Jeeps

It looks like Geocaching has run out of colors for their promotional jeep travel bugs they’ve had going for the last couple of years. Four years ago, they started 5000 yellow jeeps attached to specially designed travel bugs. The following year, it was much bigger white jeeps, then the next year it was the Hot Wheels™ size green jeep and then last year they put out the red jeeps. Usually by this time of year, they’ve already started the promotion and you can send in a request to get one to take them on your holiday plans. Hmmmmmm.

I’ve been fortunate to have helped along several of each different kind of jeep in the past. I remember when the first yellow jeeps came out. I was planning on attending my very first event in July of 2004 and I saw someone place the jeep virtually on the cache page. Although, I’m not proud of the fact that I kind of “vultured” that travel bug, hanging around the travel bug table at the event until it was placed there, I really wanted that bug because I was going to be camping in Utah about a week after that and I wanted to take a “special” travel bug there. Interestingly, I dropped the yellow jeep off in Utah and ended up finding another yellow jeep in Nevada a couple of days later.

The following year was the white jeep year. Compared to the yellow jeeps, these things were massive. I’ve only found two of these and I had fun with one of them, taking it to two national parks, Sequoia and Kings Canyon and posting a picture of it to make it look like it was off roading near the Great Western Divide. The white jeeps also started a tradition, in that all of the jeeps had names. The previous yellow jeeps only were numbers. The white ones had first names attached to them. I took “Kathy” to a cache just outside the boundaries of Kings Canyon National Park and later one I also found “Mervin.” Unfortunately, a lot of the white jeeps went missing early, probably because people were keeping them because they shared a name. I will admit that I placed all of the jeeps that had my name, or my wife and kid’s names on my watchlist for a little bit. Several of these never surfaced in any caches.

The following year (2006), Geocaching.com had a semi-lottery for the green jeeps. You had to fill out a short form and then hope that your form was picked and they would send you a jeep. I filled one out and got a green jeep in the mail. Part of the form was a promise that you would place the jeep that you received in a cache within 14 days. I received the jeep in early August and dropped it in a cache a week later. I’ve found more green jeeps than any other, yet I haven’t taken any pictures of them. I’m not sure why that is, but if I find another, I’m going to have to rectify that situation. The green jeeps were all named after mountain peaks. I’m not sure if any peak names were used outside of the United States, but I suspect not because all of the 8 green jeeps that I found were named after peaks within the US.

In 2007, there was another lottery and I found myself in possession of a red jeep. The “Little Black River” Red jeep (all were named after rivers this year), went with us to the Grand Canyon and was eventually placed in a travel bug hotel just south of the canyon. It was grabbed by another cacher and placed in a cache in the Bay Area of California. We ended up taking several pictures of this guy, nothing really spectacular, just more on the fun side.

I was kind of hoping that the new jeeps would be coming out soon. I figure if they do end up doing jeeps again this year, it will be black ones. I’d love to take a black jeep to northern California or possibly southern Oregon this summer. It just seems like it should be time for them to be coming out soon especially since the summer season is quickly approaching. As I looked back on some of the past jeeps, I discovered that the jeeps ended up coming out at different times. The yellow jeeps were released on June 2, while the white jeeps were released May 27^th. The green jeeps weren’t released until August 1^st, and the red jeeps were released on July 1^st. I guess what this really means is, there’s still time to hope for another jeep summer while geocaching.

Pictures were taken at or near the following caches:
Mary E. J. Colter built it by Yrium & Whistlestick
Living Large by bthomas
Trail's End Rest by Timpat