Guilty

When I was looking over the pictures for the Jeep post, it struck me as kind of odd that I didn't have any pictures of any of the green jeeps that I've helped move, nor did I have any pictures of the yellow jeeps either. It seemed very strange, especially since the jeep travel bugs had photography contests associated with them and I like to take pictures. Why hadn't I taken pictures of the bugs that I had?

Sometimes, I think I get so involved in getting caches that I forget about the little things. Almost all of my travel bugs that I've released have something on the order of, "please take pictures of the bug where you take him." And yet, when I've moved bugs, more often than not, I don't take pictures of where the bug or geocoin is going. I've found that during our summer camping trips, I'm much more tempted to take pictures of travel bugs that I've brought along for the ride, trying to get more of a story for each bug. Yet I'm still puzzled by my lack of pictures of all the bugs I've helped move. As of this post, I've helped move along 188 travel bugs and numerous geocoins. I'm leaving the geocoins out of the equation, because I know some of those are just "discoveries" and not actual movements. I don't discover travel bugs, so I know that I've actually had those guys in my inventory.

So with 188 travel bugs, one would expect for me to have at least 188 travel bug pictures, but I know that's not the case. Some bugs I have picked up, only to drop at a later cache on the same caching trip, so a picture really didn't happen. But even that is a pretty lame excuse since I bring my camera with me on virtually all caching expeditions, just in case. So I guess I'm guilty of not doing what I would like others to do with my bugs: take pictures of where they've been.

Now, granted, sometimes the goal of a bug is just to move it along from cache to cache. OK, I can say I've done that. I could have done more though. It wouldn't have required that much extra effort to squeeze off a picture or two of a travel bug near the location where it was. When I've done that in the past with some bugs, I've actually gotten some pretty interesting pictures. I thoroughly enjoyed the time I had with the Billiard Bug #13. I took it to an event cache and got a picture taken of it with 13 event attendees. I also got a picture of it at campsite #13 with an almost 13 year old. The creativity was part of the fun.

I think what I'm trying to say is I need, at least for myself, to step back and slow down a little bit. The past couple of years, it was a numbers run, and while fun, I could have had more fun I think, if I'd just slowed down, not gotten as many caches, and perhaps played around a little bit with what I had at my disposal at the time. When I did that in the past, I got some fun shots, and occasionally would get some nice thank you emails from the owners of the bugs. They appreciated the work and I think that's what's really important. They took the time to create the goal, create the bug, why shouldn't I take the time to make the bug's trip a little bit more eventful for its owner?

I think that's what I need to do from now on. I picked up two travel bugs on my last cache run up in the high desert this weekend. Lisa the Dinosaur is a five year old girl's first travel bug. I think the least I could do is to make a fun picture of the dinosaur terrorizing the dog, or something along that line. In fact, one of the goals is to post interesting pictures. I'm the 15th person to have Lisa in my hand. No one has taken a picture of her and she's traveled clear across the country from Maine to California. I'm going to change that.

The other bug that I got this weekend was Monster Car. 9 cachers have seen Monster Car since it was released and not a single picture has been taken. Monster Car's travel is a lot more modest than Lisa, only a mere 123 miles, but he's been out in the low desert of California. Surely there could have been an opportunity for a off roading kind of picture to have happened. Well, I'm going to come up with something for it before I release it.

Last week, I took a beautiful road and found several caches along that road. I took a much slower pace and enjoyed the trip. I need to remember to do that with all things caching. I think I will appreciate it more, because it's not really a race, but more of a journey. I need to remember that.

Pictures were taken at or near the following caches of the following travel bugs:
Billiard Bug #13 seen near Sunset Crater by wolfb8 (libby)
Team Rainbow Apes - Black seen near The Mystery of Crowder Canyon by Tevis Clan
Storm Trooper seen near Star Wars TB Cantina by jeepnakd
Olaf's Search Party - Sven seen at RESERVOIR VIEW by w6lax