I used to share all my geocaching adventures with my mom, who has now passed away, but lived in the same town I do.
She was always been very interested in hearing about my “adventures” encountered in finding and hiding geocaches, sharing and talking about the locations my travel bugs visited, and everything the “addiction” encompasses. My mother was in her 70’s and was mostly home bound. She did not geocache and if she could have, she would.
I must say that my mom was pretty savvy on the computer and could maneuver around Facebook like a pro. We were friends with each other on Facebook, and we commented many times on the same things.
The second part of this story involves a geocaching vendor called GXPROXY. My first encounter with GXPROXY was at their table at the Texas Challenge in 2012, where I met the nicest personnel there. Because of their customer service, I eventually sought them out to help me create a personalized geocoin with my geocache name on it. When the finished product arrived, I called to tell them how happy I was with the coins. Beverly always remembered my name as well as my geocache name. She conveyed that GXPROXY was on Facebook and if I “liked” the page, there might be specials that would be advertised there. So needless to say, I “liked” GXPROXY.
The third part of this story comes from a contest on the GXPROXY Facebook page, “Name my new baby goat”. The winner would win some geocaching swag. I went ahead a submitted an entry just for fun. I checked back every once in a while to see what people were submitting as names for the goat and noticed a posting from a familiar Facebook friend. It was my MOTHER! She had submitted the name for the goat to be “GOUTA”. In a jealous tone, I called her up and asked her what did she know about GOUTA? She hesitated a minute, and she told me it was cheese made from goat’s milk. She asked me what I was talking about, and I asked if she remembered submitting a name for a “name the goat” contest and she said yes. I asked her if she was aware that she won 2nd place with her submission of the name “GOUTA” and she laughed like there was no tomorrow. She wanted to know what the name they decided to name the goat was and I told her “Tootsie Roll”.
I contacted Beverly and told her the story listed above, and she asked that since my mother was not a geocacher, maybe she would like something else than the listed geo-prize. I told her that since she enjoyed following the adventures of my trackables, that a travel bug would be a good choice. So they sent her one in the mail. Several days later my mother shared with me that recently she had re-connected through Facebook with an old high school friend from more than 50 years ago. After chatting with her about our “name the goat” contest, mom discovered that her friend, Sandra Assenmacher, who lives in Early, Texas, and who also does not geocache, was the one who submitted the winning name for the goat “TOOTSIE ROLL.”
Several months earlier, while trying to complete the “Permian Basin County Challenge”, (GC2MX53), in one of the caches, I exchanged a toy frog for a goat. When I remembered I had it, I showed it to my mother, and she decided she would attach the goat to the trackable she had won through GXPROXY. We named it “GOUTA” of course and when I attended the Texas Challenge XI in Port Aransas, TX, 417 miles from home, Midland, Texas, I dropped him off there for a geocacher to move him. Sadly he disappeared several months later last seen in Georgia but “GOUTA” will live forever in my heart. It’s a special memory between a mother and daughter.
Have you released or discovered a trackable with an extra special story behind it? Please share it on our Facebook page (@GeocacheTalk) or on Twitter (@GeocacheTalk).
Carla Young, aka Lilsprinkles67, caches in and around West Texas. She’s found 1892 caches to-date and has hidden 118. She loves geocaching, NASCAR, and going on cruises. Carla has cached in Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, the Cayman Islands, and Belize. Her own geocoin, “Pink Sprinkles Geocoin,” can be seen at TB5PE6K; it was released in May 2013. In 2017, she was on vacation 470 miles from home and found it in a cache, picked it up, and brought it back home. Her furthest traveling trackable is TB6HMDN. Find her on Twitter: @lilsprinkles67.
“Sprinkles make ordinary things special.”
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