State of the Cachenation

Welcome back everyone, time to take a look at the state of things for Team Hopp Geocaching! Before the new year started, I set a few goals for myself:
1. Hit 1000 caches by my 1 year cachiversary
2. Finish Rustic Road Challenge
3. The Triad
4. Collect counties/DeLorme pages
5. Fill in D/T grid
6. Take caching streak to triple digits
7. Keep having fun with the family
8. Make the Texas Tamale Cache Run a reality

1. I'm well on pace to hit 1000 before May and have completed all the requirements for the Wisconsin Alphabet of Place Challenge, GC1NZNF. This should be a fitting milestone for 1K to look at all the places that geocaching has taken us.

2. Haven't really put much into this one because unfortunately the few I did go after this winter were buried or inaccessible. Planning to wait for warmer weathere to start making some roadtrips and pick these up. I am looking forward to grabbing the final at the 2011 WGA Campout at Hartman Creek, GC2PJZW.

3. Still trying to get a definite timeframe from the wife for this one. Her sister lives in Portland so it's only a matter of time before these are mine!

4. Managed to grab about a dozen new counties in Wisconsin, along with Iowa & Illinois so far. Slowly but surely picking up my counties and pages. Hopefully, I'll be attending MOGA and manage to work on my IL DeLorme while on the way down. I also have plans to grab KY while I'm down there. Lately I've been working on my Jasmer Challenge and right now I only have 20 spots left to finish that up.

5. During the winter months, I was able to fill in a good number of T5 squares along with some others. Currently, I still have 18 spots to fill and most of those are within reach. Just need to solve a few D5 puzzles and walk on water to finish these up!

6. I managed to run my caching streak from 9/26/10 to 2/3/11 and it probably would have kept going if not for my wife's car ending up in the shop during the Snowpocalypse. No car meant no caches for a couple of days, but 131 days is a good enough streak for me.

7. Done! Still having a ton of fun with geocaching. The boys enjoy going out almost every day and we even manage to drag mom along once in a while.

8. Me, the wife, 3 kids under 4 including a newborn, spicy Mexican food and a 1000 mile road trip. What could go wrong?

So far in 2011, I've hit 3 milestones (700, 800 & 900); 6 events in WI & MN; completed and found 3 more challenges. All in all it has been a wonderful start to the new year. Here's looking to many more fun caches in the coming months.