The EVENT !

     Since the S..W.A.G. Yuma Event #9 is my first event as a Geocacher, I am pretty excited to meet people and hear their stories.  The day is sunny and a bit cool which is perfect.  Many had gathered in the parking lot by 8 am and you can tell that most of them were friends from past caching events.  From this day on, this will be Us, the trio of SchnauzerQueen, WeenieQueen and myself, BeachBounde34, hooking up with friends from other events.

     Registration opened and had everyone who was scattered around the grounds, parking lot and restroom heading in the same direction.  From that very moment I realized that this was going to be a larger event than I had anticipated.  NEAT ! !  We first found a few cachers that we had met for the first time the day before at Lute's Casino.  Also saw Tucson Thompsen, who we had met along the trip to Yuma at a cache.  I also saw an acquaintance from Tombstone but never got the chance to talk to her.  Next time.

     The line went from registration, to raffle tickets, a display of The Traveler from Event #3 with 24,000 miles (gotta say WOW to that one), to the poker run info - just the beginning of the perfect flow of people.  Somebody knows how to set this up.  Raffle tickets were being sold by Wayne43, a favorite the day before, the guy that impressed me with his tactics of meeting people and getting himself the best event souvenir ever.  I feel compelled to come up with an idea that rivals his and can be anywhere near as much fun as having people write all over your body. 

      M & D was the first to approach us with the 'goal sheet' in hand for us to sign.  We barely had gotten a look at it but quickly learned what it was all about.   Following was Scratch and Lois, another great couple to meet.  We enjoyed the chatting (something that I am a bit of a pro at) for a bit and it was time to move on to the next activity.             

 
     By a bit after 8:30 we were all out after the best hand in the poker run.  This was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  I guess I had never been involved in a poker run that didn't involve a motorcycle or 4x4 vehicle.  It looked like the mad dash of Dachshunds looking for a hidden bone, or in my case and a few others, a frog knowing that there could be a prize bug if we could only figure out which way it was to the finish line.  Watching was the most fun but we all found our envelopes in less than an hour.  ok - I took advantage of a large group and just followed them.  This was great start to the day.  Poker run deserves more info and that will follow in the future.

      Then it was back to mingling time and meeting new friends, finding TB cars in the parking lot and 'discovering' them.  We also 'discovered' a bunch of TB on the table next to registration.  What a great idea.  WeenieQueen had a lot of luck locating and meeting TB dogs, which I'll share more about later. Then there's Jessie and Skip Cable who were an absolute blast.  I think both of them could keep the party going if needed.  They had this really neat poster, which she has since posted on Facebook and  I won't post it here right now; gotta find out if it is ok to do so.   I think they will perfect to learn fun past stories from, if I can talk them into sharing. We ran into Exman on the path also.  This was a real treat.  On December 31, 2011, SchnauzerQueen and I did the MOH Path just west of Las Cruses, New Mexico.  We were literally following the foot steps of Exman on those caches.  Our history with this guy starts there and I am wondering where it will go from here.  He was a very visible person at the event, which I will talk about later.  Hopefully I will get some info from his soon to explain what he was doing and what his results were.  Future post on this guy - hopefully soon. 

     All in all, the morning started out great.  More soon on the event.  Gotta get to work and start planning the next event to attend.