As a new Geocacher, I only started 3 weeks before GW4. A little background on how my experience went with the event.....
We booked a hotel that was supposed to have wireless internet, of course when we got there it didn't. The desk person told me of the LExington Inn and Suites and that it had wireless. We quickly went there knowing it was a holiday weekend and rooms were scarce. We got in no problem! But upon entering our room, it was filthy. we checked out 4 rooms before finding one that was suitable. After paying and moving all our stuff into the room, I was going to take a shower... the top hinge on the door gave way and the door almost fell on me. We went to talk to the owner and he had the door fixed very quickly, so we decided to stay. This was a $120 dollar a night suite, 2 bedrooms and a sitting area. The second bedroom door couldnt even close as it was put up incorrectly, the dishes were dirty and when we turned back the sheets... they hadnt been washed in looked like in weeks..... sooooo we left to find yet another room..... at 2 am we were finally able to sleep in a CLEAN room, although no internet (which I sorely needed being new to get more of the cache locations.
Day 2 We hit the event for a couple hours, met with some awesome people that helped us out and gave us alot of info about this sport that we didn't yet know. Then we decided to go and find some caches.... we have only 15 finds in 3 weeks and I was hoping to add 40 or so in this cache rich area. We get to the 1rst cache area of the day, and here a loud BOOM..... our radiator blew apart, a 8 inch gap in the top........ what FUN! My husband so far is doing a great job at holding his temper, and tells me and the kids to go find the cache while he takes care of the car. WE mosey on down the trail to find our first cache of the day and lo and behold 30 feet from the cache.... a HUGE snake.... almost 5 feet long it seemed. Having the kids with me, THey wanted to play with the snake.... but I decided to give it some room and let it have that cache... I wasnt that desperate. It was a miracle and a good sameritan that helped us get the parts for our car.... we got it towed, had to get the parts (The shop didnt have the right ones) and got our car back on the road in 3 hours... amazing. And of course... we debated going home after all this, the cost just doubled on our trip with the $400 car problem..... but no... we are addicted.... we went back to searching for the elusive prize..... and found only 3 on day 2 before we had to sleep... we were just drained from all that had happened.
Day 3 We hit the event again, visited some new people and of course bought our t-shirts and coins and all that... then hit the road for 20 caches that day.... a great number for us.
Without the internet and all the dramam we had a wonderful time in the end..... even with all that went on, so I can say from my experience the run did NOT Ruin the event for us... nor did all the extra little surprises. I cant say I agree with writing ON the containers.... I dont. But I can say that meeting the people and having a wonderful time was not hampered at all by anything that is going on in the forums.
Mysteria
Addiction to some things is perfectly ok =) Geocaching is one of those
