Across The Usa In 80 Days!

[curiouskangaroo]

Just wanted to note that I've released my first owned TB into the wild. It's named Phileas Figg (it's a LEGO mini-fig) TB4610 and - like his namesake - has an 80-day goal: to cross the USA (from East to West) in 80 days. Now, this normally wouldn't be too difficult, but the key is: it must be done with NO AIR TRAVEL. The various film incarnations of "Around the World in 80 Days" have usually included some form of air travel (like a hot air balloon), but no such travel is in the actual book. So I think this will be quite a challenge... but it would be amazing to see if it would work.

 

I started Phileas off in the New York metropolitan area, at Nadiasmirnoff's Stash (GCJ5GC), which was a cache established just this April. His goal is San Francisco (the actual target geocache is yet-to-be decided: I'll have to talk to a friend in SF first).

 

I'll start the clock when he's first picked up.

 

If you come across him, please help him along!

[+brad.32]

Does the instruction tag spell out the preferred travel method? I have some bugs that are supposed to travel by ground, but that wasn't spelled out on the tag and a number of people posted logs like "picked up this TB in California, when my plane arrived in New York I found out it was supposed to travel by ground.

[curiouskangaroo]

Yep, I put it on the instructions included with the bug. I'm actually not really sure the goal is possible. I think it would take an awful lot of coordination across the country beforehand to make it work. But we'll see!

[BassoonPilot]

I predict that within a week, the TB would suffer one of these fates:

 

1. The TB will be picked up by a cacher, never logged online, and never heard from again.

2. The TB will be placed into a rarely visited cache and sit unclaimed for more than 80 days.

3. The TB will be picked up by a cacher with good intentions, and then sit next to his/her computer for more than 80 days. (A continuous stream of e-mails from the TB owner will eventually lead to the TB's recirculation 6 months later.)

4. The TB will show up in a cache 3 continents away.

 

In August of 2002, we released a TB in Maine with the simple goal of making it back to NJ, a straight-line distance of less than 400 miles. It's been to quite a few places, but not NJ. It's been stuck in caches and with cachers, and currently is in the hands of one of those people that cached for a short time, quit, and doesn't answer e-mails.

 

Another TB passed through my hands ... it was going from NY state to someplace in the southern US, with a goal of being there 6 months after its release. When it passed through my hands (approximately 150 miles from its release point), it was already one year behind schedule.

 

Good luck.

Edited July 3, 2004 by BassoonPilot

[+Milbank]

Good luck with your TB.

[curiouskangaroo]

Oh, I agree, the odds against it are very high. Although I've been caching for two years, this is my first released travel bug... but I know what to expect from reading the forums. Very few bugs really get anywhere near their goals. But, hey, it's fun to just try. I'm not going to get wound up over it - wherever it goes, it goes. But without a goal, there's nothing to shoot for.

[+fly46]

Well, the key to help the bug out is for it to end up at an Event cache... I think that those going to event caches on the whole are alot more likely to help a bug out...

 

I just started one out with the goal of getting from Nashville, TN, to the cache I have in my father's front yard in Kingsville, OH by August 28 - when I'm home for my sister's wedding.

I took it to GeoWoodstock for it's first stop, and it was picked up by a cacher who first of all lives in Cincinatti, but who is going to Cleveland on the 17th of this month... Meaning that my bug has 41 days after that to make it from Cleveland to Kingsville - a 60 mile trip.

 

We'll have to keep tabs on each other and see what pops up!