The last full month of winter challenged Adventure Awaits participants to find 5 non-traditional geocaches with one being an event. No one did that better than the repeat winner stevendede (Steve Jacobs).
Steve won in November 2023 during the inaugural year of SLAGA's monthly challenge, so we know a little about this high geo-achiever. But during the past 15 months since his first win, Steve has increased his caching finds from 16,056 caches to 18,301, and hidden 8 additional caches. He also recently completed a personal challenge of 1355 consecutive days with finds. In 2024 alone, Steve found more than 1900 caches, his most productive year since he started caching in 2011. He has over 300 cache finds this year so far, with five of them being his qualifying caches for the February 2025 Adventure Awaits win.
GCAEZWA - CASC 2024- Tatooine - Letterbox
GC96B2F - Dr. Alien's Wickedly Wonderful Wherigo #131
GCGJ53 - Original McDonalds - McToy Museum - Virtual
GC4E3JV - Holtville Hot Springs - Earthcache
GCAKZ9Y - Yuma Block Party: Thanks GCHQ for 25 Amazing
When asked why he chose these caches and some favorite caching experiences since he won last, he combined it all into his story of an awesome week-long caching trip he took with his buddy Vorlon40 to the Yuma, Arizona Block Party.
"We flew to Phoenix and spent 2 days caching around Phoenix and Mesa, highlighted by a desert hike to Arizona's oldest cache (GC57) and dinner with frequent SLAGA visitors Jim & Marline (eagles_landing). Next we headed towards San Diego, logging California's oldest cache (GC5B) along the way. But that was all in January, so they didn't count for the February Adventure Awaits.
On February 1st, we cached our way from Santa Monica back to Yuma. Along the way we stopped for a Star Wars themed letterbox hybrid CASC 2024- Tatooine (GCAEZWA), a couple reverse-Wherigo hides in the series of Dr. Alien's Wickedly Wonderful Wherigos (GC96B2F), and a quick visit to the Original McDonalds - McToy Museum for a virtual cache (GCGJ53). After an overnight south of Desert Springs, we stopped at in Holtville, CA to smell the sulfur at the Holtville Hot Springs Earthcache (GC4E3JV) before finally arriving at our target, the Yuma Block Party: "Thanks GCHQ for 25 Amazing Years" to earn the rare GCHQ Block Party icon. Now I've logged every one of the 20 geocache types created by Groundspeak.
The block party was a blast, with lots of fun caching around Yuma plus the opportunity to cross the border into Los Algodones, Mexico for a CITO, a lunch event, and several caches. That evening we cached our way back to Phoenix for our flight home."
As Steve has always claimed, his favorite caching experiences involve travel, and that is certainly the case with his February winning caches and geo-trip. It appears he doesn't actually 'await' adventures, but travels and finds them himself by geocaching state and worldwide!
Congratulations and Cache On Steve!