Moga 2015

I know this is a bit late for any major discussion and that some may not see it until after the fact, but we are planning to head out tomorrow morning (Thursday the 19th) to cache our way to Jackson, MO to attend our second mega event and first MOGA. Just curious as to whom else is planning to attend and whether you are planning to participate in the challenges. We are planning to cache our rear ends off and meet as many other cachers as we possibly can but are not participating in the specific challenges. Hope to see a lot of our ArkGeo comrades there! Happy Caching Y'all!!! :D

I'll be there.

Come on up! There are over 200 new caches in place around the Jackson/Cape area. In addition there are 20 "kids" caches and 10 LAB caches. And then all the other existing caches around town too.

We'll be heading down Friday morning and looking forward to to seeing our ArkGeo friends too.

RGS - St. Louis

I'm not going to be able to make this one, but one of my TBs is there :-)

This was my first MOGA. We had a great but semi-exhausting time. This was also my first MEGA event and I learned some lessons which will help me better enjoy future large scale events.

Work always causes me issues with free time. It is hard for me to get time off so it required my driving up on Saturday morning. KSDS, Butch 724, KNK, and myself took off at 02:45AM Saturday morning and headed up to MOGA. I attempted to lay down at 7PM the night before but you know how that goes. I couldn't get my mind off the event so I tossed and turned all night.

We loaded up at "O Dark Thirty" and hit the road. The drive up was event free (no traffic) which was a good thing and we pulled into the Drury Inn about 07:45AM. To my surprise, the parking lot was not very crowded. We exited the Tahoe and conducted a few stretching exercises to loosen up. LOL! The registration area was clearly marked so no need to test my navigation skills this early in the morning. Took a second to get inside though because KSDS, KNK, and Butch were running about the parking lot snapping picture of all the travel bug stickers. Just like kids in a candy store.

The registration process was quick and before I knew it I had a bag in hand with all my goodies. I thought there might be a few more vendors but I had no idea what to expect. I made some purchases at a couple booths and began to wander while waiting on the others. At that point, I spotted Woodwalker and Mathseeker. Sweet! People I know. I walked over to them and asked when they arrived and what they had done all the while I was getting jealous because they had a couple days on me.

We finally made it out the door and had a goal of completing the Tomb Geoart caches along with the Iron Mountain Trailway caches. We completed that mission by the end of day 1.

On day 2 we focused our attention on all the new "large sized containers" posted by MOGA. Of course, I had to grab a few puzzle caches too and we snagged several of those since we had solved them prior to the trip.

We left the Jackson area around 1PM headed for the Kentucky border to grab a couple caches in that state.

Overall it was a great weekend. I would recommended that any new member reading this try and attend a MOGA if you have the means. I believe it will be in Cincinnati, OH next year. It's only a 9 hours drive. LOL!

The primary lessons I learned as a first time MEGA event attendee were the following. 1) Book your hotel more than a 45 days out. I booked mine at exactly 45 days out and got lucky finding a room. 2) Spend more than one night. We had a great time but we had to pack a lot of stuff in a short period. I did do half of the things I would have liked to have done. 3) Optimize your route. The geoart had your running all over the place to gather the caches. We ran across several groups that added the cache locations in a route optimizer to give them the quickest and best route. 4) Plan your mealtime. The area was flooded with people. You can imagine what happens when everyone tries to eat at the traditional 5PM. 5) Allow yourself to see the sights. Don't get so focused on making 300 finds and ignoring what the area has to offer. Set reasonable goals and adhere to them.

It was a great time and I'm glad I went.

Just a quick note. I will add more later but we are back from MOGA MOGA MOGA! We had a great time and will share our adventures in another post. Looking forward to hearing about the many MOGA adventures!

Arkansas was well represented at MOGA 2015, with many attendees from our fair state.

AND
Arkansans (and a former Arkansan) did well in the competition!

Coon&Bud tied for first in the costume contest, and then won the 1st place trophy by audience acclimation!

Team Griswold (Clark~Griswold and son Rusty) placed first in the Team Competition for Two-Person Teams, Ages 30 - 49

Team Anasazi (Sjclimber and, yours truly, Old River Runner) placed first in the Team Competition for Two-Person Teams, Ages 50 and older


Woo Hoo!

Go Arkansas Geocachers!

Arkansas cachers definitely rocked MOGA competitions. Congrats to Coon&Bud on the costume contest and Clark Griswold, Rusty, SJClimber, and OldRiverRunner on your great competitive achievements. The terrain within the park where the caching competitions were held, was a challenge in itself. Great job!

We had a great time caching and enjoying fellowship. At the Flash Mob Event Thursday night, shortly after we arrived in Missouri, we ran into a cacher from Virginia whom we met in February while on a cruise. It sure is a small world!

Ditto what ORR said.......GO ARKANSAS CACHERS!

Congrats to all of you that placed. We were there for the tie breaking decision of the costume competition and made sure to yell good and loud. It was great seeing all the Arkansas winners. Great Job All!

Alrighty, time to tell the tale that was MOGA 2015 for Buckshot/MamaLlama.

Wednesday evening before planning to head out on Thursday morning we received notification of a new cache listing and decided right then that we would have to make the detour to get the possible FTF as we headed out. Glad that we did because the FTF was also our 1300th find. Then it was off to MOGA. Several hours and caches later we arrived in Cape Girardeau bubbling with excitement.

Friday morning the excitement was still overflowing as we made our first official MOGA appearance at a breakfast meet and greet where we met lots of new cachers and saw a few familiar faces. ML was able to make several pathtag trades and put some faces to some of the pathtags she had already acquired. Then we were off to the caches. We grabbed a few caches nearby but then headed to the start of the IMTW rail road series picking up a few caches on the way. The day was a bit overcast and windy and ML decided to stay warm in the MCU with one daughter as the other daughter and I headed out to grab the rail caches. After grabbing the first two or three caches it was decided that ML would take the MCU to the other end of the trail to wait for us and that daughter and I would make the entire run. Man, what a long walk that was but we got everyone of them as well as met and spoke with lots of cachers along the way. After a much needed rest and refuel, we grabbed a few more caches in the area and then made our way to the pre-MOGA event to get registered and meet up with friends. We had not been in the event area for very long when familiar faces start popping up and then one particular face decked out in his finest egyptian costume showed up. Spent some time perusing the vendors and helping cousin coon&bud campaign for best costume. Then it was just simply rest from the day although we really wanted to get out do some more caching. Finally we had dinner with c&b, bUTCH46, and hopalong2k before crashing in exhaustion back at the hotel.

Saturday it was jump up and and get rolling as soon as we could. Thanks to Apache Scout & Sioux-ZQ for an updated route for the tomb caches that was much better than what I had come up with, we were able to run the tomb caches in a little over 3 1/2 hours. We again met and spoke with a lot of great cachers along the way. After the tomb caches we were running all over the Jackson area looking for the Pharaoh caches before it was time to head to the MOGA ceremonies event. The goal for the day was for a personal best of at least 100 caches. The 90 tomb caches beat our previous best day of 75 caches. Before the day was through we had made it to 102! At the event things just kept us hyped up the entire time. Cousin coon&bud won the trophy for best costume by audience cheer vote after a tie ballot vote, Ark Geo members (The Griswolds and Old River Runner) won in the team competitions. We finished the day with dinner with c&b, bUTCH, hopalong, and Yazz before a second night of falling into bed in blissful exhaustion.

Sunday morning we were up and running to get packed up and checked out of the hotel before heading to the Brawny Bear and MadChef breakfast event. Then it was run, run, run grabbing as many more of the Pharaoh caches as we could. Then there was the CITO event and the wind down flash mob and a few group caching experiences before we all had to start making our separate ways for the day. Our plan was to add another state to our souvenirs and head home by way of Kentucky.

Trip summary: An FTF for our 1300th find, our first MOGA event, very long hobo hike on the rail road, personal best of 102 caches in a day, Ark Geo well represented, new souvenirs and four states in one afternoon, 200+ caches in one weekend, and 2 1/2 days to catch up on logs. Awesome Weekend!

Thank you all for the update. Reading posts like these help newbies want to jump into Mega events although I would still be overwhelmed. Sounds like many folks had a great time and were a credit to AR cachers.