Since my spontaneous visit of Pima Air & Space Museum on my 2015 birthday, I started a tradition of having a little road trip for every birthday. I rode a bike to Sweetwater Wetlands Park to see some birds with Tucson Audubon Society on my 2016 birthday. When my 2017 birthday came close, I planned something big: I wanted to attend the Yuma Mega, the biggest geocaching event in the Southwest region.

Finding the Event

I started geocaching as a hobby in 2013. Geocaching for me is mostly an individual sport: I rode bikes all over Tucson metro area, lift up lamp post covers and poke my hand into guardrails to find mint containers hidden within. Event Caches, on the other hand, are special geocaches that allow geocachers to gather and socialize. I browse Geocaching.com's event listing from time to time, and attend those events regularly. Normally, 15~30 people would show up in a local restaurant or city park. People would tell their stories, and plan out-of-state trips to search for large number of geocaches.

Yuma Mega is not just any event, but a "Mega-Event Cache". Geocaching HQ awards Mega status to events attracting more than 500 geocachers. I heard about Yuma Mega in 2015, but the date was adjacent to a conference trip so I wasn't able to arrange it. 2017's Yuma Mega event falls on Sunday Feb 12, which happens to be my birthday. 2017 is also my last year living in Arizona. It was "now or never", so I have to attend Yuma Mega!

I made up my mind on Nov 24, 2016, and booked a rental car and a motel room for the trip. Both reservations were cancelable in case there's a paper deadline on that weekend, but thankfully there wasn't one, so I'm greenlighted for the trip.