May 29, 2014

• GeoWaldo at GeoWoodstock

  I have reached the point in recounting our mini-vacation of the reason for traveling to St. Charles - GeoWoodstock. We were not able to stay for the entire day. In fact, we left before noon. We’d already had a great time in St. Charles and attended two GeoWoodstock pre-events; a flash mob and the official Meet & Greet.

  To understand how we spent the morning of GeoWoodstock, you need to understand something about my husband. He’s a nuclear chemist, a nuclear operations training instructor, a logical and analytical person. He is also creative, funny and quirky -- qualities that make him a very good teacher. His mother’s side of the family hails from the small town of Waldo, Arkansas. For about 20 years now, whenever we put in an order at a place like Panera, or are on a waiting list for restaurant seating, or other situations where he is asked what his name is, he has answered Waldo because it’s easily heard and understood in a noisy setting, and there’s not likely to be another Waldo in the building.

  When my daughter introduced me to geocaching, Brett didn’t get involved right away. Once he did start going out with us, he was more often than not the one to spot the cache. While he enjoyed finding the caches, he wasn’t really interested in logging them online, but after about a year of him finding nearly every cache we looked for together, Krysten decided since he was so good at finding them, he needed to be logging them. She set up an account for him and chose waldowalking for his geocaching name and a picture of Where’s Waldo for his profile picture.

  Brett found that so amusing, after another year or so he bought a Waldo costume and occasionally wore it to local festivals or just randomly when he felt like spreading joy and happiness. It’s amazing how many people get excited when they “find” Waldo. People of all ages and backgrounds will call out, “Waldo! I found you!” and ask to pose for pictures with him.

  Every year at GeoWoodstock a group photo is taken and I thought it would be a great opportunity for a real “Where’s Waldo” moment. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack his costume and I didn’t mention it to Brett so he could pack it. So the day before GeoWoodstock we found a party supply store that sold costumes and bought another one, just for the group photo. He didn’t have blue jeans with him, or the cane he usually carries as Waldo, but with the striped shirt and hat and the round glasses, everyone would recognize him.

  So we got to the park on Saturday morning and Brett broke out the costume, and THE HAT WAS MISSING!!! When we bought it, the clerk asked for my phone number and I countered with, “Why do you need that?” She said if I needed to return the costume, they would need my phone number for the refund. Bah! In the first place, I defy a business to deny me a refund for legitimate cause when I have the merchandise and the store receipt. In the second place, there was no way we’d have an opportunity to return it. So I got snippy and refused to give my phone number because I find it VERY irritating that I can’t purchase anything these days without being asked for my zip code, phone number and email address. But I digress.

  Brett was pretty mad about the missing hat, but we decided to create Geo-Waldo instead of the traditional Waldo. He put on the shirt with his cargo pants, put on the round glasses, stuck his waldowalking nametag in the brim of his straw hat, and carried his hiking stick. As we walked onto the grounds, cries of “Waldo! I found you!” filled the air and people began running up and posing for photos with him. Here are a few photos I took or found online:

   

  

  

  

  Even the Groundspeak Lackey (a representative from geocaching headquarters) posed for a photo with him. After I took the photo for us, he pulled out his camera and asked for a photo for himself.

  

  And we managed to force our way to the (almost) front of the group photo!

  

  If you blow up the photo and look with a great big magnifying glass, you might see Waldo behind the giant frog. I’m standing next to Waldo, murisopsis is next to me, and Old Dog Sparky is next to and slightly behind murisopsis.

  We had a fun morning, but we had to leave right after the group photo in order to make it to Eureka Springs, Arkansas in time for Brett’s high school alumni banquet that evening. We stopped along the way to take photos of 14 signs in a rest area in the rain so we could solve a puzzle and find a cache on our way back east the next day. I’m not entirely sure that one was worth the effort, but we did it.

  We arrived in Eureka Springs with about an hour to spare before the banquet. Our motel was kind of a dive and filled with bikers. I think I got bit by a spider there; possibly a brown recluse. I’m keeping an eye on the bite, but it looks like the swelling is going down and the “blister” in the middle isn’t getting any bigger.

  I dropped Brett off at his banquet and took off for Springdale (an hour away) to spend a couple of hours with my uncle and cousin and drop off a couple of loaves of almond braid I’d baked and hauled from Michigan before the family starts arriving for my aunt’s funeral this weekend. And then I drove back to the dive in Eureka and we left the next morning to head home.

  I am leaving today for the first leg of the journey back to Arkansas for my aunt’s funeral. I’ll be going with my cousin from Chicago, and I’m not taking my computer with me, so no more updates until I get back next week. I’ll be able to read posts and comments on my Kindle, though, just in case anyone is reading this and/or still blogging here.

  • 9:24 am
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