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We finally got around to finishing the AGT...it was quite an adventure full of memories. I think we managed to cache in all kinds of weather ton complete this...snow up to Heather's nether-region...rain...and 80 degree weather. Here are the top 10 things that we learned along the way...

10) Do not cache on an empty stomach;

9) Ticks suck;

8) AAA is pretty good about navigating those back country roads to find you when you get stuck in the snow;

7) Always carry extra shoes and socks in the trunk - for when your foot sinks ankle deep in a partially frozen swamp (thankfully, we did).

6) Hubby's car GPS has all of those back country roads on it - my handheld GPS does not;

5) Never leave the car GPS in the other car when you drop it off at the garage;

4) Audiobooks can be very distracting when you are navigating back roads;

3) Not all cache hiders include their parking coords as waypoints (some still include them in the cache write-up, which means that they do not get dowloaded into your GPS when you download the cache coords);

2) GPS units will take you the closest they can to the cache...that does not mean it is the best place to access the cache (which we already knew, but apparently forgot on a few caches);

1) Not rain, nor snow, nor dark of night will deter determined geocachers (or at least us).

 

Thanks for the memories...we had a blast. We wish the coin redemption locations were open on weekends (when we did most of our caching)...we'll be mailing in our passports and cannot wait to get our coins!

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There are still coins left in all counties and plenty of caches to choose from and there are new AGT caches still being placed. Here is the official word:

"As of the end of March 2009, the 160 AGT caches published have

recorded 35,479 actual finds on geocaching.com and there are currently

137 active caches."

"The AGT grant contract with the US Forest Service is being extended

until June 30th, 2010, so there is plenty of time for people to earn

their coins even if they haven't started yet. The 2007-2008 version of

the passports will continue to be valid as long as they last. The

passport booklet itself is in the process of some minor revisions and

may be reprinted when needed. In the meantime, some new passports being distributed now may have an updated date sticker placed on the cover, but old or new, the project still works the same way, and either

passport booklet is valid."

 

The best way to get passports validated is to send your passports directly to The Oil Region Alliance. They will validate them and send you the coins to you by mail at no charge. Here's the address:

Oil Region Alliance

206 Seneca Street, 4th Floor,

Oil City, PA

16301

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We finally got around to finishing the AGT...it was quite an adventure full of memories. I think we managed to cache in all kinds of weather ton complete this...snow up to Heather's nether-region...rain...and 80 degree weather. Here are the top 10 things that we learned along the way...

10) Do not cache on an empty stomach;

9) Ticks suck;

8) AAA is pretty good about navigating those back country roads to find you when you get stuck in the snow;

7) Always carry extra shoes and socks in the trunk - for when your foot sinks ankle deep in a partially frozen swamp (thankfully, we did).

6) Hubby's car GPS has all of those back country roads on it - my handheld GPS does not;

5) Never leave the car GPS in the other car when you drop it off at the garage;

4) Audiobooks can be very distracting when you are navigating back roads;

3) Not all cache hiders include their parking coords as waypoints (some still include them in the cache write-up, which means that they do not get dowloaded into your GPS when you download the cache coords);

2) GPS units will take you the closest they can to the cache...that does not mean it is the best place to access the cache (which we already knew, but apparently forgot on a few caches);

1) Not rain, nor snow, nor dark of night will deter determined geocachers (or at least us).

 

Thanks for the memories...we had a blast. We wish the coin redemption locations were open on weekends (when we did most of our caching)...we'll be mailing in our passports and cannot wait to get our coins!

 

PolskiKrol and I just had an exhausting weekend finishing up the AGT B) I'm not sure how we managed to tear through 9 counties in 44 hours :lol: (we did Venango after GCF) especially since I was helping my parents with a sick cat thursday and only slept ~3 hours the night before a long day of work before we set out! I scored one of your neat sig items, woohoo! (the lines are really perfect, did you use the die from your personal coin, or have a stamp made?) In planning, we decided that for any one cache, 2 hours of hiking were better than 2 hours of driving, so we kept our driving route to a minimum and did caches along the best driving route regardless of terrain and wet feet. I'd like to add to your list of things learned:

 

-Pack less t-shirts and more socks. No, the 12 pairs of socks you packed for 2 days will not be enough, think about a secondary pair of shoes too. Since you're not planning on sleeping though, the days will blend into each other. You might not need the 5 t-shirts.

-It's a good idea to look at a real map before accepting TomToms route. TomTom seems to be adaptive. If you drive down one rut-ty holey muddy dirt road, TomTom will offer you a worse one. The ATV trail is probably not the best way to get there. Nor are the power lines (no kidding, TomTom told us it was a road!)

-When you find a Sheetz, stop even if you still have coffee. Buy 3 coffees b/c it'll be awhile before you see another place to get coffee.

-Same goes for when you see a place to get something to eat. Saturday morning we got bagels....... around noon we started looking for something else to eat.... at 11pm we found lunch, er dinner, er. something to eat.

 

I'm also starting to get better at translating "George-eese"

 

"Do you want to take the scneic route, or do you want to take the long route?" Means "Do you think you can jump the five feet to cross this river?"

"It's half a mile to the trail junction" means "The cache is more than 3 miles away and I don't want you to whine [so I'm just going to answer a different question than the one you asked]"

 

:):D:D

 

I'm falling asleep at work today, but what a fun weekend! It felt like about a week instead of 2 days :)

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One more thing I learned (that I already knew)

 

I hate Pennsylvania's beer laws even more than New Jerseys! "You an only buy beer at a beer distributor or a bar" basically translates into "You can pretty much only buy Budweiser or Coors. Keystone or Yuengling if you're really lucky"

 

There's a great distributor that actually *isn't* drive through just off of 78 on the far eastern side of the state. They have a huge selection and really reasonable prices. I've never found another place like this in PA. Most of them are drive through and don't have anything local or unique. Usually, wherever we travel we look for breweries and brewpubs, if there's no time we look for a place to pick something up that we can't get at home, but out in W. PA that isn't possible :lol:

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We finally got around to finishing the AGT...it was quite an adventure full of memories. I think we managed to cache in all kinds of weather ton complete this...snow up to Heather's nether-region...rain...and 80 degree weather. Here are the top 10 things that we learned along the way...

10) Do not cache on an empty stomach;

9) Ticks suck;

8) AAA is pretty good about navigating those back country roads to find you when you get stuck in the snow;

7) Always carry extra shoes and socks in the trunk - for when your foot sinks ankle deep in a partially frozen swamp (thankfully, we did).

6) Hubby's car GPS has all of those back country roads on it - my handheld GPS does not;

5) Never leave the car GPS in the other car when you drop it off at the garage;

4) Audiobooks can be very distracting when you are navigating back roads;

3) Not all cache hiders include their parking coords as waypoints (some still include them in the cache write-up, which means that they do not get dowloaded into your GPS when you download the cache coords);

2) GPS units will take you the closest they can to the cache...that does not mean it is the best place to access the cache (which we already knew, but apparently forgot on a few caches);

1) Not rain, nor snow, nor dark of night will deter determined geocachers (or at least us).

 

Thanks for the memories...we had a blast. We wish the coin redemption locations were open on weekends (when we did most of our caching)...we'll be mailing in our passports and cannot wait to get our coins!

 

PolskiKrol and I just had an exhausting weekend finishing up the AGT B) I'm not sure how we managed to tear through 9 counties in 44 hours :lol: (we did Venango after GCF) especially since I was helping my parents with a sick cat thursday and only slept ~3 hours the night before a long day of work before we set out! I scored one of your neat sig items, woohoo! (the lines are really perfect, did you use the die from your personal coin, or have a stamp made?) In planning, we decided that for any one cache, 2 hours of hiking were better than 2 hours of driving, so we kept our driving route to a minimum and did caches along the best driving route regardless of terrain and wet feet. I'd like to add to your list of things learned:

 

-Pack less t-shirts and more socks. No, the 12 pairs of socks you packed for 2 days will not be enough, think about a secondary pair of shoes too. Since you're not planning on sleeping though, the days will blend into each other. You might not need the 5 t-shirts.

-It's a good idea to look at a real map before accepting TomToms route. TomTom seems to be adaptive. If you drive down one rut-ty holey muddy dirt road, TomTom will offer you a worse one. The ATV trail is probably not the best way to get there. Nor are the power lines (no kidding, TomTom told us it was a road!)

-When you find a Sheetz, stop even if you still have coffee. Buy 3 coffees b/c it'll be awhile before you see another place to get coffee.

-Same goes for when you see a place to get something to eat. Saturday morning we got bagels....... around noon we started looking for something else to eat.... at 11pm we found lunch, er dinner, er. something to eat.

 

I'm also starting to get better at translating "George-eese"

 

"Do you want to take the scneic route, or do you want to take the long route?" Means "Do you think you can jump the five feet to cross this river?"

"It's half a mile to the trail junction" means "The cache is more than 3 miles away and I don't want you to whine [so I'm just going to answer a different question than the one you asked]"

 

:):D:D

 

I'm falling asleep at work today, but what a fun weekend! It felt like about a week instead of 2 days :)

 

Hedge Hopper and I did all the counties on the AGT trail before GCF, which is probably the reason I was sick at GCF!

 

I have to agree with everything TM says, and cannot stress stopping at Sheetz enough. There is nothing better than french fries in a cup!

 

And wow! Here in Texas we have a gas station on every corner! I can'tell you how many times we got off track just trying to find gas!

Edited by MustangJoni
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-When you find a Sheetz, stop even if you still have coffee. Buy 3 coffees b/c it'll be awhile before you see another place to get coffee.

 

 

I have to agree with everything TM says, and cannot stress stopping at Sheetz enough. There is nothing better than french fries in a cup!

 

And I triple agree with the Sheetz comment...we made the mistake of not stopping at one that we drove by when no one was hungry yet...BIG mistake. We did not see anything for quite a long time, which meant thst Brian and I went hungry (since we let kids have whatever we happened to have in the car). I think we had dinner at 9:00 that evening.

 

During the next trip, we stopped at the first Sheetz we saw (even though we had tons of food in the car on that trip)...I have a new favorite caching snack...jello squares in a bag! Wish I could find them in the Sheetz at home too.

Link to comment

We finally got around to finishing the AGT...it was quite an adventure full of memories. I think we managed to cache in all kinds of weather ton complete this...snow up to Heather's nether-region...rain...and 80 degree weather. Here are the top 10 things that we learned along the way...

10) Do not cache on an empty stomach;

9) Ticks suck;

8) AAA is pretty good about navigating those back country roads to find you when you get stuck in the snow;

7) Always carry extra shoes and socks in the trunk - for when your foot sinks ankle deep in a partially frozen swamp (thankfully, we did).

6) Hubby's car GPS has all of those back country roads on it - my handheld GPS does not;

5) Never leave the car GPS in the other car when you drop it off at the garage;

4) Audiobooks can be very distracting when you are navigating back roads;

3) Not all cache hiders include their parking coords as waypoints (some still include them in the cache write-up, which means that they do not get dowloaded into your GPS when you download the cache coords);

2) GPS units will take you the closest they can to the cache...that does not mean it is the best place to access the cache (which we already knew, but apparently forgot on a few caches);

1) Not rain, nor snow, nor dark of night will deter determined geocachers (or at least us).

 

Thanks for the memories...we had a blast. We wish the coin redemption locations were open on weekends (when we did most of our caching)...we'll be mailing in our passports and cannot wait to get our coins!

 

PolskiKrol and I just had an exhausting weekend finishing up the AGT :rolleyes: I'm not sure how we managed to tear through 9 counties in 44 hours :D (we did Venango after GCF) especially since I was helping my parents with a sick cat thursday and only slept ~3 hours the night before a long day of work before we set out! I scored one of your neat sig items, woohoo! (the lines are really perfect, did you use the die from your personal coin, or have a stamp made?) In planning, we decided that for any one cache, 2 hours of hiking were better than 2 hours of driving, so we kept our driving route to a minimum and did caches along the best driving route regardless of terrain and wet feet. I'd like to add to your list of things learned:

 

-Pack less t-shirts and more socks. No, the 12 pairs of socks you packed for 2 days will not be enough, think about a secondary pair of shoes too. Since you're not planning on sleeping though, the days will blend into each other. You might not need the 5 t-shirts.

-It's a good idea to look at a real map before accepting TomToms route. TomTom seems to be adaptive. If you drive down one rut-ty holey muddy dirt road, TomTom will offer you a worse one. The ATV trail is probably not the best way to get there. Nor are the power lines (no kidding, TomTom told us it was a road!)

-When you find a Sheetz, stop even if you still have coffee. Buy 3 coffees b/c it'll be awhile before you see another place to get coffee.

-Same goes for when you see a place to get something to eat. Saturday morning we got bagels....... around noon we started looking for something else to eat.... at 11pm we found lunch, er dinner, er. something to eat.

 

I'm also starting to get better at translating "George-eese"

 

"Do you want to take the scneic route, or do you want to take the long route?" Means "Do you think you can jump the five feet to cross this river?"

"It's half a mile to the trail junction" means "The cache is more than 3 miles away and I don't want you to whine [so I'm just going to answer a different question than the one you asked]"

 

:P:D:laughing:

 

I'm falling asleep at work today, but what a fun weekend! It felt like about a week instead of 2 days :lol:

 

This is hilarious but oh so accurate. As a native of the area, I remember nothing being open past 7pm in most of those counties.

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One more thing I learned (that I already knew)

 

I hate Pennsylvania's beer laws even more than New Jerseys! "You an only buy beer at a beer distributor or a bar" basically translates into "You can pretty much only buy Budweiser or Coors. Keystone or Yuengling if you're really lucky"

 

There's a great distributor that actually *isn't* drive through just off of 78 on the far eastern side of the state. They have a huge selection and really reasonable prices. I've never found another place like this in PA. Most of them are drive through and don't have anything local or unique. Usually, wherever we travel we look for breweries and brewpubs, if there's no time we look for a place to pick something up that we can't get at home, but out in W. PA that isn't possible :D

 

Welcome to Straubs country..home of the eternal keg, and the first geocache I ever found...St. Marys, PA, W. PA.

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Yalehockeymom and I made a road trip out there in February with my daughter to finish up the counties (we had not done before GCF) and I have to say it was some of the most fun I have had caching! They sure know how to make snow up in that corner of the state and even though YHM tried to convince me my Subaru was not a snowmobile, there were several times it proved her wrong :D I have to recommend the trip to anyone even slightly interested! The caches were fun and the area is beautiful!!!! And then on top of it....COINS!!!!

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I agree with everything yall have said. I live in the area and have been to all the counties. Sheetz is a staple here in DuBois. There are 4 here so I never have to worry about trying to find somewhere to eat. Gotta love the cup of fries and onion rings.

Congrats to all who have completed the AGT to date. I know from experience it was a fun trip. Our adventure had all the seasons as we had spread it out some. Started in the Fall and ended it all beginning of summer. We ran into it all and had a blast.

 

And I see most of ya got my one and only AGT cache. Glad it was easy for ya, that was its intentions.

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-When you find a Sheetz, stop even if you still have coffee. Buy 3 coffees b/c it'll be awhile before you see another place to get coffee.

 

 

I have to agree with everything TM says, and cannot stress stopping at Sheetz enough. There is nothing better than french fries in a cup!

 

And I triple agree with the Sheetz comment...we made the mistake of not stopping at one that we drove by when no one was hungry yet...BIG mistake. We did not see anything for quite a long time, which meant thst Brian and I went hungry (since we let kids have whatever we happened to have in the car). I think we had dinner at 9:00 that evening.

 

During the next trip, we stopped at the first Sheetz we saw (even though we had tons of food in the car on that trip)...I have a new favorite caching snack...jello squares in a bag! Wish I could find them in the Sheetz at home too.

 

Oh those fries were heaven! PolskiKrol asked if he could be bad and get fries with his sandwich, and my response was "only if you share" :D I wanted more when we were done ...

 

One more thing I learned (that I already knew)

 

I hate Pennsylvania's beer laws even more than New Jerseys! "You an only buy beer at a beer distributor or a bar" basically translates into "You can pretty much only buy Budweiser or Coors. Keystone or Yuengling if you're really lucky"

 

There's a great distributor that actually *isn't* drive through just off of 78 on the far eastern side of the state. They have a huge selection and really reasonable prices. I've never found another place like this in PA. Most of them are drive through and don't have anything local or unique. Usually, wherever we travel we look for breweries and brewpubs, if there's no time we look for a place to pick something up that we can't get at home, but out in W. PA that isn't possible :D

 

Welcome to Straubs country..home of the eternal keg, and the first geocache I ever found...St. Marys, PA, W. PA.

 

We actually drove right past Straubs! It was about 6am though, we debated seeing when they opened and if they had tours, but decided we'd never get past that county if we did!

 

There's an awesome brewery in Meadville (where we finally found a sheetz at 11pm haha), Voodoo. We met them at a brewfest in Kennet Square. We didn't stop there either though, on account of the time. Next time we're out that way, we'll probably try to make an appointment with them :huh:

 

I agree with everything yall have said. I live in the area and have been to all the counties. Sheetz is a staple here in DuBois. There are 4 here so I never have to worry about trying to find somewhere to eat. Gotta love the cup of fries and onion rings.

Congrats to all who have completed the AGT to date. I know from experience it was a fun trip. Our adventure had all the seasons as we had spread it out some. Started in the Fall and ended it all beginning of summer. We ran into it all and had a blast.

 

And I see most of ya got my one and only AGT cache. Glad it was easy for ya, that was its intentions.

 

Ahhhh the easiest one in your county :D But still an interesting spot! I'd never seen a drive-in still in operation! Thank you, haha we needed the 'pick me up' after jumping across two rivers, and bushwhacking up a hill to find a cache with no stamp! Yours was definitely the most challenging county :D I'm glad we did it early :huh:

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1) Not rain, nor snow, nor dark of night will deter determined geocachers (or at least us).

 

I can second that!!! :D

 

 

Thanks for the memories...we had a blast.

 

And that too :D

 

Definitely agree with that :D Thanks for drawing us to this area! Western PA is one of those regions that we often overlook, I've been down I-80 out here so many times and not stopped, but there are some real gems out there.

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The Allegheny GeoTrail is alive and well and representatives attended the ASP GeoBash IV last Saturday. They joined the 800+ Mega event participants to award AGT T-shirts to the programs volunteers. Thank You Wes & Liz for all your work making the AGT such a success! There are several other GeoTrails taking their cue from the AGT, we hope them equal success!

 

AGT.jpg

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The shirts are great. Very light feeling.

 

The shirts were not for sale, but will be in the very near future. They were only giving them out to the volunteers who placed caches for the AGT and turned in their volunteer sheets.

 

<waves at the guy in the armor> :o

 

And a nice giftie they were.

 

How can I find out about the sale when it goes public...?

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What a great picture!

 

Ya know, Toolman was eyeing those t-shirts while he was working the store. He wondered where they had come from.

 

Were they selling them, too???

 

I'da bought a couple. Dang...I hardly got out of the store all weekend.

 

Don't feel alone mousie- I didn't even see the table they were at!! :laughing:

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We finally got around to finishing the AGT...it was quite an adventure full of memories. I think we managed to cache in all kinds of weather ton complete this...snow up to Heather's nether-region...rain...and 80 degree weather. Here are the top 10 things that we learned along the way...

10) Do not cache on an empty stomach;

9) Ticks suck;

8) AAA is pretty good about navigating those back country roads to find you when you get stuck in the snow;

7) Always carry extra shoes and socks in the trunk - for when your foot sinks ankle deep in a partially frozen swamp (thankfully, we did).

6) Hubby's car GPS has all of those back country roads on it - my handheld GPS does not;

5) Never leave the car GPS in the other car when you drop it off at the garage;

4) Audiobooks can be very distracting when you are navigating back roads;

3) Not all cache hiders include their parking coords as waypoints (some still include them in the cache write-up, which means that they do not get dowloaded into your GPS when you download the cache coords);

2) GPS units will take you the closest they can to the cache...that does not mean it is the best place to access the cache (which we already knew, but apparently forgot on a few caches);

1) Not rain, nor snow, nor dark of night will deter determined geocachers (or at least us).

 

Thanks for the memories...we had a blast. We wish the coin redemption locations were open on weekends (when we did most of our caching)...we'll be mailing in our passports and cannot wait to get our coins!

I have to amend #6...it should now read, "If you do not have access to maps in your GPS that you thought that you should...check to make sure that your memory stick in your GPS did not come loose."

 

Yes, when I went to change batteries, I found out that the memory stick was not locked in place. Those darn maps were there the whole time. Looking back, it is amazing that we were able to finish this challenge...esp. with all of the self-induced extra challenges that we inflicted upon ourselves! :laughing:

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What a great picture!

 

Ya know, Toolman was eyeing those t-shirts while he was working the store. He wondered where they had come from.

 

Were they selling them, too???

 

I'da bought a couple. Dang...I hardly got out of the store all weekend.

 

Don't feel alone mousie- I didn't even see the table they were at!! :laughing:

 

<snrt>

 

Nor I...but I saw you (from a distance, at least..) most of the weekend!

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Just an AGT update to let you all know that the Allegheny GeoTrail is still alive and going strong! As of last month, the AGT has been active for two years with over 48,000 actual individually recorded "found" logs on geocaching.com. Some of the most visited caches on the GeoTrail have over 600+ logs! The project status has now been extended through at least September 30, 2010. More coins are being bought as needed for the various counties so it's not to late if you haven't started the AGT yet!

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In case anyone is interested, the AGT is very much up and running. My family and I just completed the ten county trek, and received the coins from the Oil City office of the Oil Region Alliance. As stated in a previous post, the program has been extended through the summer of 2010.

 

The energy, mileage, and money spent on this adventure has been well worth it.

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Representatives from the AGT are planning to be at the Allegany State Park GeoBash V (GC1TP1X) on Saturday May 22, 2010. We're planning a Geocoin Expo at 2:00 PM in the Raffle Hall. They'll be validating passports and awarding AGT coins there.

 

Actually, there's been acouple of pics of the coin sets on posts #30 and #45 but they're a real nice looking set in the pouches too!

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This is still a go--did three counties yesterday with loftongal and Chris K.

 

A word to the wise--call first to where ever you intend to start and make SURE they have the passports and their Hours of Operation in the off season.

 

We loved it--great caches, great countryside, a thoroughly good time! We'll have to wait to get our coins, but we loved the experience!

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The Lucky Ducks of Seneca just finished the last of the AGT's Saturday Oct 30. Husband went and picked up the last county coin and bonus coin 11-1. The Oil City Alliance still has lots of coins for each county left.

 

The is what got us started in geocaching back in late June. It was a very enjoyable series, with all kinds of terrain levels and difficulty levels. I pushed myself beyond levels that I thought I could do with some of the hikes and hills.

 

A huge thanks to all who placed these caches. Now we are off and running on the next series challenge - the DCNR cards.

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