I've only attended two GeoWoodstocks.
The first was in Warren, PA. That was an awesome weekend for me. I am not very comfortable around large groups of people. I like to hang back, take pictures and watch. I never had much interest in poker but I ended up sitting through nearly the whole of the Geopoker tournament and really enjoying it, sitting through the podcasters live shows and making a couple of friends out of the bargain (HeadHardHat probably remembers a late night call) and meeting folk from all over. This really brought me out from behind the lens of my camera. I'm so used to being on the other side and just watching that I forget that the picture has sound! I just have to listen. I met Triple HHH, DarylW4, XpunkX, you know all the big names. I met MollyMonkey and made a friendship there that, while infrequent, is always there when we see each other in real life or online. It was a whole new world for me. I also visited Centralia, PA and a part of the abandoned PA turnpike and several other very cool locations. This is what caching is about to me. GeoWoodstock IX was very well put together. The exhibits and the flow of it were pretty good. Nothing's perfect, I heard complaints, but I heard way more good than bad. I met some of the people I've always wanted to meet up with. I also had the chance to promote Geocoinfest 2011 which I was helping plan and I really got to see what it meant to put on a great event. I will always be thankful for that to the folk that set up the Warren event and I made it a point to tell each volunteer and board member I met for that event. It was truly worth my time and money to be there. And it was a privilege.
Then came GWX. They took it back to its roots, as close as possible anyway, I still don't understand why it wasn't held in Louisville where the first GW was held.
It was held in Sellersburg, IN. The big difference for me was that this one was very spread out. Hundreds of feet between sections of the event. The flow was very bad. the vendors were sparse, the heat was unbearable. Now they couldn't have done a thing about the heat. That's not in their power to make happen. What I saw was that there wasn't water for the animals brought to the event, public restrooms that were available on the fairgrounds weren't made available to the attendees of the event, people were having to walk in a half mile to the event (there was special parking if you bought the top tier of package, we did), the food line and drink line were split so that you got your food first then had to go stand in another line to get your drink, etc. So much was wrong with this event. Again, this was compounded by the heat, which was out of all of our hands.
Not all was lost for me that weekend. I visited Captain McHarry's Vault, which was one of my favorite caches ever, I ate dinner at Claudia Sander's Dinner House (yes, the Col's wife) and downtown Louisville is something you have to visit. If you're ever there spend a day and really take it in. Sights in between all these and other great places and you get why we cache and take the chances we do.
It's all in the journey. And at the end of it, I don't really have a complaint.
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This led to my decision to stay home this weekend. I didn't want to go and feel like I wasted my money. I am sure the folk in Florida made a fine presentation of GeoWoodstock and I would like to hear from cachers either way how it went. Just post in the comments here or on the comments on G+, it will get back to me.
I stayed home and took the kids to the zoo. It was a perfect Saturday with perfect weather and I couldn't have spent a better day with better people than my family. No caches found, no Munzees scanned, the zoo most of the day, a trip to the bookstore and dinner. We were home by five and relaxing.
I thought about the last two GW all weekend. I had some great road-trips and was lucky to have ended up having at least one great experience for an event.
I just felt like writing. Thanks for reading.
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