Mrs_Go has had a lot of inquiries regarding her new TrekPod Go! walking stick since she bought it a few months ago. It seems to generate a lot of interest wherever she goes and it’s easy to see why - not only is it a walking stick but it’s also a camera tripod!

The TrekPod Go! from Trek-Tech is a monopod/tripod/hiking stick which converts from hiking stick to a tripod within seconds. It also uses a neat magnetic mount for quick camera setup.

The TrekPod is made out of “aircraft grade aluminum alloys and high strength polymers” and only weighs 28 ounces (793 grams). The tripod mode has a height range of 39″ to 57.5″ (99 to 146 cm) and the hiking staff/monopod mode has a height range of 42.5″ to 62.5″ (106.7 cm to 158.8 cm). It can be quickly taken apart with a maximum piece length of 23″ (59cm) which will easily fit into carry-on luggage.

Attaching the camera is rather slick. It uses what is called the “MagMount AR/i Anti-Rotation magnetic quick release camera and optical device mounting system”. Simply put, it uses a strong rare earth magnet for mounting your camera. This allows your camera to be attached instantly. The Anti-Rotation feature locks your portrait shots in place, and indexing every 30° aids with panorama photos. A “MagAdapter” screws directly to your camera in the mount hole. It comes with two MagAdapters, one for light cameras and a stronger one for heavier cameras. This worked out well for us since we each have a camera.

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The 8th Anniversary of Geocaching in Canada was held yesterday, June 28th, 2008, at the Graves Island Provincial Park and a great time was had by all! The day was in celebration of Canada’s first Geocache which was hidden by local Geocacher “eastriver” on June 28th, 2000, less than two months after the world’s first Geocache was hidden by David Ulmer in Oregon, USA on May 3rd, 2000.

The cache is located just off Highway 103 in Nova Scotia about a 30 minute drive from Halifax. It was originally named GC41 but was relisted as GCBBA when Geocaches were taken out of the Geocaching.com site admin account. Apparently a typing error also occurred at that time and the date was changed to June 18th, 2000. The date has since been corrected to reflect the original cache placement date of June 28th, 2000.

On June 24th, 2006 a Geostone giving the details and co-ordinates of GCBBA was unveiled at the Graves Island park which is only a few kilometers from the cache site. The Geostone was built and designed by Geocacher Wallace_River. Plans are now in the works for another plaque to be placed at the actual site of GCBBA.

This was the third year for this annual event and the number of Geocachers attending has steadily grown with this years event drawing 148 Geocachers! For a number of Cachers it was a weekend event which began earlier in the week with camping on site. There was a pancake breakfast on the morning of the event and a potluck supper after the event which by all indication was not to be missed.

There were lots of activities to keep you busy throughout the day. There are several Geocaches in the immediate area including Canada’s First Cache and an EarthCache. There were also several event Geocaching games for both young and old such as:

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Last week, while in Roseville, California for GeoWoodstock VI, we spent a day Geocaching at Folsom Lake State Recreation Area. The park is located in the Sierra-Nevada foothills about 25 miles east of Sacramento and it offers lots of trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding. Since we didn’t bring a horse or a bike we stuck to the hiking.

Throughout the weekend we were warned about the creepy-crawlies that inhabit North California, like rattle snakes and tarantulas as well as poison oak. Since we come from an area where the worse thing that can find you is a tick or maybe an angry duck we thought that today might qualify as a Challenge Cache. We were very careful to tap the caches with our walking sticks, watch where we stepped and jumped around and made noise. It must have worked because all we saw were eagles, lizards, chipmunks and deer.

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The Elk Grove Geocachers hosted a breakfast Monday morning at Elk Grove Park as a closing event to a great Geocaching weekend. Called ‘Thanks For The Memories’, it gave us a chance to say good-bye to all of the new friends that we met at GeoWoodstock VI and it also gave us a chance to make some new ones too!

The food was excellent and there was lots of it, with far more choices than any restaurant buffet! It was supplied by the members of the Elk Grove Geocachers and included homegrown apricots, delicious blackberries, a variety of other fresh fruit, bacon, eggs, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, a french toast casserole, sausages. chilaquilles and more. There was also a variety of drinks including coffee and juices.

After we all ate there were some announcements, a singing of Happy Birthday for ‘MamaCache’ who was celebrating her birthday and a raffle was held for variety of items including Geocoins and cache containers.

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GeoWoodstock VI was an obvious success as around 3000 Geocachers from all over the world converged on the small town of Wheatland, California. This was our first Mega-Event and our first GeoWoodstock. We had such a great time that you can be assured we’ll be at the next one!

We arrived at the event shortly after the 9:00 AM opening and we were quickly escorted to our parking spot on a very large field. The attendants did a great job bringing us ‘in for a landing’ with their cool little orange flags!

We were greeted at the entrance gate by a large banner welcoming us to the event:

Once inside we were met with a bevy of tents housing everything from first-aid to fire tacks! There were tents for the information booth, the Travel Bug center and quite a large series of tents for the raffle items. The largest area of tents was the Vendors area called Swag Alley. We never seen so much Geocaching swag in one place! As you can imagine, this was a VERY popular spot.

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We just got back from the GeoWoodstock Meet and Greet that was held tonight not too far from our hotel here to Roseville, California. It was estimated that there about a thousand Geocachers in attendance!

After picking up our registration package and rooting through it to see what cool and neat stuff we got we found what we were looking for - our Geo-Bingo card! This card was our ticket to escaping from the awkward icebreaker question you tend to default to when meeting people for the first time, “So, where are you from?”. With it we were able to ask such questions as, “Have you ever Geocached on a motorcycle?” or “Have you hid more than 50 caches?” and our favorite, “Have you ever been questioned by authorities while Geocaching?”.

Set up like a traditional bingo card but with questions about Geocaching the object was to find Geocachers that met the particular question and to have them sign the card. Not only does this get you to meet people but for every completed row on your card you get a raffle ticket plus 5 bonus tickets for a completed card! This led to a lot of conversation as you exchanged cards and signed the cards for others where you could and had yours filled likewise. It also led to a lot of fun!

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