hitched them up to a couple of
travel bug tags. He named his horse The Dark Horse (TBPTYQ), a
race horse that is not known to gamblers and thus is difficult to place betting
odds on, and I named my horse Lucky (TBQ93P), and claimed he can shoot
lightning bolts out of his eyes. My dad and I hid a cache as a finish line near
a racetrack here in Michigan and called it the Winner’s Circle (GC276PV). It
was my dad’s first cache hiding experience and he has gone on to hide several caches
of his own. My dad then took the horses to Texas with him and dropped them in a
cache on April 28, 2010.

We’ve had a lot of fun watching our
horses race across the country. Each move prompts a phone call and race
analysis. There have been a few stretches of time without any action, but it
seems that just when one of us really start to worry that the race is lost, a
fellow cacher will move our horse along with an encouraging word. Lucky has
lived up to his name, once being pulled out of the back roads of Utah before
winter hit and most recently being retrieved from a cache that was destroyed by
Hurricane Irene four days later. So far
he has travelled 3862.9 miles and was last in New York. The Dark Horse appears
to be on a more direct course. He’s has only travelled 1332.4 miles, but as I
write this he’s stabled in a cache in Michigan less than 60 miles away from my home
coordinates (dark horse, indeed!). My dad told me that it’s taking everything in his power not to
drive down there and get it himself. Me? I’m hoping for just a little bit more
luck.

Geocaching has been a blast for my dad
and me. It’s a great excuse to spend time and to explore the world together.
Travel bugs and horse racing is just part of the fun!
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