Go And Get ‘Em 9, the most recent of the Go And Get ‘Em geocaching events held every six months or so in Ottawa, took place last weekend (October 20-21, 2006). Starting at 18:00 Friday evening, it consisted of 24 hours of geocaching, followed by a dinner that started at 18:00 Saturday. Friday night, Darin and I headed out and found our first cache shortly after 6pm. We completed seven caches Friday night before calling it a night.

Saturday morning, Darin and I met up at my place, swapped vehicles. The only hitch, other than being up before 0700, occured when I fumbled I was holding while getting out of the elevator and watching my car keys go sliding across the floor and down the crack between the elevator car and floor. Retrieving my backup set of keys, we headed off for breakfast with the geomob at the Newport. After feeding, we headed out to find the first cache in the small Maplelawn park on Richmond Road. From there, we did another 9 caches before calling it a day.

Dinner started around 6pm at a restaurant called Stan’s. The food, while good, took a long time to arrive, probably because they just weren’t ready for about 200 people to order simultaneously.

Tick and Nammie, a local geocaching couple, organized yet another great event and deserve a round of applause. Everyone I talked to had a great time caching and socializing afterwards.

(Oh, and if you’re wondering about my car keys, the elevator engineers happened to be on-site a couple of days later and retrieved them from the bottom of the elevator shaft for me.)