The treasure hunting adventure of geocaching and exploration are rarely solo experiences. We want to share these moments of discovery with the world.
Think of the great explorers. Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition around the world began with more than 200 men. Columbus had three ships full of fellow explorers. So it’s no stretch that modern day geocaching explorers want others to join the adventure.
Let me introduce you to Brenda Shirey, aka Sequoia_2. The Louisiana resident started geocaching in 2005. She wanted to share the adventure and camaraderie of geocaching. Her idea? It’s a Trackable geocaching puzzle (TB1CNE2 “Geocacher’s Puzzle”). The puzzle consists of custom-made puzzle pieces from geocachers around the globe. Pieces have arrived from Japan, the U.K. and throughout North America.
Brenda says, “The puzzle idea came along after I was buying school supplies at a teacher supply store. They had these large blank puzzles you could buy called ‘Community Puzzle.’ I really didn’t know what I was going to do with them. One day I sat there doodling around and started decorating one with my geocaching name and some stickers.”
Brenda Shirey aka Sequoia_2
Soon Brenda says, “I showed it to someone and they liked it and said they wanted to do one. Thinking this would make a good Travel Bug, I assigned a number to it from one of my Travel Bugs I had and started giving out puzzle pieces to people who were interested.” That was in March of 2007.
The idea spread quickly beyond her local geocaching community: “The puzzle goes to events as a Travel Bug where I set it up and people can discover it. I will also bring blank pieces with me with my mailing address on the back for those interested in making one. Everyone who sees the puzzle really likes it and enjoys looking at all the pieces. When I first started, most of my pieces were from local cachers, but as the puzzle traveled to events, other cachers took notice. ”
Brenda says, “My first piece from out of the USA came from Japan! I now have pieces from all over the world. They range from the very simple to some who have put a lot of work into them. Some cachers will tell me they can’t make one, they are not artistic. You don’t have to be artistic, as long as your geocaching name is in the design, it can be anything at all!”
And Brenda says that anyone can make their own puzzle: “I had someone express interest in starting one themselves and I told them to expect to spend a lot of time and money on it. Puzzle pieces, envelopes and postage add up after a while and it can be expensive, but it is worth it to me just to see it grow larger and to see how people decorate their piece. Someday, my ultimate goal is to get it to about 500 – 1000 pieces and then donate it to Groundspeak to go in their office, maybe even mounted on the wall piece by piece. Now that would be some awesome wall art!”
Yes, it would. Thank you Brenda!
Pieces made by Brenda, her husband and their daughter
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