Insane Train 4 The Spouses Shore Excursions

Insane Train 4 The Spouses

Itinerary & shore excursions

I will be using paypal to collect for the excursions if you would like to use your credit card or live far away. With PayPal I have to do it like you are just sending me money if not they will send me a 1099IRS form like it was income and I was going to make money off the deal. If not you can pay me directly. I will not be collecting funds until it gets closer to the sailing but I will need to know who is going on what excursion and how they plan to pay.  Please comment below or send me an email so I can track it all in one place. Thanks Quads

Here is the list of shore excursions for the trip. All plans are subject to change due to cancellations by vendors or a need to skip some caches to get our buts back to the dock. I am giving you the breakdown of costs and what the excursions will include. For those of you who book all of the excursions if there is money left over you will be receiving a portion of that money to reduce the cost of your total expense. For example if 10 people booked all the available excursions and there was a $200 surplus after all was paid each person would receive $20 back. Like I said before I am not here to make any money I just want to have some fun. I had to add into the cost the extra money because it is more expensive per person the less people you have going on the excursions. I hope you find it well worth you time and money to go on them with us. If you are still not convinced this is your best bang for your buck and that you will have a great time just post below and I will sell you on it :-)

 Sunday September 20^th

At sea day we will meet at a location onboard the ship to be determined later. We will be meeting onboard the ship to distribute swag, info and excitement.

Monday September 21^st

1pm arrive in Juneau we we have a 15 pass van reserved and can get another minivan to accommodate all to Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. Entrance fee is included. Those who are physically able can hike to the base of Nugget Falls GC1EHCT. For those that can’t there is a visitors center and cache near the parking area. There is a possibility of a quick return trip to town for those not wanting to do the hike. We will be caching back to the boat dock. We plan to arrive by 5:30pm

6pm there will be an event at the top of the tram. Also some caches and earthcache are at the top. Ship departs at 10pm

Juneau	Mendenhall Glacier	$35.00		Includes Trackable Sigmarx ride to and from the Mendenhall Glacier visitors center AND entrance fee. Stops at Geocaches there and back. If you are not going on the hike it will take you geocaching while the others are hiking.
Juneau	Tramm	$40.00		Includes Trackable Sigmarx and Tram ride to the top of the mountain to the Geocaching event.

Tuesday September 22^nd

Glacier Bay GC33E9G we will meet on deck once during the day. If you purchased all the excursions there will be a Trackable Sigmarx for each person paid.

Wednesday September 23^rd  NICHOLE’S BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

7am arrive in Sitka meet on the dock at 8:30 for the tour shuttle to the first cache placed in Alaska GC68. For those of you who are able to hike you may continue on a 3 mile hike through the wilderness of Alaska. There will be a returning shuttle to pick us up at the end of the hike. If you are not able make the hike or feel you have to much cash in your wallet and just want to return to Sitka as soon as we get the first cache you can ride that shuttle back to town.

Sitka

1st cache and hike

$30.00

Includes Trackable Sigmarx and Ride to the 1st cache placed in Alaska and back to Sitka or if you choose to be dropped off at the 1st cache and hike in the wilderness it will come back and pick you up at herring cove and take you back to the ship.

Thursday September 24^th

            7am meet on the dock at 8am and take some minivans to Harriet Hunt Lake GC532RH
            up above Ketchikan and on the return to the dock stop at  GC5TW8Q

Totem Bight State Park.

Ketchikan

Rental car caching

$30.00

Includes Trackable Sigmarx and Rental car to Harriet Hunt Lake and geocaching/sightseing Ketchican

Friday September 25^th

                7pm Victoria Canada YOU NEED A PASSPORT!

                Meet at the dock and take a limo to Landsharks store for an event, then on the return geocache back to the ship.

Limo Caching

$55.00

Includes Trackable Sigmarx and 3 Hour Limo Ride to Landsharks store and the Geocaching event then a drive around town geocaching before we have to board the ship for home

 It is $180 for all the excursions and you should get some back at the end if all goes as planned.

Day 1.2

Day 1.2

So with the car finally real quiet, Silly and I were awake but that was it. We just kept keeping on all the way into Florida, Only a few feet into Florida but that is all we needed to find a cache and get a new state. GC3MA76 Welcome to Florida. WAKE UP, WAKE UP, EVERYBODY WE ARE IN FLORIDA. OK really it was only Gobaltreckers that was still asleep when we got there but he still had to wake up. Atmore is a really cool old town. Looks to be from the plantation days but it was still dark and we didn’t stop to check on local history.

Gas is the Prius lasted longer than I had originaly planned so I was just using gas buddy on the fly to get some of the best prices in the country. $3.13 a gallon at one point. But that meant I also was stretching it a bit at times.

We drove 10 miles past the point were the car said we had no miles left so we could get cheaper gas. But have no fear Globaltreckers said you could one or two miles on battery alone if we ran out. Good to know. So it was finally light out when we got gas and we were hungry.  So in Prattville Alabama we stopped to let the guys have Cracker Barrel for the first time.  And I knew there would be a cache there.  Found a famous signature on 181 Cracker GCTR03   AirRaidFan!

So finally 6:24  am Pacific time 26.5 hours from the start of our journey we finally found a 1^st state cache GC126 Trussville Civitan - Alabama's First Cache. Not much to write home about on this one but it was great to see a cache maintained for so long. On the way out Grizz said there was one on the bridge so we looked and looked then thought maybe the water took it? Nope it was a mystery cache and that is where the icon was :) HA Grizz thanks for the mosquito bites.

On the way to Atlanta we passed by the Talladega speedway and man di we want to stop and see how fast we could get a rental car on the high banked oval. But not time for the Insane we pressed on looking for our next cache and next state.

Just east of Atlanta is Georgia’s first cache GC1D Beaver Cache. I had posted in the forums our plans and while we were headed this way I got an email from a local saying he would be waiting for us at the cache. AWESOME! We love to meet locals and this is a first for us.  Kunarion was there when we pulled up and it was nice to get to walk out with him talking and taking some pics along the way. This was a big cache of the five gallon size.  Quick find and back to the cars we went. I felt kinda strange when we got back to the car because it was like thanks great to meet you now we are off. I like to take my time to get to know people a bit better but sorry didn’t add that into the route.  Georgia is done and now two of the first caches. Day still is far from over. It is only 11am our time so we better keep on keepin on.

So as always here is a random pic from our trip

Closest to a sleeping silly we got

 

IT2 Day 1.1

Day 1.1

Still day one

Have you ever been disappointed about something but decide to do it anyway? Well that is what not having a Jack in the Box to stop at for lunch was for me when planning this trip. Well guess what, Globaltreckers trip may have started off with a big bump but mine was going great, from the freeway I could see Jack in the Box calling us home for lunch. Simple stuff, that’s all I need to keep me happy. So we tanked up and off we went for our first cache in Louisiana.

The Train Gang in Louisiana

It was raining hard as we pulled into the first rest stop in Louisiana. Off to the bathroom we went before we got GC21RCV Bienvenue en Louisiane because all the iced tea had done it’s job and now wanted to leave. Globaltreckers stayed by the car while we went and then found the cache. While he was walking over to us a very friendly Deputy Sheriff stopped him to ask what we were doing and that someone last week was doing the same thing and told her the same answer. She never got out of her car to see, and when she saw the GoPro she hide her face. Funny she was talking on her phone and playing solitaire on her work computer but we did not care since no ticket was issued.

 

You boys are doing What? That's Insane!

What you should think about when planning a trip but we were totally clueless about is are you wanted where you are going? We stopped in Louisiana for gas and food and ran into some racism. Not real bad no rocks or things like that just nasty looks and you could feel the dislike for us because of our skin. Not everyone there was like that but enough that even I noticed and I am normally clueless to stuff like that. Since we were close to the interstate highway it was not that much of a problem. So just think about it a bit next time you plan a geocaching trip, just because there is a blip on your map does not mean it is as safe as you think. The friendly people more than made up for the others all the places we stopped at on the trip. New places new experiences, that is what we wanted and that is what we got.

Major DNF and time suck at the oldest cache in Mississippi, GC90 Bonita Lakes cache. We tried to bushwhack from the mall but it was wet, we were in sandals, it was real late at night, two of us were in shorts and the real trail head was closed for the night. So we had to call it because the rest of the trip was more important than just one cache. 

Our first priority was states, then 1st caches so after three DNF’s in the same town off we went down the road with only a few caches we could get before going into Alabama. So now with the windshield continually fogging up from all the moisture from rummaging around in the woods we finally found a cache in a cool small town on a rail car so all worked out for us and finally no contact with law enforcement. Quitman Train Depot GC3ET6B was our find in Mississippi, it was fitting cache for the Insane Train and easy to boot!

Here is a random pic from our trip. My side after I drove for a bit. Now time to pick it up a bit so the other side can get trashed. Don't worry it's a rental :)

 

What a "day 1"

What a “day 1”

First 86 miles

This day has had it’s ups and downs so far. Silly Me started the day off with forgetting his phone in the car and trying to convince me we had enough time to ride the shuttle back to the car and get it and still make the flight. Not a chance we had 30 minutes till lift off as much as I wanted to for him there was not enough time to make it back. So through security we went,  got to the gate and only waited 5 minutes before we started to board. After we safely made the plane the jokes about not having a phone have not stopped.  

You guys don't look so crazy to me

The flights for globaltreckers went super smooth with no big events.  While our flight was filled with phone jokes and just plain silliness. We also had the joy of sitting behind a family with a super cute baby that started playing with Grizz and then me.  I loved getting to play with that cute little guy since my wife and kids are gone and wont be back for another eighteen days.  We also got to talk to his mom about caching. Sure makes a guy miss his family.

 

It's no F350 but it will do

Once we all gathered at Budget in Dallas we had to wait a few minutes while they found the Prius. They tried to offer us up a few other cars but none would come close to the MPG so we would wait.  While some of the cars were way cooler all we wanted was MPG. When you are driving 3000 miles in three “days” you don’t care what it is or what it looks like all that matters is MPG. 

Combat driving skills are a must when driving in the south for sure. We have never seen this combat driving taken to this high of a level before. We all have driven Seattle, Portland, California and mountain roads with slow moving campers but this takes the cake. If you leave even half a car length they are slicing in with no blinker so be aware.  Speed limit signs are a joke to everyone except the small town cops who sit on the freeway and generate revenue. Globaltreckers had the cruise set for 80 in a 75 zone and we were getting passed like we were standing still. Officer James Burnette ID# 107 of the Lindale Police department   903-882-6150 claims he saw us going 86 in a 75 zone and has it on radar.   




While I don’t know what he was doing or looking at on the internet while he was sitting on the side of the highway he could not observed our car going that fast because we were behind a semi truck and slowly passing him. While Officer Burnette was writing us the ticket I pulled up my gps tracklog to verify the speed we were traveling and make sure the car was not incorrect. When Globaltreckers  got out and told Officer Burnette we had this information and it was not us he clocked he stated that he checked the radar twice and Globaltreckers would have to come back to Texas to fight it in court. WHAT THE HELL? 

So basically what we learned is that a small town in Texas if they want to increase revenue all they have to do is surf the web, wait until your radar beeps,  pick the first car you see, pull them over and hope they are from a good distance away and then write them a ticket. It is totally wrong but it would cost Globaltreckers more to fly back to Texas and fight it than just pay the ticket. And that is what they are hoping he does and there is nothing he can do.  We have had a our fair share of experiences with local law enforcement on our caching trips. All but this one has been pleasant.  But on the bright side we had something to make fun of Globaltreckers  about. 

This was only the first 11 hours of “day 1” and 86 miles of driving and no caches yet.

Random cache pic of the day  

GC2JNTY A Mountain View  Virginia