Hidden Creatures - progress thread

[+Gill & Tony]

Since this promotion is all about the numbers, my son and I decided to tackle the SST (Sapphire Surprise Trail) series further down the coast.  We set off on the Saturday morning, started caching around 11am and finished when it got dark around 5:30, with 50 finds and 2 DNFs.    We spent the night in Bega and set off home on Sunday morning, getting 64 with no DNFs.  Mission accomplished.  Sunday was also my personal highest number in a day.

 

The series isn't a power trail as there is no commonality between the hides and no hints.  The cache name is sometimes a clue.   Although they are theoretically P&G, some took more than 10 minutes searching .  Some very clever hides there.

 

An enjoyable weekend, but I hope they don't just do a numbers run promotion again.  There's nothing around here that we both have as unfound

[+*GeoPunx*]

I got my World Turtle yesterday! 

My situation is a little different. When I first heard about the promotion, I had no real interest in it. Until I saw the World Turtle as the final souvenir. It appeared, to me, very Terry Pratchett inspired. Big fan here. That, coupled with the fact that I have lost 70 pounds in the last 7 months, therefore affording myself much more physical stamina; spurred me to make it a goal.

I never, ever, achieve any goals that I set for myself. Especially physical ones. I was determined to not let myself down this time.

Yes, this promotion absolutely changed the way I cached for the last 27 days. There's no doubt about it at all. But I learned a lot about myself in these last few weeks as well. I am very proud for once in my life.

There were days when I just didn't want to go out. But I did.

I broke my personal daily best amount of caches found, twice.

The Real Feel temps here have been around 110° F lately. Even with enough water, I found myself on the verge of passing out a few times. Yet, I persisted.

This weekend, an old hairline fracture in my right foot wanted to act up. I pushed through it.

Yesterday, my last 14 caches I needed, really made me work for it. More DNF's in one day than I can ever recall. Yet, I kept on.

Goal accomplished!

Dear Diary and all that.......

[+J Grouchy]

I'm one away from the Phoenix.  I'm thinking that's as far as I'll be able to get.  ~shrug~

[+Team Christiansen]

Just wrapped it up this morning (with one day to spare). Now I can go back to my previous geocaching goals -- hopefully get a Wherigo published tomorrow.

[+thebruce0]

41 minutes ago, *GeoPunx* said:

I got my World Turtle yesterday! 

...

 

Congrats geopunx!  That's a great testimony to the promo period!

[+Thunderbolt and Lightfoot]

After getting 6 tonight after work, Got our world Turtle today after a furious last 3 days where I got 53...No Power trails were used in the making of this achievement lol

 

 

[+Team Taran]

It has been a long time since I found 100 caches in a month but I too am a big Terry Pratchett fan and decided I must get the turtle. My sister and I had a really good time caching together and both of us got our turtles. I just wish the travel tags hadn’t sold out. 

 

[+Max and 99]

10 hours ago, Team Taran said:

It has been a long time since I found 100 caches in a month but I too am a big Terry Pratchett fan and decided I must get the turtle. My sister and I had a really good time caching together and both of us got our turtles. I just wish the travel tags hadn’t sold out. 

 

You can have my Turtle tag. (I don't have the coin, just the tag).  Just PM me your mailing address.

[+CAVinoGal]

On 7/19/2018 at 11:50 AM, CAVinoGal said:

... Getting the Turtle will be a delicate balance - we want to leave nearby ones for our cache a day.  We may go to a power trail (that we normally would not do!) several miles away just to get the #'s needed (I need 40 more).  Unlike other promos where we really did nothing different and were still able to earn all the souvenirs, we are going to have to stretch to get the final one on this promo.  IF we do it, we'll go Saturday and I expect we'll do the PT just long enough to get the souvenir.  Unless we find ourselves enjoying it, in which case we'll continue and finish the trail.

 

We did the PT on Saturday, and found a few other caches, and both hubby and I got our Turtle Souvenir on Saturday.  There are nearly 80 caches on the PT we did, but we stopped at 30; it's fairly close to home and we may want to do the rest for another promo in the future. PT's are not really what we like; we did it to complete the series of souvenirs, only!  We are happy to have achieved the Turtle, it was interesting doing the PT - you get into a rythmn - but we were just as happy to STOP once we had achieved enough to make the Turtle attainable by promo end.

[Gabeman26]

Can you still find more creatures today or is the event over?

[belangora]

18 minutes ago, Gabeman26 said:

Can you still find more creatures today or is the event over?

You might have a few more hours! 

 

I was caching with my six-year-old this month. Unfortunately, things happened in between (like work), so we had to stop at Dragon. One of my favorite creatures anyway, although we both love turtles and tortoises (real ones) as well.

[+thebruce0]

Well I've got two more parts to my Hidden Creatures series out there, so in case you haven't seen them, maybe you'll enjoy them!

 

Part 2: Labyrinthian hunt for a unicorn

Part 3: Watery creatures of mythical proportion

 

It's been a little slow recently as other things have taken priority, but there still a few parts to come before finally reaching the coveted World Turtle!

I really enjoyed this series. Not because of the 'finding x caches' thing, but because it was a flexible, imaginative theme I was able to just have simple fun with

The promo's done now, but I hope more people enjoyed it than hated it!

[SuperKrypto]

yeah we didn't get any - far too hot for us

[+Max and 99]

Did anyone else get the Hidden Creatures souvenir survey today? Now's your chance to provide input on what you want to see in souvenir promotions, if you did!

 

Edit: well, I guess they didn't really want opinions, just answers to a couple of very basic questions. I'm disappointed.

Edited September 27, 2018 by Max and 99

[+cerberus1]

33 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

Did anyone else get the Hidden Creatures souvenir survey today? Now's your chance to provide input on what you want to see in souvenir promotions, if you did!

Edit: well, I guess they didn't really want opinions, just answers to a couple of very basic questions. I'm disappointed.

 

Years ago there was some interest in "anything to add ?", but haven't seen that in some time. 

 - Surveys  for their agenda, not yours.      Maybe TPTB figures that's what the help center's for.

Opinions/suggestions that might be read by TPTB now seems to be directed to feedback in User Insights.

[+Michaelcycle]

6 minutes ago, cerberus1 said:

 

Years ago there was some interest in "anything to add ?", but haven't seen that in some time. 

 - Surveys  for their agenda, not yours.      Maybe TPTB figures that's what the help center's for.

Opinions/suggestions that might be read by TPTB now seems to be directed to feedback in User Insights.

This survey does have a box for freeform suggestions regarding "future challenges" and I took advantage of that.

[+Max and 99]

1 minute ago, Michaelcycle said:

This survey does have a box for freeform suggestions regarding "future challenges" and I took advantage of that.

 

I stand corrected! You are absolutely right.

[+cerberus1]

10 minutes ago, Michaelcycle said:

This survey does have a box for freeform suggestions regarding "future challenges" and I took advantage of that.

 

A survey I'd have liked to receive.    Been curious why a couple promotions did have "opt ins/outs" but the rest not.  

[Lynx Humble]

I got the survey too.

 

Was surprised that the max found we can answer was 101+.

[+Team Christiansen]

Just now, Lynx Humble said:

I got the survey too.

 

Was surprised that the max found we can answer was 101+.

That surprised me too, but then it does indicate to whom the promotions are being marketed.

 

Many participants in the forums have been around long enough to not need incentives to go out caching or to try different types of caches. And we tend to nit-pick at the promotions even though they are still fun for many of us. But it seems that the promotions are more well-revieved outside the forums then in.

[+CAVinoGal]

17 minutes ago, Lynx Humble said:

Was surprised that the max found we can answer was 101+.

 

When I first read this I thought the question meant your Find count during the promo period, and that would make sense.  Once I got into the survey, though, I see it's your OVERALL Find count - there is a separate question about which souvenir(s) you earned.  So there must be a whole lot of people out there who participated in the promo, didn't earn all the souvenirs, and still have less than 100 finds, if this survey is to be at all meaningful.

[+Korichnovui]

I did the survery, and yes, there was an area to give free-text feedback, which I took advantage of.