America's Largest Geocaching Event! (Morgantown, WV)

What happens when 5,000+ geocachers descend upon Morgantown, West Virginia? Pure magic, unexpected friendships, and countless stories worth telling.

Join us as we pull back the curtain on our Geo Woodstock 21 adventure – from the spectacular highs of performing our live podcast to a standing-room-only crowd to the technical woes that left our recording unusable (again). Before reaching Morgantown, Josh took a soul-stirring detour to Pittsburgh's Mr. Rogers statue where the beloved icon's voice still echoes beneath an arch overlooking the river – a moment he describes as "almost spiritual."

Our Morgantown home base proved to be a geocacher's dream: a three-story Airbnb complete with hot tub (which Craig claimed immediately and repeatedly), arcade games, and ample space for late-night geocaching tales. We traversed the region collecting stamps for the Country Roads Challenge, discovered surprisingly exceptional margarita flights at Mountain State Brewing Company, and Josh fulfilled his destiny by donning full Barney Fife regalia at the Don Knotts statue downtown.

The main event showcased geocaching at its finest – vendor halls brimming with gadget caches and trackables, a massive GPS maze chronicling the hobby's history, and the electric energy of thousands sharing their passion under one roof. The weekend crescendoed with Midnight Madness at West Virginia University, where our team of content creators squared off against Geocaching HQ staff in Family Feud, claiming victory despite Craig's memorable "nano" blunder that earned thunderous boos from the crowd.

Whether you're planning for next year's Geo Woodstock in Hutchinson (near the world's oldest active geocache!), or simply love hearing tales of travel and community, this episode captures why these gatherings represent the heart and soul of geocaching.

Have you experienced a Geo Woodstock yet? Share your story with us on social media or email treasuresofourtownpodcast@gmail.com

1hr LIVE Link

Transcript

Missing Recordings and Live Show Challenges

Speaker 1 0:00

Yeah, it was a little frustrating because he couldn't find parking. So he's like Josh, can we drop you off? And I was like Tim, you're going to want to see this. This is really cool. Trust me, tim, do you love to travel?

Speaker 2 0:23

Do you love road trips?

Speaker 1 0:24

Do you love finding hidden treasures in towns all over the USA? Hi, I'm Joshua.

Speaker 2 0:29

And I'm Craig. Welcome to Treasures of Our Town. It's a podcast that explores unique and charming towns scattered throughout the United States.

Speaker 1 0:34

Guided by our love for location-based games like geocaching, join us as we venture to some of the country's most intriguing destinations, uncovering hidden gems and local secrets along the way.

Speaker 2 0:50

On today's episode, josh, we're going to talk about our amazing, amazing hidden time at Geo Woodstock. I say hidden because of the recording. Again, Josh, the recording again. Oh, I can't believe it. I can't. Well, I can, but you know, it is what it is.

Speaker 1 1:00

I know it's so sad. It happened again. I know We'll talk about it happened again. I know We'll talk about it because some people who are listening to this have no idea what we're talking about.

Speaker 2 1:09

We can talk about it now quickly, if you like.

Speaker 1 1:11

Well, we could, but it's a part of my delay.

Speaker 2 1:14

Oh okay, well then you go straight into your delays. Then Fusca Straight into your delays.

Speaker 1 1:19

Well, we always talk about our delays and our upgrades, and our delay was we had a live podcast at jill woodstock 21 and it was a good show. We got good feedback. Yeah, it was a big crowd, the biggest crowd we've ever had. Craig, it was like sold out. Yes, yes, the energy was great. The podcast was great.

Speaker 2 1:40

Yep, the mics were too hot yes, well, yeah, so in general, in general, I mean, uh, josh, I'd even purchased ourselves a little set top box and stuff as well to try and accommodate all that we had. We had a I was gonna say semi-professional, because he doesn't do audio per se, but, uh, we had andy with us as well, giving us a hand, and, and he did help a lot. But the thing is, though, you can only do so much with so many things, josh, and yes, it was the mics that were way too hot and everything, or the audio kept on clipping out because the crowd, josh, was too loud, the crowd was too loud.

Speaker 1 2:17

It was a big, big venue so we had to push our voices in the microphones with the system. We had our voices in the microphones with the the system we had, and so long end of the short of it is that the recording for our live podcast did not come out, turn out. We do have a recording. That's a good thing. When it's progress, it's progress. Yeah, we do. We have a recording, but it's not listenable.

Speaker 2 2:44

No, no, it clips out a lot. I'm talking a lot. They call it in the industry too hot. The mics were too hot. In other words, they get to a point where you can't pull back the audio. You can't pull it back because it just cuts out altogether. If it's too cold, then it's really really quiet like this, but if it's too hot, then it clips out totally. So that's what happens. But either way, josh, my suggestion and I haven't spoken about this yet, but for next year onwards, because I'm hoping that we're going to do another live show next year at the Geo Woodstock, if we get asked to is that we don't even record it all. We just enjoy it for the live viewers and that's it. So we don't even record it all.

Speaker 1 3:24

We just enjoy it for the live viewers, and that's it. So what do you think about that? We could do that, or we could just try again because the result would be the same either way, right, we will for sure be able to do it live.

Speaker 2 3:35

Yes and no, josh, but you don't understand, okay, anyone out there listening between Josh and myself. Josh is a pretty face and stuff as well, and I'm the technical guy. So I do all the tech work behind the scenes, josh. The stress level for me doing that tech work is next level, next level. So, yeah, yeah. So maybe maybe we do it, we try it again, or maybe we don't, because I don't want to, I don't want to promise and not deliver either.

Speaker 1 4:00

That's this is true that that's a really good point, and so, yeah, maybe, maybe just do the podcast live, because it is a good time. I mean that was a real highlight and if you weren't there, what we did was we did the 25 most iconic moments in geocaching history. I thought it was a great topic. We went through through it quickly. We had some interaction with the audience. It was a really good show that nobody gets to listen to except the people that were there that's right, that's right.

Speaker 2 4:31

And we had the the live adventure lab go live as well.

Speaker 2 4:34

Oh yes, mixed reviews on that we got mixed reviews on that, everyone after it finished. Uh, obviously it's hard. You can think about as well it's hard. You've got thousands upon thousands of people playing a, a cell phone game, um, in a sort of you know, faraday cage, almost like that. We were in that big, uh, the big stadium, and so therefore, the uh, the wi-fi wasn't working properly, sometimes the internet wasn't working properly, sometimes that you need to log the, the answers to josh. Even after it it finished, I let it leave it open for another 20 minutes and I got on stage. While you were doing signatures and autographs and photos, I was still on stage, working the audience and making sure that they all got the answers. Now, I waited for a good two or three minutes after everyone had got the answers. I waited on stage, anyone else, anyone, bueller, bueller, bueller, and I got nothing back. No, and so I'm going okay, everyone's finished, turn it off. We still got messages back after that saying, oh, I didn't wait around.

Speaker 2 5:33

Oh, I didn't wait around for it.

Speaker 1 5:35

I'm like, well, yeah I didn't know you did that yeah, I still. I was on stage for another 20 minutes josh with now I don't feel as bad for all the people that came up to me later and complained to me. No, no, no, I felt bad for them. I was like I'm so sorry that you didn't, no, no, no, because I didn't have service. But you looked everybody in the eye and you were like, hey, has everybody got it? Is everybody good, yeah, then you turned it off.

Speaker 2 6:01

I still remember the one of the ladies, the last, the very last lady. She was standing right at the back and I was eyeballing her because she was the only one that still had to do the answers, and so I was eyeballing her to make sure she'd finished first. And she looked up and she gave me the nod She'd finished. And I looked around, looked around and nothing left. And so some people, josh they got up and walked out without and thought I'll come back to it later. And thought I'll come back to it later. Well, they missed out, unfortunately. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 6:24

And the people need to understand. If we would not have told people that we were going to turn it off, then we wouldn't have had such an epic crowd. That we did Exactly.

Speaker 2 6:34

Exactly. But the funny thing I find Josh as well, and that is that I mean we probably should go into this in the rest of the episode, but let's just do it now. The funny thing was, josh, when we gave out the fifth answer, the crowd started dispersing before we even did our ending. Did you notice that?

Speaker 1 6:49

I was so affected. Those were not our true fans.

Speaker 2 6:54

They were the people there for five finds only that's. All they wanted was five finds.

Speaker 1 7:00

I hope they got some entertainment out of it, even though they didn't really care about our podcast.

Speaker 2 7:06

Although, josh, I think about it like this as well, and that is, if you're at a baseball game or whatever, and it's almost the ending, you know the outcomes, what the outcome is going to be. There's no more left. People get up and walk out then as well to try and avoid the crowds. So maybe they were avoiding the crowds. Who knows, mate, who knows?

Speaker 1 7:28

Well, that being said, I just want to thank Carson and I want to thank the team at Geo Woodstock for again giving us the third opportunity to do our podcast live, which gives us lots of exposure to our podcast, gives us an opportunity to speak to the people, speak to the people of the geocaching world and and if you're somebody that listens to this podcast on a regular basis, this is the first time I'm so sorry we missed a week.

Speaker 1 7:54

We were supposed to post last week and you might have been thinking where in the world, where in the world, is the podcast? Have they quit? No, we haven't quit, no. And and if you're a patron of this podcast, you got a little behind the scenes or should I say behind the curtain footage, an explanation about what happened before this episode, right here. So, patrons, they know what happened and they got some little behind the scenes-scenes footage from us. So, thank you, patrons, you get that extra extra golden, golden nugget.

Delays and Upgrades in Geocaching Life

Speaker 2 8:30

Meanwhile, we're talking still about the upgrades and delays for ourselves. Josh, my delay is that I don't think I didn't see everyone at Geo Woodstock, everyone who was actually there. I look back after now and I see all the social media posts of my online buddies and mates and people that I know and think to myself why didn't I see them? They were there and I didn't actually see them. There was so so many people there I mean over 5,000 people there, let's be honest. And yeah, so busy and yeah, I felt like I didn't see everyone that I wanted to see. Josh, that's my delay.

Speaker 1 9:02

Yeah, I think it's some people that I didn't see either. I saw a lot of people. Oh yeah, I tried to make myself really accessible, especially considering that I never like to have like a booth where people can find us because I like to roam about. But it was really cool. I did tell people I at one o'clock I will be at the stage. That's what I was telling people on social media. It was really. It was really fun after the podcast to just have have a little line.

Speaker 2 9:26

A little line it was.

Speaker 1 9:28

So I felt so special one time, one time a year do I feel special, and it is on jewish stock day. So thank you everyone who came up and said hello to us. Thanks for trading path tags. Yeah, it was. That day was a real highlight. And you know, I experienced kind of the same feeling when there was a gig event in cincinnati six years ago, but this was just so much more comfortable, craig, because the temperatures were normal like that day.

Speaker 1 9:55

It was like 100 degrees, I got a charlie horse, I was dehydrated. This was just pleasant. It was just pleasant. And congratulations again to geo woodstock, because I believe, craig, I believe I don't know this for sure but I believe that this was the largest geocaching event in the history of the united states wow, wow, that wouldn't surprise me.

Speaker 2 10:13

That wouldn't surprise me. The other thing with cincinnati too, josh, remember, it poured down rain. The big thunderstorm came over too, whereas this one here, the weather came out. They, they turned it on here. I mean, the few days leading up to it, not so, and we'll talk about that as well, but uh, on that day itself, they, they turned on the weather perfectly so, which is really nice too. So anyway, mate, what's been your upgrades?

Speaker 1 10:34

my upgrade, of course, was a good, solid week at stock, of course, which we're going to talk about in this whole episode. We're going to talk about, um, our journeys, our travels, if you will, because this is a travel podcast, of course, but my son, hayden, just last night, graduated high school, so I saw that, I saw three of three, my youngest. We're now kind of officially empty nesters. This is, this is new territory. Three or three check, check, check, all done parenting 101.

Speaker 2 11:07

All done, all done.

Speaker 1 11:08

You could write a book now well, anybody that is a parent knows, parents of adults know that parenting is not over.

Speaker 2 11:14

That's no, this is true. Adult parenting.

Speaker 1 11:16

It's a whole new journey of adult parenting, but a big congratulations to my son hayden um woody jr that's his name back in the day. He was woody jr. Wow, I remember those videos as well I know, think about it. I've been doing videos for 14 years, so he was like four, three or four, three or four, three or four. Wow, so he's now 18 years old and it sounds like get this guys. He's attending western kent in Bowling Green, kentucky.

Speaker 2 11:47

Oh no, the third child, the third one there, the third child.

Speaker 1 11:50

It looks like they're offering him a scholarship as well. Surprise, surprise, that Johnson talent just keeps flowing.

Speaker 2 11:59

Yeah, yeah, it really does. It really does, mate, and yeah. So congratulations to Hayden. Good job, mate, even though he doesn't listen to this podcast, but that's okay, that's okay. No kids do I mean, unless you're Joe Rogan, that's it.

Speaker 1 12:13

Well, maybe our friend Levi, maybe he does now.

Speaker 2 12:16

Maybe he does now Exactly.

Speaker 1 12:18

I also met a kid named Lane, so there were a few kids at Geo Woodstock. They're kind of rare, but yeah, yeah, maybe they listen to podcasts, but they're more, you know, like these gen alpha, they're more video people yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.

Speaker 2 12:32

Well, mate, my upgrade for for this week just gone is it I, after geo woodstock, I drove down to visit dc yes, washington dc, the capital, the capital of you, good old united States of America, and I really enjoy it. Here's a travel tip, josh as well, ready for this, ready for this travel tip?

Speaker 2 12:51

If you're going to DC. Now, you didn't hear this from me because it's probably it technically is illegal. But you know my van, you know I've got a van and I drive it everywhere I go. It's over nine foot tall. It doesn't fit in the underground parking lots at all, josh, you see.

Speaker 2 13:08

So when I checked in, I got a nice hotel for three nights in DC because I thought, you know, rather than camping in the van and the hotel I got, they had underground parking. They said no, I wouldn't be able to fit, and there was a resident parking out the back that you could pay by the hour for. So, uh, of course I parked around the back to pay pay by the hour and mostly up to date, was only two hours at a time. But, josh, this is a problem is the app that I was paying it on only allowed me after it finished it? It didn't. It wouldn't let me park in the same spot for half an hour. So there was half an hour gaps of me unpaid parking at the back.

Speaker 2 13:46

Right, but okay, after three days, three, three nights of my van sitting dormant at the back, uh, in a residential area, on and off, legally and illegally being parked, instead of me paying fifty dollars a night for my van to be underground parked legally. Then I paid a total of 45 dollars in parking fees themselves for the three days. Uh, and I did come back and I got a ticket on the window and the ticket because it was outside the hours. The ticket was for 35 dollars, so I'm thinking myself for 80 dollars instead of 150 dollars. I parked my van for three days out in the back of the residential area, including a ticket $35 ticket. I thought I got away with that much better than $150 for three nights in the underground parking lot. Sometimes parking illegally is cheaper than parking legally.

Speaker 1 14:40

Especially in DC. Yes, that's the biggest thing I've been to.

Speaker 2 14:43

DC.

Speaker 1 14:44

I've never had more of a nightmare parking than I did when I visited DC for one day. Parking is it's a small place. It is a small place. It really is Not a lot of parking. I had to park so far away and I walked so so far to get to all the all the action in DC.

Speaker 2 15:02

Well, that's the other thing I did as well, josh, is I jumped on the hop-on, hop-off bus for two days, and so hop-on, hop-off bus is like $35 a day, that's all it is, and you literally hop on, hop off wherever you want sort of thing at the spots, and it gets you around everywhere you need to go, josh All the virtual caches, all the earth caches that are there, all the adventure labs that are there, um, so, yeah, I got. I got to see plenty, plenty of places, and I only walked a certain amount, so with my ankles, so it's good oh, there's a lot of walking in dc too.

Speaker 1 15:33

When I visited there I think I shared this on the podcast I took a segue tour, so I found a lot of the virtuals on a segue. Segue. That's cool, which was really, really fun. Yep, but we're not here to talk about DC today.

Speaker 1 15:43

We're here to talk about our experience at Geo Woodstock and I'm going to add my pre-city before we get to Morgantown, west Virginia, because Morgantown, west Virginia, a little treasure, a treasure of a town, it's not little, it's a medium-sized city, a perfect, perfect topic for this podcast because we like to focus on these medium-sized cities. Perfect topic for this podcast because we like to focus on these medium-sized cities. But there was some, some pre pre-trippage before, before I got to morgantown, west virginia, and if you were so kind to let me share some of that too, craig absolutely absolutely as we uh, because we had not met up until we got to morgantown, west Virginia.

Speaker 2 16:23

No, that's right, that's right.

Speaker 1 16:25

So should we begin our journey.

Speaker 2 16:27

Absolutely your journey first, or my journey, which would you like, because we're both journeying at the same time, josh? So, as you were flying into Pittsburgh, I was booking into the Airbnb the day after. So I booked into the Airbnb at 1.30 in the afternoon, but you flew in the day before, didn't you? I?

Speaker 1 16:45

did I flew in on Tuesday.

Speaker 2 16:47

That's right. Tuesday night, yes, tuesday night. So what happened Tuesday night, josh, tell us about it.

Speaker 1 16:52

Well, I was coming from Tampa, florida, just like last year, if you go back and listen, when I came into Flagstaff, I was actually in Florida for work, to go to the work, the work, go to the beach, the beach and work. Those were the two priorities. But yes, I did fly in very late on Tuesday night and I met our good friend, minnesota boy, minnesota boy, minnesota boy and Coach V, rob Vardaman, because they were my ride and they were the one that got the ride and we got Craig an Airbnb.

Speaker 2 17:27

Wow, for one night night, one night airbnb and I saw the photos of this airbnb. Josh, it had an. It did have an arcade inside like an actual old school video arcade. What, yes? Where did you find that one?

Speaker 1 17:38

on airbnb yeah, I had. You know, they have those one-up machines. I have one. Actually, in my office, I have a pac-man machine, but they had several. I think they had like at least 10 stand-up video arcade games in the basement. This airbnb was like, I don't know, like a gen x dude's dream, like it was perfect. It had, you know, a full bar and then it had like an arcade and craig, it had a hot tub you know how we love our hot.

Speaker 2 18:09

We love our hot tubs.

Speaker 1 18:11

I especially love our top oh yeah, so we'll get more. We'll get to that more later and so, yeah, we got our snacks. We played, played a little video games, arcade games, and then it was late. It was late and it was raining, but you know what I was like. We have this hot tub. It wasn't that big a hot tub.

Speaker 2 18:32

It was more like a two-person.

Speaker 1 18:34

I went out there and I got in that hot tub and I was the only one Now, keep in mind at this point I think it was one in the morning but I'm like, hey, we have this hot tub, I'm going to use it. We're going to use it one night and, yeah, it was great. Sat in there and Minnesota boy just kind of sat on the outside on his phone because I think they came to terms with the fact that it was maybe a little too small for more than one person, I would have let him in there.

Speaker 2 19:07

I would have have.

Speaker 1 19:07

I would have made some moved over for them, exactly, exactly, but you know it is what it is that's all we did. That's all we had time for. Tuesday night was was this really cool airbnb, b&b? I wish we could have stayed there longer. It was a really cool, cool place. What did you do tuesday night? Did you have anything?

Speaker 2 19:22

tuesday night. No, I was still in the van in the van Tuesday night and literally pretty much parked exactly where I am parked right now as we record this episode, and that is at the Bass Pro in Morgantown, west Virginia. Yeah, I'm back at the Bass Pro for tonight. Yeah, in the back of the Bass Pro, that's all I was. That's where I stayed on the Tuesday night.

Speaker 1 19:41

I see. So it had been such a long time since I had visited pittsburgh. I probably hadn't been in pittsburgh for like over 20 years, and you know how I love mr rogers. Oh yeah, and I know, craig, you don't have mr rogers in australia, so you don't have the same nostalgia probably no but mr rogers is like I work in the character business Craig.

Speaker 1 20:03

I speak to kids about being a good person, so Mr Rogers is a big hero of mine. And so this is. Pittsburgh is the hometown of Mr Rogers, and before 20 years ago they did not have this thing that I've wanted to visit so bad. And it's that Mr Rogers statue that is overlooking the river and get this greg. It is also a virtual geocache, of course it should be, as I was like I want to just visit the statue and a minnesota boy minnesota boy miss what. So the boy was a little skeptical. He's like a statue. Parking was tough too, and we were like uh, he's like josh, can we just drop you off?

Speaker 2 20:44

Oh yeah, yeah, we know what Tim's like when it comes to him driving, because Tim drives us everywhere he has to. If you don't know, and it's okay, we tell about it. Tim likes to drive, but also Tim doesn't like to be a passenger. He gets a bit ill sometimes if he's a passenger.

Speaker 1 21:05

So hence the reason. So he's like Josh, can we drop you off? And I was like Tim, you're going to want to see this. This is really cool, trust me, tim. So Rob was so nice to stay back with the car and we took turns.

Speaker 1 21:18

So, tim and I, we went over to the statue and Craig. This exceeded all my expectations. Really, statue and craig this exceeded all my expectations, really, because I get there and, yes, he's. I didn't know where the statue was. I thought it was like maybe in the middle of town, I don't know, yeah, it was overlooking the river. It was beautiful. And then there was this arch.

Speaker 1 21:35

And you walk underneath this arch and what you hear is mr rogers singing songs from his show you hear clips from, uh, the show just talking to the kids, so it was like the spirit of mr rogers is there so and I guess somebody told me it was like you were really lucky, because the the sound, the sound of him singing and stuff like that isn't always working and yeah, yeah that day it was working wow it was a very emotional experience yeah, it was like. It was almost like a spiritual experience. It was really really neat and I'm so glad. And once we got there, tim was like, oh, this is really cool.

Speaker 2 22:12

Josh, I'm so glad I came. Just trust me, tim, trust me, and he does listen to this podcast, so he'll be laughing now as we speak. I know Exactly.

Speaker 1 22:23

So then Tim went back to the car because I was, I think. I said, tim, you got to go get. Or I texted Rob who was waiting at the car. It's like, rob, you got to go over here and come over here and see this.

Speaker 2 22:35

So Tim and Rob switched, switched places.

Speaker 1 22:36

Tim stayed with the car, and then of course, I stayed with Mr Rogers a little longer. I got lots of footage lots of.

Speaker 2 22:49

I was gonna say you can do a video of it too.

Speaker 1 22:50

That's coming out. Yeah, it'll probably come out next week, because this week is a geo challenge week. So that was really cool. So then I was like, oh, I gotta, I gotta immerse myself more in the mr rogersness, and so I went to the heinz center history museum in heinz you may be thinking heinz.

Speaker 2 23:02

Yes, it is named after the ketchup people, as in heinz bike beans and kites yeah, big beans and yeah, so um, because I apparently they're from here too.

Speaker 1 23:12

So I mean, could you ask for two better things to have a museum about? Mr rogers and ketchup? I love both of those things very much so yeah, yeah, yeah some, and there was a there was a uh, a little, uh no display.

Pittsburgh Adventures and Mr. Rogers

Speaker 1 23:29

What am I trying to say? Uh, exhibit. There was an exhibit of ketchup and the heinz people, but then there was an exhibit of the mr rogers show and they recreated his, his little apartment that the show is in. He recreated, recreated the land of make-believe. You got to see all his sweaters that he wore on the show. You got to see the real puppets from the show daniel tiger, daniel tiger puppet, who is like very, very famous, um that nowadays they don't have mr rogers but they have a show called daniel tiger's neighborhood which is a kid show right now. It's based off of mr rogers, the original daniel tiger puppet, so they had all the puppets there. I got the video I it was. They had like a wax figure of mr rogers sitting there and it was just really cool and I was just I was completely geeking out, had a great gift shop and I got a little stuffed. I got a little stuffed, mr rogers, for my claw machine.

Speaker 2 24:24

I was gonna be for your claw machine.

Speaker 1 24:26

I do, I do, yeah so it was a really cool museum. Also, the there was a big area for all the sports. Sports is a big deal in pittsburgh, of course the pittsburgh steelers yes, the steelers it was. Yeah, it was really cool, so glad went. And then we saw this thing as we were looking at the Mr Rogers statue, we saw one of those elevators that go up the hill. It's almost like a little trolley elevator.

Speaker 2 24:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen those and.

Speaker 1 24:56

I'm going to murder the name. It's Dukuesne. Oh God, I'm just going to spell it D-q-u-e-s-n-e.

Speaker 1 25:09

Yeah I'm not even gonna try the question, incline the question, I'll say it. So for five dollars we were at the bottom of the hill and for five dollars you get to go up and back down up the hill and like pittsburgh is like basically like built around all these hills and stuff like that. It was so cool, it was really worth five dollars. And when we got to the very top we were rewarded, craig, with a beautiful thing. At the very top there was a place called the steel mill saloon and we had beer.

Speaker 1 25:41

We had beers on the top of the hill of course we had a destination there was a reason to go up the hill, and on the top of the hill it was the most beautiful views of pittsburgh, like you get to see all of downtown pittsburgh. It was so, so cool and then. So then we got back down the hill. We found a geocache. Of course it was a very large geocache and you could watch all this on minnesota boys video, because his video came out before mine did oh, he scooped me he scooped me.

Speaker 1 26:11

That's what they say. They, he, he put it out before I could put my video out. It's okay, tim, I forgive you. And then we decided we have to get the famous sandwich of Pittsburgh, the Pimanti Brothers sandwich. And actually the Pimanti Brothers was actually in Morgantown too, and can I just describe these sandwiches to?

Speaker 1 26:35

you Because they're hard to. It's unlike anything. So it's a sandwich filled with some sort of grilled meat. You can do roast beef, turkey, whatever, um provolone cheese. Get this inside of it fresh cut french fries, a tangy vinegar based coleslaw, tomato slices in italian bread. It was the most unique, delicious, like talk about flavors. You got the fries, you got the coleslaw, you got the vinegar, you got the meat. Oh my gosh, it was so good. Craig, did you get a chance to try a pimanti brothers sandwich?

Speaker 2 27:13

no, not at all. But in saying that now, I am still in morgantown yes, you should go downtown so there's there's two of them here. Actually at the moment there's two here, so I'll be I'll be hitting that for my lunch today.

Speaker 1 27:24

Yes, Highly recommend it. It's an experience, it is a delicious sandwich. So that was it. That was just like a little kind of half day, but it was. If you ask Minnesota boy, minnesota boy, minnesota boy. I asked him. I said what was your favorite part of the trip? He's like I really liked our day in Pittsburgh.

Speaker 2 27:42

Oh, oh, so you know what? Because I wasn't there to sort of.

Speaker 1 27:46

Oh no, I don't think that was.

Speaker 2 27:47

To annoy him or something. But then, anyway, you headed to Morgantown. Yes, headed to Morgantown and we hit the rest area, oh, that's right, the rest area as you cross over from from uh, from uh into towards morgantown itself. Yeah, in west virginia 600, 600 pins adventure lab pins there.

Speaker 1 28:11

So yes, if you listen to our texas challenge video or podcast.

Speaker 2 28:16

We did something similar I think there might have been more I think there might have been more. There's more in texas. There's more in texas. There's over 700 in texas.

Speaker 1 28:23

There's exactly 600 in morgantown so we got 600 geocache finds by answering trivia questions over the space of an hour and a half to two hours they were great because one of the one of the questions this is my favorite one, I gave it five stars was about about Don Knotts.

Speaker 2 28:41

Barney Fife.

Speaker 1 28:42

That's right, that was one of them, that's right, and we'll get to that later, because that's something special about.

Speaker 2 28:48

Morgantown is Don Knotts.

Speaker 1 28:50

Yes, and then we went to the Airbnb. And when I arrived at the Airbnb, what did I see? I saw see my shell bathing himself in a hot tub with a Miller High Life in his hands. And not only was that the first time he was in the hot tub, but the second time that day, because you had checked in early to the Airbnb, before all of us.

Speaker 2 29:16

That's right. So the Airbnb host was kind and gracious enough to say look, there's an early check-in, they'd finished there what they need to do. So they sent us a message saying 1.30 pm. So I was already in town. Oh, 1.30 pm. I said I'm game, be there. So I got there at 1.35. I got all my gear out and I checked in. I checked the temperature of the hot tub. It was beautiful, beautiful, it was delicious. I changed straight away. I flipped open the hot tub after putting all the beers in the fridge, um, grabbed one out and, uh, dived right into the hot tub. So I spent from 1 30 pm, josh, all the way through. You guys didn't get there until, like you know, 6 pm or something like that, or 7 pm, even later. Uh, and yeah, I was. I was in and out of the hot tub, um, for that period of time, josh. So I wasn't, I wasn't shriveled up, but I did get a little dehydrated.

Speaker 1 30:04

So I'm pretty sure you wore that pot tub out. We'll talk a little bit more about this.

Speaker 2 30:09

This is the problem, this is the only problem, when you live in a van josh and you don't have access to actual bath himself. And you love a bath.

Speaker 1 30:16

I love, oh boy, yeah oh boy, I'm just thinking about the fact that you bathed yourself I did, I had a shower first oh okay, what do you think I am?

Speaker 2 30:27

I'm not dirty.

Speaker 1 30:27

Wow, wow, wow wow, wow, wow, I assumed so exactly so.

Speaker 2 30:34

But let's talk about this airbnb. Josh, this airbnb had three stories in total. So the first level, uh, had the outdoor area with the hot tub there. It had an outdoor TV screen, it had a fire pit, it had a nice dining table outdoors. You go in the door itself and you've got the kitchen and the dining room, you've got the lounge room area and then you go downstairs, downstairs to the den or the dungeon, and it had a full bar and card table and popcorn machine and dartboard, all downstairs. Again, it was like a Gen X man's heaven, and the garage was down there as well, with the laundry for me. And then if you go upstairs, all the way upstairs, it had the three bedrooms upstairs as well. You're thinking to yourself hang on, josh, minnesota boy, rob and Craig there's four men with three bedrooms. Yeah, tim was on the couch. Tim was on the couch.

Speaker 1 31:25

And there was a reason for that.

Speaker 2 31:26

Yes, yeah, of course he chose the couch. He likes it because he's tall, he's a taller guy and so the couch was taller, so he chose the couch too. So we'll just say that Good on you, tim, for taking one for the boys for that trip.

Speaker 1 31:41

We were very fortunate to have this Airbnb, especially considering the Geo Woodstock. I think we rented it out in September or something like that. We were on top of it. We were on top of it straight away. We knew, which reminds me we should get on top of it for Hutchinson, kansas next year, like right now.

Speaker 2 31:59

That's right. We should start doing some research right now.

Speaker 1 32:03

But yes, thebnb was, uh, really fantastic, really really lucky. It was a great place to land and we've always talked about airbnbs on this show, especially if you're traveling with groups. Yeah, you get, you get the. You get the pluses of having usually your own space to sleep in. You have a kitchen area, common areas to hang out with. If you're in a hotel room, it's it's so weird and awkward like I'm gonna sit on the bed and hang out. No, yeah, no, it's not, it's not comfortable. So this and often when you share it with a bunch of people, it's often like even more affordable than a hotel.

Speaker 2 32:36

Yes, yeah, for four people exactly. Well, the four, four of us for the abnb was a lot cheaper than four hotel rooms, for the period of time too. Oh, yes, and you get so much more.

Speaker 1 32:46

Exactly so. The festivities of Geo Woodstock. Yes, I mean, it begins before the event and the event was on Saturday, and now the first day on Thursday. We had a great time on Thursday and what I loved about Thursday is that we had some great time on thursday, and what I loved about thursday is that we had some light goals.

Morgantown Arrival and Airbnb Experience

Speaker 1 33:03

You know some people, some people take these events and they're like they go hard on the geocaching. They're like I gotta get every major, important geocache. I need to get the oldest, I need to get the special cash across america. I need to get everything as far as geocaching goes. Scott burks, scott burks, patron of the show, patron of the show, and that's fine. You know everybody's different. Yeah, but hey, I don't get to. I get to see you, like maybe once every three months, and like and yeah, like we got plenty of geocaching in. Oh yeah, I yeah, I felt satisfied, yes, but it was just, it was kind of fun because we did this thing called the Texas Road Challenge, which was something that no, not Texas I'm sorry, country Road Challenge.

Speaker 2 33:53

Thank you, you got Texas on your mind. I know right the Country.

Speaker 1 33:56

Roads Challenge challenge. And so the geo woodstock committee partnered with a bunch of businesses throughout the area, throughout some even the small towns, in conjunction with the visitor bureau of the west morgantown, west virginia. And if you go to all 10 spots to get all 10 stamps then you get a cool little geo coin. So it was just fun to go to all these places to get all 10 stamps, then you get a cool little geocoin. So it was just fun to go to all these places, all these little businesses, and we basically waited in line to find, find I'm putting in quotes find an ammo can. But it was cool because it was like it was like almost like a moving event, correct?

Speaker 2 34:37

yes, yeah, I noticed that as well, and when you're in line too, sometimes some people were handing down the logbook, because you had to sign the logbook like a normal geocache, but also these ones, they're a letterbox sort of style cache, and so there's actually a stamp inside it, and we had to stamp our passports that we'd picked up for the Country Roads Challenge so you can get a coin.

Speaker 1 34:57

And I did get a coin. I was so happy.

Speaker 2 34:59

Yes, you did Finally.

Speaker 1 35:00

I got a coin because if people got like the major package, like the VIP package, they were guaranteed a coin, but I wasn't guaranteed a coin. So it was like even more of a challenge. I was like I got to get all these and then I got to get in line and I got to get my coin and success. It was great. Yeah, craig, what was your as you think about some of the locations we go to and we're going to get to the Mountain State Brewing Company? We'll get to that next.

Speaker 2 35:24

Other than that one.

Speaker 1 35:25

Were there any of the locations that you were like oh, this is a really cool spot they brought us.

Speaker 2 35:30

Well they did. They brought us to a little putt-putt golf location spot around the back of the putt-putt golf thing, but unfortunately it wasn't open when we were doing it, because for sure we would have gone and partaked in the actual golf itself. But in saying that too, josh, I did see that another place was like a coffee place and all that sort of thing too, and geocaching people being geocaching people, that coffee place was packed solid. You couldn't even get in the door to order a coffee. So it's good that that we, that the geocaching community themselves, um, patrons patronaged the uh, the businesses that helped out. Patronage is that the word? Patrons or patron? Yeah, yeah, they, they bought, they bought something from the businesses. So that was good to see. But yeah, I would have liked to have played a bit of putt-putt golf, only because I knew I would have actually flogged your backside again, along with tim and and rob as well.

Speaker 1 36:24

So yeah, and what's up with that? I mean, if you owned a putt putt golf place, oh yeah, and it was a spot. I mean I'm sure they asked permission to put it on their property. They had to of course, and you knew that hundreds of people were going to come to your putt putt golf place and you're not open.

Speaker 2 36:42

Yeah, I think they were open later on, but they didn't change their hours for the sake of the actual Country Roads Challenge. I don't think that they knew exactly how many people would be going past or parking in their parking lot.

Speaker 1 36:59

What a missed opportunity.

Speaker 2 37:00

That's all. That's all. But the other place, josh, you were saying as well, was that one of the stops was the Mountain State Brewing.

Speaker 1 37:06

Let's talk about the Mountain State Brewing, so this place was one of the three breweries I'm putting in quotations because this Mountain State Brewing, I believe, had a couple locations.

Speaker 2 37:18

And it wasn't actually where the?

Speaker 1 37:20

I don't think it was actually where the beer was brewed, but it was the location where you could get the Mountain State Brewery and this place was one of the spots on the County Road Challenge and it was. The building was an old Texas roadhouse.

Speaker 2 37:35

It was it was very clear. It was very, very clear that was an old Texas roadhouse and you know how I love my texas roadhouse oh, and we get to that too. Yeah, we'll get to that later.

Speaker 1 37:45

You know, no good trip is taken without a visit to the old roadhouse, and this one was a very special visit. We'll get to that later. Teaser, teaser, and so so this place. They had, of course, beer. How was, was the beer, craig? I had one of their beers, good it wasn't too bad.

Speaker 2 38:04

I just had one beer as well. I had the IPA and it was a normal sort of IPA beer. It wasn't too bad, it was just mediocre borderline. It was a four out of five star rating on my untapped.

Speaker 1 38:16

Yeah, I had a light beer, but that came after. I had a light beer, but that came after. Oh, after this place had get this Craig margarita flights. Wow, not just margaritas, margarita flights. Flight of margarita wow, they had like eight options of eight different flavors, mm-hmm. And so I picked four of these flavors. Craig, I'm not exaggerating when I say these margaritas were the best margaritas I've ever had in my life. Wow, they were so good.

Speaker 2 38:54

And it was at a brewery.

Speaker 1 38:55

I know it wasn't even a Mexican brewery.

Speaker 2 39:00

It was just a brewery.

Speaker 1 39:01

No, they had one. They had like really fun flavors. They had a caramel apple one, so it was apple margarita, but then they rimmed it with sugar and caramel caramel are you? Kidding me caramel, whatever. Oh, craig, it was good. Yeah, I'm getting really excited and animated. We're recording this in the morning and now I have officially woken up.

Speaker 2 39:26

Yes, you have, thanks to the margarita flight.

Speaker 1 39:32

They also had really great flatbread pizza.

Speaker 2 39:35

Yes, yes, they did. It was really tasty, it was really good flatbread pizza as well. But, josh, you also after that as well. Before that, I can't remember which one it all blurs in, but we met up with our good friend Julian. Julian from GadgetGeocom, yes, and he supplied you with some of your special magnets.

Speaker 1 39:57

Yes, my good friend Julian. He had created for me 3D printed geocaching vlogger magnets exclusive. That's cool and I've, given my higher level of patrons this last year, I have given them these magnets in their little swag packs. I sent them once a year but julian made more of them and we were placing them all over town and doing instagram videos of them and then people that found the first three people that found the magnet and turned it into his booth got a geocaching vlogger geocache how cool is that?

Speaker 2 40:32

that's really cool. That is really cool. I like that idea. And and julian great guy, very animated guy as well. Um, also, if you haven't already watched, then josh, you and I we did a one hour long episode, not so one hour long live video, of the actual uh jill woodstock itself as well, which julian features in, quite, uh, quite, you know, dramatically, we'll say that too prominently.

Speaker 1 40:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that one hour live craig. Because there was so much to see and do and because there were so many people, I watched it back. That was like a really good live craig it was?

Speaker 2 41:07

it was. I watched it as well. It was a really good. Did you see, josh? There was a few times there because you were too busy with you know? You were, you were doing autographs and I turned the camera around and I started talking to other people as well. So I got into the live. Uh, I started. I started doing education as well, showing people about the bingo cards, about how to swap uh path tags and coins and see. So I'm doing the education side, where you do all the the fluff and the fruit the entertainment the entertainment you call it.

Speaker 2 41:32

Yeah, I call it.

Speaker 1 41:33

The best part was the oh my gosh. You guys, you have to watch this back it'll. We'll put it in the show notes. Yeah, and you can find. If you do geo, woodstock, uh, west virginia or whatever on youtube you'll find it. But the group picture I mean there were there is like, I mean not all, five, not all five thousand were there at once, but a good 1500 to 3000 people like yeah, there were a ton of people on the hill for the photo and craig is just egging me on.

Speaker 1 42:05

He's like get the people pumped up yeah, I've been running. I'm like, I'm like make some noise and then roar, roar, the crowd. I took one sweep by and then craig's like do it again. And the crowd goes well, it's just so fun, the crowd will just do whatever I ask them to do. It was so fun.

Speaker 2 42:24

Yeah, yeah, no, that was a lot of fun and, as I said, yeah, link for that will be in the show notes. Josh, and do yourself a favor, yeah, watch the whole hour. An hour seems like a lot, but you know, watch the whole hour, it's a lot of fun and you'll see a lot of what we're talking about here as well, and you'll see Julian in the booth, which is really cool. Then, josh, after that, I had to sort of, you know, partake ways from you guys. Bye-bye, bye-bye.

Speaker 2 42:51

Bye-bye, seymour, I have to go and pick up a friend of mine from the actual airport back in Pittsburgh.

Speaker 1 42:57

Oh, you're such a good friend, I am, I am I am.

Speaker 2 43:00

Meanwhile, what did you do?

Speaker 1 43:01

you did a sito and a music event I had waited too long, because if you're a geocacher, you know you get a souvenir for each season of sito.

Speaker 1 43:10

So you get a spring, there's a spring one there's a full one, and the last day to get it in was, uh, may 31st, and I had not gotten aO yet and you know I'm a souvenir hound and I don't miss any souvenirs and I said, hey, we have to go to the CETO. It was the largest CETO I've ever been to because there were thousands of people at this event. It was out at the Mason-Dixon line. I saw that.

Speaker 2 43:40

What's the Mason-Dixon For people who don't know what is the Mason-Dixon line? I saw that what's the Mason-Dixon For people who don't know what is the Mason-Dixon line?

Speaker 1 43:47

I don't want to murder the history, but here's what I think it is. And then you can all write me and tell me how I'm wrong on my history, Because Craig just put me on the spot. So the Mason-Dixon line is basically the border, I believe, between Pennsylvania and West Virginia and I believe it is the dividing line during the Civil War between the North and the South. Does that make sense? Yes, so I'm sure. Like I don't know the history as much as I should, but I'm sure there were many battles there Over the.

Speaker 1 44:19

Mason-Dixon line, sort of the line, but there's a park, there is a major park called the mason dixon. I don't know if it was a state park, but it was a big, beautiful park and that's where this event was. The sito event was there, and then, after the sito, that it was the mountain music event and so this was a pre-event of Geo Woodstock and we went up the hill and we walked, we hiked up like almost like a mountain, it was like Appalachian Mountains, so it wasn't that high, but we got my heart going, yeah, yeah. And we walked up there and we geocached all along this trail. I was with our friend Scott Burks, I was with Rob Vardaman and we walked up here and we found some geocaches. We found an earth cache up there and we found adventure lab stages. It was a. It was a great time of geocaching.

Speaker 1 45:10

And then we came back down and then, uh, the event was there and I saw geocaches there, I saw jt coffee, who are lackeys, and they had some old-fashioned bluegrass band and I just loved it. It was just like it's a pure Americana. I loved it. What a cool like. Yeah, I really felt like this is the music that should be played in this place and there was just Craig. There was just so much joy, so many people, they were just so, and it was like this all weekend.

Speaker 2 45:42

Yeah.

Speaker 1 45:44

And I've been to many geocaches events before and good times, but there was something special about this one, Craig. I felt like there was just so much joy and I think it was maybe because it was like the largest that we've ever geocaching events that we've had since the pandemic. And it was like everyone who was almost everyone prolific in geocaching events that we've had since the pandemic and it was like everyone who is almost everyone, I you know, prolific in geocaching was there and it was just like a big family reunion reunion and it was just, it was really joyful and but the only person that wasn't there was you.

Speaker 2 46:13

Well, that one, that particular one, that's that Cause I I made my way back down afterwards as well, and Because I made my way back down afterwards as well, and I met up with you guys back at the Airbnb. And, of course, what happened? When I got back to the Airbnb, you guys weren't even in the hot tub yet. You were again. Yeah, no, no, I got back. You guys got there and I got back and I said hello to you guys and that too. And then I got in the hot tub first. No one was even in there. So I got in the hot tub first.

Speaker 1 46:41

It wasn't even no one was even in there. So I jumped in again for the first time. But it wasn't.

Speaker 2 46:44

The hot tub was not going well, no At that point, at that point in time, the hot tub was starting to cool down for some reason and we didn't know why, and we thought, you know, was it the cold weather around? Did we have everything on properly, or whatever else as well? But no, later on, later on, yeah, it did not work. From that point onwards it wasn't a hot tub. It became a warm tub and then a cold tub and then a no tub.

Speaker 1 47:07

We broke it, or maybe Craig broke it.

Speaker 2 47:10

Well, no, no, no, no, no, no. No one broke it itself. Hot tubs, apparently, are like that. Sometimes they can be very finicky, and so it was a thermostat and a seal issue or something, so I don't know what happened, but either way, either way, we move on. Roll now into Friday. Josh, this is Woodstock Eve on Friday.

Speaker 1 47:28

Woodstock Friday was a little bit of a blur to me.

Speaker 2 47:32

Yeah, I know, I was like what did we do on Friday? What did we do on?

Speaker 1 47:35

Friday. I know, I remember some things we did on Friday. You left us again. Didn't you at some point leave us again on Friday?

Speaker 2 47:43

On.

Speaker 1 47:43

Friday yeah, no, no, no, you left us. When did we go to Short Story Brewing Company? Maybe we went there on Thursday.

Speaker 2 47:53

You went there on.

Speaker 1 47:53

Thursday at Short Story Brewing Company. Okay, well, let's go back. We went to another brewery.

Speaker 2 47:59

That was before the Cito and the Mountain one. Yeah, that's right, that's right, yes.

Speaker 1 48:05

So let's go back. We went to Short Story Brewing and I don't know if you made it there, craig, but this was the best atmosphere of any of the breweries that we visited in the Morgantown, west Virginia area. And speaking of atmosphere, our sister I'm going to say it's a sister podcast of this podcast the Brewery Adventure.

Speaker 2 48:26

Oh yes.

Speaker 1 48:27

Featuring Minnesota Boy and Nneka MN. Their podcast is all about the ambiance of the brewery and this one and the toilets in the brewery yeah, they raid the toilets, or at least Tim does. The toilets in the brewery yeah, they, they, they rate the toilets, or at least tim does. And of the all the breweries I visited that weekend, short story brewing company was the best ambiance. The imagine. The whole brewery just covered. It's just windows, pretty much yep, like the outside walls are just windows and it's overlooking the river nice and you can have like, and there's a little bar area so you can just like look out to the river.

Speaker 1 48:59

Nice, and you can have like. And there's a little bar area so you can just like look out to the river while you're you're sipping on your beers. It was, it was really nice. So if you're a brewery fan in morgantown, you can't miss short story brewing and craig, since you're still there. Yeah, you got to get your pamante bro the sandwich and then afterwards you need to get a beer at short story brewing, because that was, that was a good one case today that may be the case, okay so that get.

Speaker 1 49:25

Apparently that was that was on Thursday exactly.

Speaker 2 49:28

Then we got into Friday. Friday we geocached around town a fair bit, yeah, yeah, yeah, we kept on geocaching and we also went to a few events as well. We went to different events, etc.

Speaker 1 49:37

As well yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember. I can't remember much of the morning of Friday, but we must have just went geocaching.

Speaker 2 49:45

Yeah, we geocached a lot on Friday. Yeah, we did, okay, and we also did the events as well. There was an event in the morning, an event in the afternoon, in the evening, and what happens with us, with events as well, josh, is that is, we'll get there, and literally, you and I, most sometimes this weekend anyway, we did, we parted ways a lot and we walked around separately and we met people separately, and and and and and that sort of thing too, which is really nice. But what I liked as well, and that is friday morning, they opened up for all their, everyone, to come and get their packages early, uh, the registration packs, yes, all that sort of stuff too. So, they, they, we did, we did that friday morning, that's what I forgot.

Country Roads Challenge and Brewery Visits

Speaker 2 50:20

We picked up the coin yes, and you picked up the coin that morning. Yes, exactly, there you go, josh, now you. Now you're understanding, because I liked it that way. That way it sort of spread it over the two days, you know what I mean. So you didn't have to worry about picking up coins and packages and stuff on the actual giga day on the saturday. On the giga day, you could just literally enjoy the gig of what it is. They had the vendors open, uh, for both days, the friday and saturday too, which is really nice, so you could actually get everything you need to get from all the vendors. There was heaps of vendors there too, which is awesome.

Speaker 2 50:51

They had the maze open as well both days to the the what do you call the gps maze? They had that open as well. And again, j Josh, you and I both featured in that maze too for this year, which is nice to see. So, yeah, we did that in the morning. And then, josh, we went geocaching and you had to dress up. Of course I did. You had to dress up because you had to do another video.

Speaker 1 51:16

Well, I knew there was a geocache. That was a target that I needed to visit, and actually this target was something I wanted to visit even before geocaching, because there wasn't always a geocache. So Morgantown, West Virginia, is the hometown of Don Knotts. Now Craig Craig's an Aussie. He doesn't really know a lot of American stuff like this.

Speaker 2 51:43

It's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. I know more American than you know Australian. This is true.

Speaker 1 51:50

This is not. That's not an accusation, but anybody who is mostly probably old my age and older knows about the andy griffith show. It's one of the most famous tv shows of all time, made in the 60s, with a very famous character played by the actor don knots, which is barney fife, the bumbling deputy of the town neighbor. And, fun fact, my geocaching name, before it was the geocaching vlogger, was mayberry man. Yes, that's fun trivia. People don't know that. And because I how much I love the andy griffin show and how much I love barney fife and I happened to have a barney fife costume in my closet just so many years, years since I put this thing on um, because I, I guess I'm I would say I'm a semi-professional Barney Fife impersonator.

Speaker 2 52:44

Well, after this weekend, you could probably tell that, with everyone getting autographs and photos and videos and yep, yep, Yep.

Speaker 1 52:53

Everything. Anyway, there's a statue downtown in front of the theater of Don Knotts, and it's a statue of Don as himself, but on his lap of the statue there's the barney, there's the deputy hat there, yes, yeah, and it's a virtual geocache. So not only did I have to get a picture there, but I had to. I'm gonna do a, I'm doing a full video video full video and I walk up to that thing in full costume and in full character, yeah, and I have to get my picture taken.

Speaker 1 53:23

I have to get a video and of course you know, there's thousands of geocachers that wanting to get this virtual too. So the whole time we were there there's geocachers, they're getting their, their picture taken and it was just utter joy that I had to be able to, like get photos with people. It with me and my barney five costume at the statue.

Speaker 2 53:42

It made that virtual probably hopefully even a better experience for those that that we're encountering and and I will say a big shout out to to Garnet, shane and Garnet, yes, great couple from, and also fellow patrons as well, ding ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding um ding, ding, ding, ding, ding ding.

Speaker 2 54:00

They supplied josh, because I'll tell you, okay, everyone doesn't know, but josh, josh is, is through and through a showman, I'll say that. And so he started and half an hour before we even, he even got dressed, he started with the character. He started with the character voice, he started with the character lines, he started with the character name. You then turned around, said does anyone have a nano or a bullet? I went what the heck are you talking? You talking about? And you go a nano, I need a bullet. It's a main character. He needs a bullet, he needs a bullet, he needs a bullet. You looked at where you could even buy a bullet. I mean because you can't fly with ammunition.

Speaker 1 54:30

Well, yeah, and I had a bullet. I had a bullet, but I had to take it out because I knew I'd get flagged approval recently, so that you can't lose that.

Speaker 2 54:39

So, uh, so, shane, I told shane and garnet about it while you were still sort of, you know, warming yourself up and stuff as well, and and they just so happened because you know they're from they're from louisiana, josh, so they've got these things at their disposal. Anyway, garnet went and got you a one bullet that you needed and she told me afterwards, josh, she said she felt a bit bad because it's it's an older bullet and so it had some tarnish on it and stuff too. So when you gave it back she said it was clean as a whistle. You use that that much. It was clean as a whistle.

Speaker 1 55:09

And the funny thing was it was a hollow tip. Yes, People that know ammo. But yeah, Barney never carried a hollow tip.

Speaker 2 55:17

But you know what I needed it.

Speaker 1 55:19

Craig, I was right because I turned you guys. I was like you guys, people are gonna ask me if I don't have a bullet. It's gonna get really kind of annoying. Yeah, people are gonna ask me barney, where's your bullet? Because the character barney is known to only carry. He carries a gun, but he doesn't put a bullet in his gun because andy the sheriff doesn't trust him. So he they give him one bullet and he carries it in his pocket. Wow, wow and so. But it was. I mean, if you look at any of the pictures on Facebook of me taking pictures, that bullet is perfect.

Speaker 2 55:47

I just have it right. It's right there.

Speaker 1 55:49

Prominently Exactly In all the photos.

Speaker 2 55:52

And you were going very geocache related too, because if you couldn't get a bullet, then you're going to try and get a nano from somewhere. That would have been cute, a geocaching nano as opposed to a bullet, which would have been cute as well. But either way, yeah, a lot of photos, a lot of videos, a video coming out on your channel in regards to that very soon.

Speaker 1 56:09

I dare say yeah probably in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 56:11

Yeah, a couple of weeks' time. That's really cool. But then, josh, there was a Munzee stuff as well. So there was a Munzee event straight after that, at the same time as the or straight after the geocaching event, because remember the geocaching event was along the wharf, that really nice wharf area.

Speaker 1 56:30

It was cool. Yeah, down by the river yeah, down by the river. No van, no van my van wasn't there.

Speaker 2 56:36

And then we walked to the Munzee event, which happened to be at that other brewery location too, which was nice, yeah. So we did that and we did a nice little walk along the river sort of area too. So that was really really nice, josh.

Speaker 1 56:47

You know, what was really funny about that Munzee event, craig, was that I didn't realize until afterwards that you and I co-hosted that event.

Speaker 2 56:56

Yeah, we did, yeah, we did. Rob didn't bother, telling us that we co-hosted.

Speaker 1 57:04

But yeah, apparently we co-hosted. So there we go, and down by the river was the other location of the mountain state brewing place. Yes, down there, and let me just say that place, um is mainly a restaurant and a brewery. Second, yeah, it is like it was people were there to eat, so it was very difficult to just get a drink, which is unfortunate. And here's Mountain State Brewing. If you're listening for your downtown location, have a place where people can just walk up to the bar and just order a beer and not have to fight through the people sitting at the bar.

Speaker 1 57:36

Have an area that says sign order beer here. They would sell so much more beer. Craig, that's right, because it was a little frustrating.

Speaker 2 57:45

It took me, josh. It took me 35 minutes to order and obtain my four drinks that I was buying for friends of mine as well. So I had four drinks over half an hour. It took over five minutes after they took my card to even pay for it, so their service wasn't up to scratch at all. I would not recommend um downtown area like that at all, to be honest with you they were busy they were busy, but it was clear that the priority was food.

Speaker 2 58:10

It wasn't yes, always, yeah, no, always food their priority. So, either way, we did that munzee event and then we moved on, because, we weren't having. We weren't having food there. Where did we eat, josh we?

Speaker 1 58:20

went to the greatest chain restaurant chain in america, where I am a stockholder, greg, and I'm not really, you know, we're always talking about hidden gems, you know. So we typically don't talk about going to chain restaurants but this one is very, very special and and it is of course you know I've been wanting to talk about Texas this whole time.

Speaker 2 58:43

Yeah, it was the.

Speaker 1 58:44

Texas Roadhouse.

Speaker 2 58:49

Now, I didn't even know this, this was great, craig. I didn't even know this, josh. I'll be honest, I didn't even know this, so I can actually talk about this. And that is. We go in there and it is chock-a-block full.

Speaker 1 59:07

They said go in there and it is chock-a-block full. Um, they said you know how many in your table? We said four. They said that you know 20 minute wait or whatever. Um, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait yeah, tip.

Speaker 2 59:11

Yeah, I actually did the little app and I got reservations for oh ahead of time, that's right.

Speaker 1 59:13

So I did that, but when we got there, we got there too soon, so we still had a, had a wait, had a wait, we didn't wait too long.

Speaker 2 59:18

Meanwhile, there's this, this, this what do you call this? Table opened up. We didn't wait too long. Meanwhile, there's this what do you call it? This table opened up. Now, I didn't even know. There's a thing called Willie's Corner.

Speaker 1 59:27

Yes, Is it in?

Speaker 2 59:29

every Texas roadhouse.

Speaker 1 59:30

Every Texas roadhouse has a Willie's.

Speaker 2 59:32

Corner has a Willie's Corner and basically it's Willie Nelson's Corner. Willie Nelson. Yeah, exactly, and I know Willie Nelson too. So anyway, this one opened up. You saw it, josh. Your eyes bugged open. You went straight over to the servers. You whispered something in their ear, I'm not sure what sort of secret hand.

Speaker 1 59:47

I'll tell you what I whispered. I'll tell you exactly what I did. I don't know. I'll reenact it right now.

Speaker 2 59:50

It was a secret handshake too, apparently.

Don Knotts Statue and Barney Fife Costume

Speaker 1 1:00:02

Well, I noticed that Willie's Corner just opened up. I love Texas Roadhouse. I have never gotten to sit in Willie's Corner. It would be amazing if somehow you could get our group into Willie's Corner and get this. I will post it on my Instagram. I will post it on my TikTok that I am in Willie's Corner, not saying how many followers I have. I didn't do that flex, but you never know, when you just throw that out, they could be thinking, oh my God, this guy is famous. If I deny him, he's going to go to Texas Roadhouse corporate and say we denied so-and-so Willie's corner. Well, we were not the next people to get to get any seat because it was very busy and the people they walked up to me, they they signaled over me, they're like hey, we're gonna put you in willie's corner, do not just keep it on the down low. Because you were, you were jumping in front of many, many groups to get a seat. And literally a minute later I said gentlemen, follow me. And we marched our way over to Willie's Corner.

Speaker 2 1:01:08

Meanwhile, josh, of course, keeping his promises as he does, he gets his phone out, starts recording oh, a geocaching vlogger here and I'm going to be at Willie's Corner. I sounded really old then. That sounded really old for you.

Speaker 1 1:01:19

Also, you made me sound like some sneaky Pete from Toy Story. I know Right over here in this corner.

Speaker 2 1:01:27

Wow, that's a horrible impersonation of me. Exactly. But the funny thing was everyone was watching you, everyone saw you. He phoned out and they thought, oh, who's this influencer? They call it. And we sat at Willie's Corner and did Willie's Corner impressed you, josh it impressed, you did it yeah, I didn't realize that because I never sat in over there.

Speaker 1 1:01:47

No, I didn't realize. The whole table was just like photos of willie.

Speaker 2 1:01:52

Yeah, like the table was willie and a big, big photo of willie right in the middle as well, willie, and there's a neon sign above you that says willie's corner.

Speaker 1 1:02:01

Yeah, so that was a bucket list checked off for me.

Speaker 2 1:02:05

I had a lot of joy sitting in willie's corner yeah, I think he enjoyed you having you sit in his corner as well. Meanwhile, josh, we moved in, we went back and didn't, didn't do the hot tub thing, we went back and it was empty.

Speaker 2 1:02:16

It was empty we had a chat and we did uh, did other things as well and then Saturday rolled around. It was the big day on Saturday, the big day. Now. Before we move on, I will say we have been an hour talking already. Josh, I'm going to say this and that is let's keep going, let this episode be longer than normal, because it deserves it. It's a big, big event. It's a big event. So Gio Woodstock rolled around. The big day, the main event, the head honcho of events. So tell us about your opinion of Geo Woodstock. Firstly, the hall itself and the location and the parking. I got us Me, not Joshua, not the Geocachian vlogger, no See, my Shell got us staff parking. Yes, because that's what I do best. I I that.

Speaker 2 1:03:03

That was what they call clutch that was clutch staff parking and the reason for it is because, um, the, the ambassador, the uh, the, the organizers and hosts really looked after all their ambassadors. Josh, they had ambassadors from every state and almost every country around the world um, you know, spruiking uh, jill, woodstock, uh, what we're going to be doing, and stuff like that too, and so having different events, like post events, pre events, and so I was happy and proud to be one of those ambassadors and so all the ambassadors got part of the staff parking. So I can't really say that. You know, I was singled out, but I will say they did, they did do a big shout out to all the ambassadors to thank them for all their hard work and, yeah, we got staff parking, so I was happy with that.

Speaker 1 1:03:46

Okay, that was awesome, that was clutch, yeah, so there was so much to do and see just inside the giant building yes, first of all, big kudos to the planning committee. Oh yeah, this kid is like Reese's age. He's like. What Is he like? 24 years old, he's 24. He's 24. And he pulled off with his team. Just an incredible event. Yes, parking was. There was a lot of parking. Parking wasn't bad.

Speaker 2 1:04:22

I didn't hear one person complain. No, not one For anyone parking right out the back as well. They actually had a bus that was Shuttle, a shuttle bus coming to and from the parking that was right out the back. So yeah, that was really cool.

Speaker 1 1:04:35

So I mean, if you've never been to these events before, especially this one which was a gig event 5 000 more people, it's basically. It's basically geocaching con, it's a geocaching convention. Geocon, geocon that's actually a good idea. Maybe we should start an actual geocon. I I do think, wouldn't it be amazing to do something like geocon, where it was like geocaching? It was munzee, it was pokemon go yes, it was like all the location gates games in one place and you could probably get 20 000 people there.

Speaker 1 1:05:07

Yeah, um, but that's a dream anyway. Look at that geocon. It's us geocon. Let's start it. It's our new.

Speaker 2 1:05:16

It's my new part-time job had to be a full-time job at the end yeah, right, so what we have?

Speaker 1 1:05:22

we have vendors, we have people selling geocaches, we have geocoins, we have everything you can imagine geocaching you could purchase there.

Speaker 2 1:05:31

Yeah, and there's always vendors at almost all mega events, but this one had like a lot, like yes, like more than 20 probably way more than 20 like different uh vendors and stuff as well and I found that all the vendors they were all different and had their own little things, and if some vendors had similar items, similar items, they were put away from each other as well, which is really nice to see. So they weren't actually right next door to their competitors, you know, in brackets, so to speak. So it was really nice that you could literally walk around everywhere and see everything different, everything new. They had 3D printing stuff. They had ammo boxes and gadget caches as well. From CacheCraft, delisa was there selling her subscription boxes. That she does. You've got Art and Craft with their T-shirts, josh. We even had our good friend, jeff that was there from Cache the Line, and he was doing his new geocaching game, like Pokemon Go on cards. That he does too. It looked really good.

Speaker 1 1:06:29

It looked really good looked really really put together something really neat. If I was smart enough to play it, I would yeah I know I had no clue either.

Speaker 2 1:06:37

I have no. All I know is that I did. I discovered he's uh trackable, that he'd hidden on the on his banner and and got a card from him too, so that yeah, and I'm in the game.

Speaker 1 1:06:46

I'm in the game. There's like geocaching vlogger cards.

Speaker 2 1:06:49

I hope this game really takes off because those cards are going to be probably really valuable yeah, yeah, but maybe not yours, because you're everywhere, all the places everywhere, so probably that was cool they had, I love they had down the middle they had all geocoins sort of stuff and also tourism based things as well, so not geocaching related. Um other vendors that weren't actual geocaching related vendors as well, like you had West Virginia Tim there with his gadget tour and things like that too, like the geo tour stuff as well.

Speaker 1 1:07:20

Yeah, the Homa people were there. They were talking about their geo tour as well. Yeah, so much to see and just to look at all those geocoins. It was just like really fun to look at them. I wish I had craig. I wish I had another day, because we were we I didn't have time to do everything. No, because mostly, mostly, I was just, I was talking to people most of the time I was in there. Yeah, there was a huge trackable area where it was like a huge trackable exchange area, but then there was also like places where people like put big things that they could, that they could discover. There was like a like a traffic pylon that people could discover. Yeah, that was really fun.

Speaker 2 1:08:01

When you're talking about the trackable area, josh, I will say as well a big thank you to all the volunteers.

Speaker 2 1:08:06

There are hundreds of volunteers at all these uh, all these big events as well, and a big shout out to them, because without them, these big events wouldn't occur. There were some volunteers, josh, at this trackable table in particular, and what had happened is you'd go there with a handful of trackables one or 50, it doesn't matter how many you got. You'd hand them in and you drop them off in the app. So you drop them at the event the actual trackables, the volunteers. Josh would go through every single trackable and to see where it needed to go in its goal. They would then sort it out as to different big buckets if it needed to go to Australia or New Zealand or different countries or different states, or even north or south or just anywhere, and they'd put them in these different buckets. So later on in the day before you're leaving, if you're going back to Wyoming, for instance, then you go to the Wyoming bucket and you grab a handful out of the Wyoming bucket.

Speaker 1 1:08:57

I thought that was a great idea, so smart, I think, that they put them in Ziploc bags too.

Speaker 2 1:09:03

Yeah, they shaped them up as well. They cleaned them up and made them really nice. So literally it was a resort. It was a trackable resort where they got all spa. A trackable spa that's a good idea. Trackable spa that's exactly what it was. So that was really cool. Then, josh, uh, they also had another big area where you had the lineup, I will say all the lines. They did really well with the actual, the snaking of the lines as well. They had actual like, like taped out, like you would at a theme park, where you could literally follow the snake line to uh, so you wouldn't have to worry about oh, are you next in line? Are you next in line? No, you don't have to worry about that. But with the adventure labs, they had a very big section there with all the physical hand gadget adventure labs that you walk through as well, which is cool yeah, it was really cool.

Speaker 1 1:09:47

I think they were emphasizing the history of geocaching, like the last 25 years of geocaching, so you just like walked around and you could discover each little. They were kind of like geocaching artifacts. There was like yes magazine and there was like gantt caches in there and they're like kind of like puzzle, simple puzzles um, it was really cool and so super organized that people just kind of could walk through it, yes, rather than like everybody like crowding around it. That was really smart. And then, as we said before too, the gps maze when there was in there, which is basically like a moving geocaching museum yes, talking about the history of geocaching and stuff like that um and then craig, there was the main stage oh yes, our favorite and again, though, the main stage.

Geo Woodstock Main Event Highlights

Speaker 2 1:10:33

It was in the middle of the, the back of the room, but in the middle as well, and so I feel like you know it was. It was very front and center, so you saw it as you first walked in and you knew where the main stage was, and everything else is on to the left or to the right, so the main stage was the focal point, I do believe, of the actual event, which is good to see. You know, people were, people were sitting down there, even with nothing on stage. People were using that area to sit and to talk and to chat and to sort of mingle too. So, yeah, I like that.

Speaker 1 1:10:58

And so at 12.15, we arrived on stage and we recorded. I'll put it in quotes we did record it, we did.

Speaker 2 1:11:10

The Treasures of Our Town. We performed quotes, we did record it.

Speaker 1 1:11:11

We did, we treasures of our town, we performed. We performed the treasures of our town podcast, geocat uh, geo, woodstock edition. Uh, there was, uh, it was so fun, craig, this was the best of the three because there was not an open seat in the place they were almost standing room only as people were just watching us. Yeah, talk, yep, watching us.

Speaker 2 1:11:31

And doing the Adventure Lab. That's what they were doing.

Speaker 1 1:11:34

Meanwhile, here's a statistic.

Speaker 2 1:11:35

What a great idea here's a statistic I know and it was yours, and that is with the Adventure Labs as stats. You can see the stats on the Adventure Labs as well. The statistic is that it was 635 logs on our Adventure Labs. That's a lot. 635 people were there to watch and listen, because we know they were there to watch and listen, because they had to be there to open it up. They had to be there to log it and then we closed it off after it finished. So that was 635 in total.

Speaker 2 1:12:04

Josh, I'm not sure if you were aware or not, but I did give away as well a prize for the first to find of the last one. Yes, did give away as well a prize for their first to find of the last one. Yes, and congratulations as well to Chihuahua, jill, I think, is the name. I can't even remember the name, I didn't even put it on the log. But, josh, here we go. I was giving away a one year's premium membership, you know, because that's normally. Normally, josh, that's easy to do on the website. Oh, totally Not anymore.

Speaker 1 1:12:29

What.

Speaker 2 1:12:30

Yes, site Not anymore what?

Speaker 1 1:12:31

You can't just buy somebody a.

Speaker 2 1:12:32

No, I've been in talks with Geocaching HQ and they don't have it anymore, so you can't Mind you. You can buy someone an actual physical gift card and have it posted to them, but you can't do it digitally. So headquarters.

Speaker 1 1:12:47

Why do you want to make things more difficult?

Speaker 2 1:12:50

If you're listening, if you're listening, get your act together when it comes to that and you'll sell a lot more premium memberships. Meanwhile, josh, I'm so I'm sending her a 30 gift card to the store instead.

Speaker 1 1:13:00

So, okay, that way yeah, that's nice of us. Yes, yes, she was first to find of the.

Speaker 2 1:13:04

She was first to find and, and she's a patron of ours too, and the reason, perfect the reason j, you ready for this?

Speaker 2 1:13:10

Because I spoke to her the reason why she was first to find. She was first to find because she found the last question or the last answer, and they were very ambiguous. These answers were extremely ambiguous, but she found the last one before we even announced it by. She listens to us every single episode. She listens to. She knows you, she knows me, she knows what we're like, and so when we come to being the number one, she started typing the word you. She started typing the word uh, geocacher. She started typing or something to do. She goes these boys, it is to do with us, it's to do with the people, people, it's. So she started just just chucking words in there to do with people, and then, when she put geocaches one word then it came through and she got FTF on it too. So there you go.

Speaker 1 1:13:56

It pays to listen to this podcast, that's right. And good guess.

Speaker 2 1:14:01

Yes, great guess, great guess. And I will say Josh as well, when she came up to me. Guess what?

Speaker 1 1:14:06

What.

Speaker 2 1:14:07

She was proud.

Speaker 1 1:14:08

She was so proud of this podcast and she was probably proud proud of herself as well.

Speaker 2 1:14:13

That's right, and that's a rare thing these days. See, I'm doing it for you now, josh.

Speaker 1 1:14:16

Damn rare thing these days.

Speaker 2 1:14:18

Yes One thing, one thing I'll say as well. Josh, when we were doing that live podcast and you came up to that line that you normally do and you were talking about Mark we're, we're talking about Mark, we're talking to Mark we had Mark on stage as well, yeah, and you looked at Mark and then four people I listened to four people simultaneously said he's proud of it, he's proud of his town. That's a rare thing Four people.

Speaker 1 1:14:39

I know Tivia was one of them. Yes, she was, and because I was slowly setting it up. Oh you were. We wanted to thank him. We wanted to thank him, but the whole reason we brought him up there was to be able to do that. But the people that listened to the podcast got ahead of me.

Speaker 2 1:15:00

They scooped me, just like Minnesota Boy scooped my video. That was funny to say. I heard it by four different people from all different angles and I looked around and I just laughed and went wow, these people, josh, they start to learn you. They really do they learn us.

Speaker 1 1:15:13

It's so funny when I did the AI cartoon of the podcast that I sent you I had people hold a sign that says they're proud of their time.

Speaker 2 1:15:20

I like that, and then another one said see my shell forever. Yes, well, I am, I am, let's be honest. But meanwhile, josh, that was Munstock in a nutshell no that was. Geowoodstock, geowoodstock, geowoodstock. Sorry, munstock, wow, I'm looking for different Geowoodstock.

Speaker 1 1:15:37

In a nutshell, and again, if you want to see, more the full one-hour-long live stream is on the links in the show notes You'll get to see all of that. It is, it's so much fun.

Speaker 2 1:15:51

It is so much fun. We went to the vip area too, even though we weren't vips. Yeah, we did, we did, you even did the moonwalk backward. You ended the moonwalk backward through the out of there through the adventure labs, through the adventure labs to to get that on on film too.

Speaker 1 1:15:59

So to walk through backwards. So then we were hungry, we we left, the woodstock was still going. We didn't even get to hear the announcement of the next dealilwood stock because we were. I mean, it's like, I mean social battery. I mean I'm, I can be an outgoing guy and I can turn it on, yeah, but man talking to hundreds of people in such a short amount of time, I was, I was tired and I was hungry, yeah. So you know, when we're on these trips we're like we always want to get a little. You know, we want to get pizza once. We always want to get, uh, you know, mexican ones which we did.

Speaker 1 1:16:34

We did later you know, we we want to get a little bit of everything, um, and so we just went to good old jersey mike's yeah not much to say about that, no that's it done.

Speaker 2 1:16:45

Jersey, mike's, I had to wrap you how you guys had subs, that's, that's easy easy and then easy.

Speaker 1 1:16:50

And then we went geocaching. Remember, we went geocaching. We got our band photo.

Speaker 2 1:16:54

That's right, we went to a couple other geocaches.

Speaker 1 1:16:56

There were some great geocaches, Bye. And then we got hungry again and we went to a Mexican restaurant which is great Homemade guac, I think they just made it right.

Speaker 2 1:17:08

there, they made guac. I think they just made it right there, they made it right there. It was delicious.

Speaker 1 1:17:11

Yep, and then we went to Munstock.

Speaker 2 1:17:12

Munstock. What Munstock was was a Munzee version of Geo Woodstock. Josh, I'm going to say these are big numbers too that we had at the Munzee events. You know big for Munzee, munzee Mega event, if people don't know, mun to geocaching, so 50 people is a munzee mega event. We had over 70 people at these events. That's good. So that's really good. Munzee, really really well done. And uh, and I said g'day to everyone that attended all the the munzee events as well um, and it was good to see that this, especially geo woodstock, josh, it tends to you tend to find people that downloaded munzee years ago. Yeah, and, and, like me, I was the same and then I went there. It was not really for me and I left it go. And then something happens and you come back into the game and you go. What? This game is so different now. It is so changed, it clicks it's like wow this is fun.

Speaker 2 1:18:06

Wow, this is fun. Now it's more of a virtual sort of style game. It's more competition based.

Speaker 1 1:18:10

It's more like a video game. It's more in the real world there's, there's cute characters as well.

Speaker 2 1:18:15

So, and and as you always say, josh, uh, if, if pokemon go and geocaching had a love child, that would be munzee. So yes, that's.

Speaker 1 1:18:24

That's. That's a good, it's a great description.

Speaker 2 1:18:26

It's a great description of it. It's exactly what it is, and if you're a geocacher out there listening to this and you want to get back into Munzee, I think you could even just download the app and have a look. Have a look for yourself, see the changes. So that was it for that. And then Josh, and then we went to Midnight Madness.

Speaker 2 1:18:41

Now, if people don't know Geo Woodstock have these traditions. Geo Woodstock has a tradition of a midnight madness, and midnight madness is always traditionally for an area where it's a path tag trade, it's a geocoin trade, that sort of thing too. So, and it's always uh, afterwards it's it's not at midnight, it goes from 8 pm to midnight. Um, so it is, it is not, doesn't start at midnight, so you can be there at 8 pm and I'll be there for half an hour, it's up to you. Um, you'd have to be there till midnight itself, but it is a traditionally. It's a great location for path tag swaps and for social interaction. Where you don't have josh, you don't have the tb uh table there, you don't have the adventure labs, you don't have all that stuff for vendors. You know, it's literally just a room full of geocaches talking and swapping and trading.

Speaker 2 1:19:26

But they did it slightly different this time. They had a poker competition as well, uh, whereby entry entry for the poker competition was three unactivated jercoins was your entry fee right? And then, once the the, the winner pretty much takes all of the actual unactivated jercoins. Guess who won? Josh? You're my good, my good friend, shane, from shane and garn, he took out the win and won. I think it was 47. Wow In total. Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:19:55

Which is over a value of over $500.

Speaker 2 1:19:58

Absolutely, absolutely, so that was really cool for him. Meanwhile, while that was happening, you and I, josh, we're back on stage. We're back on stage. What?

Midnight Madness and Family Feud Victory

Speaker 1 1:20:06

do we do? What do we do? Entertaining the people? We were back on stage at Midnight Madness and, by the way, we should say that Midnight Madness took place. I like when they kind of take us to different places. Yes, took us to the University of West Virginia. Yeah, we were in like their commons area. Yes, like their student union.

Speaker 2 1:20:23

I feel like it was yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:20:26

And there was a theater in there. And we theater in there and we got to take part in geocaching family feud.

Speaker 2 1:20:38

Yes, I loved it. I loved it. And so what? What? Everyone knows what family feud is, surely? Uh, if you don't, then yeah, you have a look. But uh, but it was us, so it was yourself, me.

Speaker 2 1:20:45

We had jeff from from cash the line. We had hailmeister from geocaching with hailmeister, and we had Chris from Chris of the Northwest podcast on our side. On the other side, we had two lackeys and three reviewers, I do believe. Well, three lackeys and two reviewers, one of the two and Josh. All I'll say is this you and the team, we wiped the floor with the lackeys and the reviewers. We cleaned up, we won, literally. We wiped the floor with the lackeys and the reviewers. We cleaned up, we cleaned up, we won. Literally, we won. We didn't just win, we went by miles. All thanks to not me, because I did not get one answer correct. I had a buzzer after buzzer after buzzer and I even said something very, very silly to begin, because I didn't even know what I said until I said it and I literally collapsed on the floor in front of people in embarrassment.

Speaker 1 1:21:32

And people booed you.

Speaker 2 1:21:34

They booed you. They did. They booed me a lot. Can I tell them what it was?

Speaker 1 1:21:38

I'm from Australia, absolutely the question was name a type of container that would be considered a small.

Speaker 2 1:21:44

Yes.

Speaker 1 1:21:45

And you said nano, nano.

Speaker 2 1:21:47

All I heard was all in my mind at the time. All I heard was like something the smallest A small container. The smallest geocontainer. I heard smallest geocontainer and that's where I went nano. And then, as soon as I said nano, I went, oh, hang on. Then it clicked that I registered. I literally didn't listen. Probably People booed you, and then I, yeah. Then I collapsed in front of everyone. I even got in first with the buzzer and everything. I did all that right and then totally incorrect answer. I had nothing to do with it.

Speaker 1 1:22:13

You came back to the table. You were sitting right next to me and I whispered to you sit down, Go back to the audience. You're off our team.

Speaker 2 1:22:23

But I will say, Josh, I will say this I don't care how people laugh at me, if they laugh at me or with me, as long as they're laughing, and that's all that matters, that's true, and it makes for good content.

Speaker 2 1:22:32

It makes for good content. It was fun. And you can't have the mountains, josh, like yourself, or Chris of the Northwest you two with our mountains in our team you can't have the mountains without the valleys. I'm the valley, this is true, and you're the valley and you're the mountains the northwest as well. You guys did our, our bonus round fast money, fast money bonus round and and josh won it. On the very, very, very last answer, everyone was on the, you know, shaking their boots and yeah, and we came through for the win.

Speaker 1 1:23:04

So it made it more entertaining. It was like there was this like are we gonna? Actually it couldn't have like, it couldn't have like worked better no, no, it was not at all not.

Speaker 2 1:23:13

It was so much fun.

Speaker 1 1:23:14

It was that was neat um and yeah, we, we beat. We beat the lackeys and the reviewers and the people, like the people didn't want us to win it.

Speaker 2 1:23:22

No, of course, not, of course, not of course they did, but, josh, you know why?

Speaker 1 1:23:26

here's my, here's my theory of why they want us to win because they called call us influencers. I know I don't like that word. That has like a negative connotation to it. I don't like that word. They should have called us content creators.

Speaker 2 1:23:37

Even content creators or media. I like media. Media we're education, media, we're media people.

Speaker 1 1:23:42

We do our own media. People are like I don't like influencers. Because they don't like yeah they were not on our side, You'd think they would have been but I think they came around, I think, once we went into the fast money round.

Speaker 2 1:23:57

Well, josh, I'm not sure if I told you this or not, but word has it. I had a little earpiece, you know when you're a fly on the wall. I had a little fly on the wall, josh, at the lackeys and the reviewers afterwards. This is like hours afterwards, lackeys and the reviewers afterwards this is like hours afterwards. A little fly on the wall there told me that they were saying that that they wanted it was rigged and they wanted the influencers to win so we could talk good about jill woodstock not true not true at all.

Speaker 2 1:24:25

We won, we're just better, that's all we know things. We know what the people want. The lackeys and reviewers don't. Anyway, moving on from that, yeah, we're players, hold on.

Speaker 1 1:24:42

We're players. Why weren't they cheering? We're the players. Yeah, we're for the people. We're the voice of the people.

Speaker 2 1:24:50

That's right. Yeah, I play. I play every single day.

Speaker 1 1:24:52

Yeah, why were people? It felt like people were against us.

Speaker 2 1:24:56

That's okay. That's okay, all right. I'm used to it, me too. All right. Then we went and did our woes with some chicken strips downtown.

Speaker 1 1:25:05

Morgantown. It was like Cane's.

Speaker 2 1:25:13

It was like uh, canes, it was like canes, but it was like more like it's called lanes. It was called. It was called lanes not canes. So it was I'm serious knockoff it was a knockoff of raising canes. It was, you know, raising lanes so it's so funny.

Speaker 1 1:25:23

It reminds me of that movie. You remember the movie coming to america?

Speaker 2 1:25:26

yeah, the guy the guy owned a restaurant.

Speaker 1 1:25:29

It was called was called McDowell's no.

Speaker 2 1:25:30

McDowell's. Mcdowell's, that's right, mcdowell's, they don't have the Big Mac.

Speaker 1 1:25:34

They have the Big Mick.

Speaker 2 1:25:35

That's right, that's the one. That's the one, exactly the same. I liked it and yeah, so Jeff came with us as well. We had a nice meal there, with some chicken strips.

Speaker 1 1:25:46

I was hungry. Again I was hungry. A lot of socializing.

Speaker 2 1:25:49

I was really hungry, I know, I know.

Speaker 1 1:25:51

Last day, Craig.

Speaker 2 1:25:52

Last day and again with tradition, josh, of Jill Woodstock. So the day after Jill Woodstock they always do a host and another event called Breakfast with the Mamas. This started back in Jill Woodstock day one, where two women literally were the mamas and they hosted a breakfast after the big day. That's all, it was mamas and they hosted a breakfast after the big day. That's that's all it was, and so it's become now a geo woodstock, a tradition whereby you must host a breakfast with a mama's event, uh, the morning afterwards, and they have like pancakes. They had stuff like that too, which is delicious, so we had to go and have breakfast with the mamas, and then, straight after that, uh well, alongside that a bit of different, slightly different location there was another Munzee event there as well too, so it was fun.

Speaker 1 1:26:31

Yep, and then we had to go.

Speaker 2 1:26:34

Yes, which was the saddest part. We had to part ways, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:26:38

And that was it.

Speaker 2 1:26:40

That was it. That was Jewel Woodstock.

Speaker 1 1:26:41

To summarize it to summarize it, the event was great. Yeah, the location was great. It was a little soggy at first, but the weather was just getting better and better. But we don't talk about the weather on this podcast had a great time. Yeah, it was really a lot of fun. It was so I recommend y'all, if you ever get a chance to go to a Giga event, no matter where it is.

Speaker 1 1:27:03

Yeah, I highly recommend, highly suggest. It is a GeoCon, it's a Geo convention and you're going to everybody I talk to. Even people are still basking in the glow on social media still talking about it. The Geo Woodstock community group on Facebook is still very active as people are talking about what a great time it was. And again, congratulations.

Speaker 2 1:27:26

Thank you so much to all the organizers for a great, great time, A highlight of my year for sure, yes, and don't forget that next year, gl Woodstock is located in Hutchinson in Kansas, and if you've never been to Kansas, for instance, and you want to go to Hutchinson, kansas, it's a place to go because, josh, there is a webcam just up the road at a place where you want to go. You've been trying to go for years now. That is, you can do up the road at a place where you want to go. You've been trying to go for years now, and that is, you do it on the yellow brick road, josh, yeah, yeah, it's a wizard of oz.

Speaker 2 1:27:57

So the wizard of oz is just up the road, and then, just up the road as well, you'll have the world's oldest active physical geocache called mingo. So if you haven't got that one yet either, then then this is the time to go, josh. You got those three big things happening right there in the middle of Kansas, and people may think you know, oh, it's Kansas, it's in the middle of nowhere, it's a flyover state, you know those sort of things, but no, it is what you make it, and I do believe that between the Wizard of Oz stuff and the original, the Mingo, the world's oldest active geocache- that original, the mingo, the world's oldest active geocache, that's going to bring a few players into, uh, into hutchinson in kansas for next year.

Speaker 1 1:28:41

And I believe the closest international airport is wichita, wichita it is. It's been a bit since wichita, wichita. It's fun to say wichita, wichita I like it.

Speaker 2 1:28:46

I like it just. Either way. I'll probably be still in my van by that time anyway, so I'll be driving around. That's what I'll be doing, exactly, exactly, all right, josh, speaking of patrons as well, and we saw a lot of patrons. We did say we did see a lot of patrons at Jill Woodstock and we do thank them for everything they do. And, as you saw, josh a patron won the FTF because they're a patron. Saw Josh a patron won, won the FTF because they're a patron, because they know us, because they learned us, but they know what we're like, they know what we're after, and also they got to see behind the curtain. If people want that, josh, how can they go about doing that sort of stuff?

Speaker 1 1:29:22

Well, if you've been joining our podcast, we certainly would enjoy and appreciate your support. This is a fully listener-supported podcast. Yeah, by supporting us, you help us to keep podcasting, make content better and better. No commercials, so please consider joining us. You get golden nuggets behind-the-scenes footage, as Craig said, so join us at patreoncom backslash treasures of our town. You can find us there and there are several levels to support us, and we would really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 1:29:54

Thank you so much, and Josh. How can people find us, though, if they wish to find us from there?

Speaker 1 1:29:58

Feel free to reach out to us at treasures of our town podcast at gmailcom, or you can follow us on Facebook, instagram, x and YouTube YouTube, youtube. Youtube YouTube you hot tub. Youtube U-Tub U-Tub U-Hot Tub U-Hot Tub U-Hot Tub. It's a new website, no, or, or, just search Treasures of Our Town podcast on Google and it'll take you to our Buzzsprout page and there's a little thing you can click there and you can connect with us directly there as well.

Speaker 2 1:30:26

Perfect, perfect.

Speaker 1 1:30:32

So that's it for today. Please subscribe, rate and review on your favorite podcasting app and, as always, josh, may your travels always lead you to the most unexpected and amazing hidden gems around the world. With 5,000 plus people. See you next time, everybody.

Speaker 2 1:30:42

Bye.