Need Your Help!

Hi guys. I don't typically get my blogs mixed together - waymarking is for waymarking and the dog blog is, well, for the dogs. But I could use a little help.

Many of you out there know that I am really active in dog rescue. I am the grant coordinator and a foster parent for New Rattitude, a national rat terrier rescue non-profit. With the hit that the economy has taken, it is meaning a big increase in the number of dogs that are being surrendered to shelters. On top of that, many puppymills are being shut down (a great thing). Just a couple weeks ago, two operations that shut down created close to 300 rat terriers that needed immediate rescue or they would be put to sleep - that takes a lot of money and a huge volunteer force. On top of all this, charitable foundations have had big losses in the stock market this year which means less grant monies being made available to animal welfare groups.

Here's the easy way to help (unless you have some spare cash lying around that you could flip into the New Rattitude Paypal account. :) Two animal welfare Websites are holding contests right now and the winning group gets a $25,000 grant in one contest and a $10,000 in the other. In the first contest at the Animal Rescue Site, they are also giving the top vote getter in each state $1,000. In this contest people vote daily for their favorite animal shelter/rescue group. Voting continues through December 14th. All you have to do is save the link in your favorites and go to the site at least once a day. Some folks say you can vote on every computer in your house, a few times a day (you know, so everyone in the family has a chance to vote), but you didn't hear this from me. Right now New Rattitude is 1st in the state of Georgia (where we are incorporated) and 28th nationally. This is down from the 17th place position we held for quite awhile, so we can use more voters.

Just type New Rattitude in the "shelter name" line and choose GA for the state (no city is necessary.) This will bring up the shelter's name and a vote button. Vote daily! Please!!

The second Website with the $10,000 grant is Care 2. They are also randomly drawing shelter names weekly for a $1,000 prize. This one is even easier, because you only have to vote once.

So there's my waymarking pitch for the dogs. If you want to learn more about Team Hikenutty's crazy fostering adventures, be sure to check out our dog blog. Heck, one waymarker has even adopted one of our foster dogs so who says waymarking and fostering can't mix!

Off-season Waymarking

It just seems like there's no time to find any cool waymarks these days. My waymarks have been limited to either crossposts, or ones that are somewhere around town and in categories that don't interest me. You know, the fast food category waymark that I pull off the arterial to get on the way to the dry cleaners. That kind of thing. Bo-ring.

It sucks because now that the school year has started and the wet, cool weather along with it, there really isn't time to get out for a fun day trip. The weekends are full of winterizing and yardwork, and driving Hikenutty, Jr. around to rehearsals. There's no time for a nice day trip up to the islands or east, into the mountains, or better, a weekend out at the coast. Nope, the closest we get to saltwater is peering out the bathroom window at the tiny sliver of the Puget Sound that amounts to our "water view". Don't you just hate it when responsibilities get in the way of your fun!

So, maybe this week I'll stop to waymark the wagon wheel on the housing development sign near the grocery store, or the demonstration garden next to the dog park, or the Methodist Church on the way to the mall. I could really use a waymarking day trip though. I think we'll need to plan one soon - a hike or country drive. We're in Washington, so we just need to pack up the summer clothes, and get the rain suits back out. If you don't let yourself get wet here, it could make for a long waymarking drought.

The photo above was taken in one of Washington's wettest places, the Olympic Coast. The sea star was enjoying a reliably, cool, moist day in Olympic National Park's Ruby Beach area.

Fearing a Visit

Do you ever waymark something that you hope no one will visit? A waymark that shames you? Only the gridders know what I am talking about. No one else out there would stoop so low. Recently, I haven't done many of these, but being a gridder I try to waymark at least one of each lame McGutbomb type category that ends up on the grid.

I still have no idea why anyone would want to waymark these. I guess if you had this deep love for a specific hamburger joint, maybe I get it, but I just can't understand WHY someone would have a deep abiding love for a fast food place or a grocery store.

One of my most embarrassing waymarking moments was when a waymarker posted a note to my waymark for the Wendy's "restaurant" in our town. Their log was one word - "Why?" I totally agreed with them and E-mailed explaining myself with the shame of an addict - trying to make excuses for this habit of mine that led to photographing fast food locations. Oh the shame! The humiliation!

Thankfully that was one of the only visits I remember receiving for my commercial waymarks (non-indie commercial, that is.) I may have visits to my Sonic Burger waymark, but that isn't as shameful to me for some reason.

So, remember, only YOU can stop commercial waymarking! Vote no when you see that next category that comes up and makes you scratch your head. And before you create a category stop and ask yourself, "am I creating this because I'm dying to see waymarks of these places or am I creating it just because I want to start a category?" If you want to start a category so badly, check the forums. Often good ideas are thrown out that never end up going anywhere. Contact the person who had the idea and see if they mind if you run with it. If it's someone like me, they'll probably be relieved that someone else will be doing the work to get it started.

Out of the loop

Boy, I am so out of the loop lately. Here I am continuing to curse the forums and they are actually working now!! You guys could have told me! Well, Bruce actually did tell me.

I browsed through a few different threads and it didn't seem like there were any crazy Web-battles going on, which was nice. The constant grousing was really getting on my nerves. It seems like actual debate is an art that has been lost, at least online.

I also missed out on the town hall that Groundspeak held last Wednesday. My plan was to re-learn how to connect to the damn thing because I am hopeless with those types of things and then join in. However, time got away from me and by the time I remembered it was 6:30pm and well into the conversation so I didn't bother.

So, what have I missed in the forums over the last 4-6 months since I've been a regular there? Any major discussions? Any threads that I should take the time to go back and read? Any that I shouldn't read? ;)

Hope all is well with the waymarking masses and that there are good things coming in the near future as far as Website functionality goes.

Kilroy was where?

So, I was updating the spreadsheet that I keep of the categories and the grid and noticed that half of my grid seemed to be off one space. I wandered up the grid on the Website, looking for the culprit, and there, in the middle of one of my previous bingos was Kilroy, poking his big nose over the grid and mocking me. So unfair!!! This bald punk had stolen my bingo!!! To make matters even worse, I was in D.C. recently and could have grabbed one of the two there that Rose Red and Marine Biologist have posted. (BTW - the photo Rose Red's, posted in the gallery of her Kilroy waymark.)

I'm sure that I'll find one of these at some point, and I have no problem with the category. Just the fact that it was inserted into the middle of the grid. I think the categories are assigned their grid spot according to when the group created the category. So if a category is created and then the group just sits on it awhile, or if it fails and they don't decide to try again until months later, the icon still gets placed according to when the original category description was written, no matter how many categories have been added to the grid since then.

While casual waymarkers may have no issue with that, those of us who keep track of the grid find it incredibly irritating. There has to be a way to fix this. Has anyone else lost a bingo this way? Lost this bingo?

Benchmarking?

I never have understood the draw of benchmarking. Other than people into surveying and cartography, I don't understand why so many people are enthralled with these little disks. The historic survey stones make more sense to me, but why the modern ones? I mean, who cares? Why would someone go visit this tiny circle of bronze/brass/whatever the hell it's made of.

Personally I breathed a sigh of relief back when the "European Benchmarks" category was created because I thought that maybe continental BM categories might stop the grid from ending up with a cat for every country - as bad as the State Historic Marker categories. But it didn't stop new specific BM categories from being formed. Recently there have been two new benchmarking categories created. In spite of the European BM category, new French and Czech BM categories have been created. Surely this is a sign that the voting process isn't working to do what it was put in place to do? Are there really that many BM fanatics out there that these new country specific BM categories can pass? I don't think so.



At the top of the post you see a photo of a benchmark. So would you visit that? What about the photo above? It was taken up above the area where the benchmark photo above was taken. Now that view of Deception Pass, Pass Island, and the San Juan Islands is waymarkable. The CCC built arch bridge that I stood on to take the photo is waymarkable. But the 5 benchmarks that are clustered on a rock below? Yeah, I waymarked them to get the icon, but I don't think I've waymarked a benchmark since, and I surely wouldn't visit one unless it had an interesting history and scenic location to make the visit worth its while.

Managing Visits

I remember when I first started waymarking everyone was bitching that they didn't get any visits logged on their waymarks. Now I have times when my mailbox is completely flooded with visits. I suppose a lot of this is because I used to cross-post in every category that a spot would fit in. Now, in a less compulsive phase of my waymarking career, I stick to crossposting in just my very favorite categories. However, my past has caught up with me and I have several popular tourist spots that are stacked a mile high with waymarks and I regularly get people who post a log to every single one of them. Do any of you have these spots?

For me it is typically the Seattle Center and its famous Space Needle that cause my inbox to overflow. I think I have nearly 50 waymarks in the Seattle Center complex and there are likely over 50 more that others have waymarked. Anyone who is a tourist in Seattle stops to either visit or at least gaze up at the Needle so over the summer especially I will look to see 10 or so "'Space Needle - Seattle, WA' has been Visited" subject headings waiting there to be read. My waymarks in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Washington's Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier National Park are other favorites with visitors, as well as my Chicago and more recently, my Washington, D.C. waymarks.

Now I'll admit something I'm not especially proud of. I don't read all of my visit E-mails. I mean, I try to read at least a few, but I don't have time for them all. I've posted almost 2,200 waymarks now and visit logs have almost gotten to the point of being a problem for me. What is going to happen when I reach 5,000? 10,000? So how do you guys manage the visits your waymarks receive? Is anyone else dealing with this? Has it caused you to slow your cross-posting habit? Just wondering.

Presearch

So, do any of you hate the research that one has to do when trying to locate a waymark for a new category? For me the best kind of waymark is the happy surprise. You know, you stop at a rest area to stretch your legs and there's a Pony Express marker. Something like that.

I don't just hate "presearching" for categories that I'm not fond of. Even searching out spots for some of the categories that I think are pretty fun, like the new Philatelic Locations category, grates on me. It's just not the same as happening upon a spot. I suppose that some of the problem is that I'm just lazy that way. However, I don't at all mind doing research on a spot once I've been there and taken a waymark. I love doing that research and even enjoy writing up the waymarks.

Luckily I have some great waymarking pals who at times will send me tips - Bruce let me know that the Einstein Memorial statue that I had recently waymarked could be posted in the new Extraterrestrial category. He even gave me a link to the page about Einstein Crater. Here's the waymark I posted for that one. 8Nuts MotherGoose were a lazy waymarker's dream! When we visited them on a road trip through the Midwest, they showed up with all kinds of possible spots for waymarks in categories that I didn't yet have: a Zinc Headstone, an Iowa SHM, a Grave of a Famous Person... They even found a great spot for our "Waymarking Sticker Seeker" photo. I'm sure there have been others who've helped me out also.

So, now I still have to look up a Safe Haven place, a Big Brother Big Sister location, an Angel of Hope statue, Buddhist and Hindu temples, where Seattle's ghost bikes are located... I'm not dissing the categories, it's just I really don't have much interest in them (other than the ghost bikes) and so its a bit of a pain to find them. And even if I do find one in Washington, it may be over in Eastern Washington or something, and I am not even hardcore enough to make a special trip to Seattle to grab a waymark, which is only about a 30 minute drive. Then I will have to add it to my list of "next time I happen to be in Spokane" list.

Above you see the Burger Chef location that I waymarked last weekend. I've known about the 5 or 6 Portland, Oregon locations for quite awhile, but just managed to find the time to look for them while down visiting my sister and brother-in-law.

Remembering Why I Waymark

Lately I've been a little disgusted with waymarking and haven't been hunting new marks with the gusto that I used to. After so many new chain categories and a few just plain lame ones it was losing the luster that it once had for me.

Well, over the weekend I remembered what it is that I love about the hobby. With Hikenutty Jr. in Wyoming with his grandparents we decided to head up to North Cascades National Park for some camping and hiking. As I thumbed through the well worn pages of "Pacific Northwest Hiking", a hefty bible for Washington and Oregon hikers, I found a hike that looked interesting - tiny little lake in a box canyon, views of glaciated peaks, wildflowers and WHAT's THAT?!!! A rare spot in Washington where carnivorous plants grow?!!! I didn't even know that carnivorous plants grew in the Northwest. I figured they were all down in the south and southeast. I still didn't have a waymark for the "Carnivorous Plant Localities" category so here was my chance.

So I looked up a photo of "drosera anglica" on the Internet and off we went on our camping trip. I figured my chances of actually seeing a small patch of plants located somewhere along 2 miles of steep trail was slim, but hey, it was worth a try and we would still get some great scenery.

The hike was short, but grueling. The first 1/4 mile seemed more like a mountain goat trail than a hiking trail. This was the kind of hiking where arms were needed to help scramble up at places, not just your legs. For the last half of the hike I carefully scanned the nurselogs and tree trunks for anything unusual. I did find an awesome, bright yellow slime mold, and several beautiful types of wildflowers, but no drosera anglica. Oh well. I figured I could always hit the Seattle Conservatory - they have some carnivorous plants. We finally crested the last ridge and below us lay the pristine little lake with Pyramid Peak towering above. We threw down the daypacks and walked over to the lake with the dogs and there on the multitude of logs floating in the lake were scores of drosera anglica plants - tiny little rose hued plants nestled amongst the moss. I was ecstatic! What a find! How cool. I carefully walked out to a patch of plants on one of the floating logs that was lodged in the rocks on one end and squatted down for some macro shots. Somehow I managed to get a bunch of pictures without me or the camera falling into the very deep lake. (My little dog Frodo was not so lucky when he tried to get to a dragonfly. He jumped onto the log before I could stop him and promptly went for an unwanted swim.)

Anyhow, I now have my carnivorous plant waymark and it's one that I am proud of - not just an exercise in filling the grid, but an awesome, memorable experience. I would have taken the hike with our without the waymark waiting for me there at the end, however, I never would have learned about the rare plant life that grew there, or have been watching close enough to see the slime mold or the pipsissewa blossoms, or the funky lichen that I still can't find the name of. I wouldn't have brought along my wildflower guide and learned the names of several flowers that I hadn't seen before. I would have seen the surface and missed all the glorious detail.

So... I'm still irritated by the path that waymarking is continuing to follow due to lack of guidance and fine tuning. However, I'm learning to change the way I waymark, learning to change my mindset when I head out to waymark, and most of all, learning to lighten up because afterall, this is about learning and having fun in the process. If you want to check out my carnivorous waymark, WM4A2X, you'll find more pictures of this interesting plant and the beautiful little lake that it is found on in the ruggedly beautiful North Cascades.

Sounding off on the Seattle Art & Seek

Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of art waymarking but I have a few problems with the new "Seattle Art & Seek" category. Although I like the fact that Seattle is using waymarking to show off its art, having its own special category doesnt' seem to meld with the direction that waymarking has gone. In fact, I remember several months back a new waymarker in the forums had asked about creating a similar category for Denver's public art and the people of the forums overwhelmingly said no. The reason being is that almost any sculpture or artwork can be waymarked in the existing art categories.

Seattle has an incredible collection of art and a large community of art patrons that make sure that collection continues to grow. Just look at the Olympic Sculpture Park, a park full of world class sculpture that was almost entirely gifted to the community and unlike most parks of this caliber, you don't have to pay to visit it. But I went to Chicago last year and they have a collection that is equally deserving. I'm just back from D.C. and the sculpture there was awesome. My point is that nearly every large city around the world has a collection of art worth waymarking. Do we really want a category for every city's art collection?

Being fond of filling out my waymarking grid, I can't help feeling bad for the other gridders out there who aren't so conveniently located to Seattle as I am. I would be supremely irritated if say, an "Art of Atlanta" or a "Sculpture of Sydney" category started. I started the abstract sculpture category on waymarking.com and the goal was to see public sculpture around the world. There's already a ton of Seattle art in that category, I know because I waymarked a lot of it. Maybe I would have less of a problem if this special waymarking promotional category were a non-grid category. Leave the grid for the categories that have a more global or at the minimum, a national reach. This sets a precedence that I don't want waymarking to follow, and if you read my last post, you'll remember that precedence in waymarking is something that folks oddly hold sacred.

Lastly, the category seems to have been created by a geocacher. What's with the gps photo requirement, huh? Waymarking has happily moved away from the "prove you were there as a waymarker, not a tourist" attitude and now this? Since the category is already in place, I'm not going to get all uptight and boycott it or anything, however, I won't be able to add much to the category because I don't have gps photos of any of the many sculptures that I have waymarked in Seattle. And I'm not going to waste the time and the gas to drive around getting gps photos of things I've already waymarked. I'm not a caching coin addict, so the waymarking coin is not a big enticement for me. Tacoma News Tribune did a waymarking contest (using existing categories) and I won a book there - much more useful.

So there are three artworks in this weeks list of art that I won't be crossposting thanks to the lack of a gps photo: Seattle Mural, Neototems, and Olympic Iliad. Olympic Iliad is shown above. Next time I happen to be up in Seattle for some reason I'll try to find a sculpture to waymark in the area that I'm visiting, but until then I won't be able to participate. I'm a Washingtonian who lives in a suburb of Seattle. I'd love to hear what you Midwesterners and East Coasters think.

Precedence

One of the things that irritates me is this belief that once something has been done on Waymarking.com within a category, or on the Website as a whole, people feel it must always be done that way. You know the argument - "There are already so many fast food categories that it would be unfair to start saying no to new ones," or "we've never allowed that in the category so we can't start now - that would be unfair to people who have had similar waymarks declined." Well big, flippin' WAHHHH. I think people can learn to deal with the change. No one's going to quit waymarking because a category chose to go a different direction, and if they do, well, did we really need such a big baby on the site, anyhow?

Don't get me wrong. Precedence can be very helpful for a group's officers when deciding whether to approve or decline something. If a group has determined a certain borderline type of waymark shouldn't be accepted, it makes it easier to review when that type is posted in the future. But sometimes, when a precedence is regularly being challenged, maybe the group should go back to the drawing board and see if maybe the category requirements need tweaking.

The fast food/commercial waymarking groups are the ones that originally started my pet peeve with this whole issue of precedence. Over and over in the forums I read "but it wouldn't be fair..." Grow up people! Waymarking needs to stay flexible and evolve as the site grows. If something gets tried and doesn't work then move on. Don't continue a bad decision just because it might hurt someone's feelings if the site changed its approach. Most people know my issues with chain waymarking, but I have more of an issue with people who are so rigid that they can't look at the full picture because they are so focused on the "but we've always done it this way" mindset. Be openminded. Look at issues from multiple perspectives. Change will not kill you - trust me.

@#$%ing Forums

Okay, maybe that was a little harsh, but I am extremely frustrated. I haven't been visiting the forums lately because I just couldn't take it anymore. I have a very busy life and when I weigh the time it takes to read the forum posts (due to time outs, etc.) and the enjoyment I get from them, the annoyance of time outs is just too much.

I try to multi-task and work in another window, but even that doesn't make up for the frustration of all the hoops one has to jump through just to read a post. God help me if I want to actually reply to one.

What is most frustrating to me is that I think the forums are an important part of what waymarking is all about. It's a community managed Website - we get to vote and have a say about what categories are created. So communication is key to keeping things growing in a positive direction. The forums are a great place to discuss and learn - IF you can spare the time to try to get the posts to open. I can't and I feel like the result is that I've been cut off from a group of friends.

Anyhow, if you haven't seen me on the forums lately, this is why. My backlog is so huge now that I need to focus on getting waymarks posted when I happen to have a spare moment, not the forums.

The photo above has nothing to do with the forums. It's a photo of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. We recently vacationed there which is part of the reason for my large waymarking backlog and why I'm not taking time to wade through the forums.

Frickin' State Historic Markers and Burger Chefs and ....

Are you noticing a theme here? Although I was able to grab several categories that are next to impossible to find on the West Coast while on vacation in D.C. I was very frustrated by some of the waymarks that I was trying to find. I mean, do I really want to look for a Dunkin' Donuts while on vacation? I think not.

Of course, I've already bitched about my Toynbee tiles experience, but the State Historic Marker categories were almost as bad. Although I find the markers interesting, I really have no desire to hunt them down. I'm more interested in seeing historic places, not signs about them. Anyhow - I figured that I could take care of the Maryland, Virginia and Delaware categories on this trip and the Virginia one was quite easy. You can't spit in Virginia without hitting a historic marker. But in Maryland we had problems. The signs weren't as prolific and someone had gone through and posted the majority of them. I ended up having to settle with just a visit to a sign that I knew had been waymarked.


In Delaware I staked out a very cool sign that I saw located next to a lighthouse that I wanted to waymark. No one had posted it so I felt safe just having the one waymark to post for that category. I mean, how many waymarkers are going to be in Lewes, Delaware? At least one other it seems. Today when I went to post my waymark I learned that in the interim between when I originally checked the category and today someone else posted it. So for Delaware I ended up with just a visit as well in the SHM category. I would have waymarked backup markers if I had seen any, but there weren't that many markers in this tiny little state.


Other frustrations: checking out 3 different supposed Burger Chef locations to find all of the buildings demolished; checking 3 different Lustron home locations before finally finding one that hadn't been demolished; almost losing my tollhouse waymark; not taking the correct photos and therefore losing my Civil Defense Shelter sign waymark. There were many more, but now I'm just boring you.


My outlook on waymarking has definitely changed. In the past I might have dragged my family around looking for those blasted historic markers, but there's no way in hell I'm going to spend my well deserved vacation waymarking signs when there are endless 17th century buildings, and world class sculpture and incredible architecture to be seen. Although I'm still a grid hound, I'm not so compulsive about it and it has definitely made waymarking more fun for all involved.


The photo above is of the historic Chesapeake & Ohio canal and lock 19, one of 74 along the 185 mile canal. And yes, it was already waymarked along with most of the other remaining locks along the canal. :o/

Frickin' Toynbee Tiles

Okay, we are still in D.C. but I thought I had to quickly vent before I start packing up for the flight home. Over our 5 days in D.C. I have visited about 8 different spots where there are SUPPOSEDLY Toynbee tiles. Nothing.

I even emailed several waymarking friends, begging for tips and they sent me a link to a page that gave the street corners of 2 tiles that were spotted in 2006. We visited those today and they had been recently paved so the tiles were gone. I bitched and moaned about it, but then Bruce said that a pain in the ass category is better than a super common category anyday, and it put things in perspective. It was a lot more fun finding and waymarking a Native American trail tree today than waymarking the Dunkin' Frickin' Donuts shop that I had to waymark for an icon (there aren't any Dunkin' Frickin' Donut shops in Washington.)

Hope you all are having a safe and fun summer. Happy waymarking!

Unnamed Sources

Do you ever come across the ultimate online reference for a difficult-to-find category and then refuse to share the wealth? I'll admit that I've been known to sit on some Websites, even though I have a great category resource page over on waywardwaymarking.com to share this type of information. I don't hold back forever - just until I have a chance to waymark one for myself. After that I'm all about the sharing. Recently I hemmed and hawed about adding a certain Art-o-mat Weblink to the category resource page because there are less than 100 possible waymarks in that category (I believe) and I only have a visit so far. I would have held onto it if there were any spots listed that I could find in the near future (Oregon, Idaho or Washington) - but all of the machines in my area had already been posted. So I begrudgingly added the link to the resource page.

So am I the only stingy waymarker out here? I'm guessing that most of the gridders have been known to hide a resource or two. Who knows, I may still have some great ones that I'm not unveiling. I would tell you, I promise, but then I'd have to kill you. :)

I urge everyone to share their national and international online resources that pertain to specific categories (I don't include region specific resources so the page doesn't get too unwieldy.) Of course, I understand if you have to hold onto it awhile to get first dibs. I'm not looking for the sites that the category description already shares, but others that you come across that would help people locate waymarks within a specific category. Informational Websites are great, but information is often easier to come by than a great database or site locater. My goal is to build up the Webpage so all of us can use it as a resource. Just email me if you have something that you think might be a good addition to the page.

The photo above shows one of the two Art-o-mats that we have visited. This one is in Oak Park, IL, and the other is located in downtown Tacoma, WA. If we get a chance we may visit the Washington D.C. Art-o-mat in the the Tenleytown neighborhood next week.

2K

I don't often pay attention to my numbers but last week I realized that I had hit the big 2K - 2,000 posted waymarks. I had noticed when I was around 1,900 and thought that I should pay attention so I could see what the 2,000th waymark would be and then promptly forgot.

One of the things that I love about waymarking is that it isn't really competitive. Well, it is, but it's more "self-competitive." Lots of people create personal goals or have certain numbers that matter to them - some try to fill the grid, some try to fill in the map, but less people seem to be driven by total waymarks or the "stats" as geocachers are so fond of showcasing.

I'm personally a grid-hound, but I also have a personal goal of reaching 100 waymarks in several of my favorite categories. A long term goal of mine is filling in my profile map as I waymark my way around the U.S. I also come up with weird little mini goals on what seems like a monthly basis. Anyone out there have their own interesting personal waymarking goals they's like to share?

I was hoping that number 2,000 wouldn't be a lame waymark, like a McChain, and I'm happy to say, that I wasn't disappointed. Number 2,000 was a cross-posted waymark into a new favorite category of mine, "Great Buildings of the World." The EMP (Experience Music Project), a controversial building designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, is located in Seattle next to the Space Needle. In fact the Seattle Center monorail from the 1962 World's Fair passes through a portion of the building. The photo above shows the track as where it enters the building. It's a wild sculptural building the the architect thought of as a "Temple of Rock." The building holds the "Experience Music Project," an interactive rock music museum created by Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen. There is also the Sci-Fi Museum and Hall of Fame inside.

The next big number for me would be 5,000 but that's a few years down the road. For now I'll just keep myself happy hunting down waymarks for my favorite cats. This coming week we'll be heading for D.C. which should get me a good head start on 5,000. :) Happy waymarking!

Vacation Countdown

So we are trying to prepare for a vacation/waymarking adventure and it feels like we are not ready for it. There's so much to do at home that I haven't had time to do much scouting out of waymarks, which is a shame because I know there are several categories that I can get in D.C. or Virginia that aren't available here on the West Coast. I'll have to do what I can and not stress about it. We'll find the waymarks we can and just have to head back east at some point on another vacation to conquer the categories we've missed.

We ordered a gps navigation system for the trip that has a big database of pre-loaded POI's and it should be arriving in the next day or two. When Team Mindawg was here we played around with theirs and loved it so we decided it was hightime for updating our gps. The current one is a Magellan, several years old with a failing keypad and that doesn't sync with our current computer. Truly a pain in the ass, but not broken enough for me to justify throwing out. We'll still use it as a back up, especially for hiking, but the new Garmn will be our primary system now. It's a base model Nuvi - simple, basic, pretty much all we need and for a couple hundred bucks, well worth the money. It seems very user friendly, but I'll need to make sure I completely understand its ins and outs before we head for D.C. because I wouldn't want to miss any waymarks because I couldn't figure out my gps. Ah, one more thing for the "to do" list.

If I make it onto the plane with my sanity next week it will truly be a miracle.

To Visit or Not to Visit: That is the question

So, as usual things have been crazy busy thanks to work, two new foster puppies and my son's music lessons and concerts. I try to chip away at my waymarking backlog by attempting to find time to post 3-5 waymarks each day and typically, as the approvals come in, I log visits to the marks. There are mixed views on logging visits to your own marks, and different reasons to do so. Back when I started waymarking, I would log visits to everything and then do simple substraction of my total waymarks posted from total waymarks visited to figure out how many visits that I had posted to other folks' waymarks. Why I felt the need to know this at that time is beyond me. Other waymarkers who I looked to for mentoring did it and so I decided I should too.

Now though, with the awesome filtering functionality that the Website has, this visiting doesn't seem necessary any longer and it is growing increasingly cumbersome for me to get around to. I usually let the approvals sit in my E-mail inbox for several days, until there are so many that it becomes overwhelming. Why? It seems pointless. Can anyone think of another reason that I should keep this up? It's a total pain in the butt and now seems like a waste of time.

Although it's fun to reach milestones in total waymarks, I don't really care about the numbers and rarely could give you a guess within about 150 waymarks or so as to how many I've posted. The only reason I'm watching numbers at this point is that I want to see which waymark will be number 2000. Geocachers who are just starting out often will assume that the self-visits are all about pumping the numbers and that always pisses me off because they are looking at waymarking from the "I have more icons than you do" perspective that is oh so common over in geo-land. I mean, most hardcore waymarkers could care less about their visit numbers. They are focused on their "posted" count if they are into numbers.

The photo above is from the gallery of one of my recently posted waymarks that is in my backlog of waymarks needing "self-visits" posted, Coupeville Wharf and Warehous, Central Whidbey Island Historic District. It would be cool if the Waymarking site put the check mark next to the waymarks that you yourself posted instead of having to visit to see the check. It helps when you are doing searches to see those checks and quickly know which waymarks are yours.

Another fun sticker-seeker visit

Although we were sad to say goodbye to our foster dog Suki, we are so happy that we she has joined Team Mindawg and will spend the rest of her life being as spoiled as she deserves to be. We had an awesome weekend exploring some of Seattle and Tacoma's best spots and thanks to the 85 degree weather had a chance to hike up so Team Mindawg could find the Washington Ape Cache. This photo shows Suki standing in triumph atop the cache. Most of the trail was still in 2' plus deep snow, so we were pretty wet after hiking, but it was worth it.

We even managed to find a waymark for a new category and will log visits to some of the many waymarks within the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. (Dang you US.Globetrotters for waymarking the news stand!) The yearly cheese festival was going on in the market, which was fun (I'll try to waymark it in the festival category soon) and Team Mindawg was able to meet up with a friend at the Pike Place Starbucks location (first Starbucks store).

Hopefully they will come back and visit us soon and we can take them to some of the other awesome spots in Washington.

Dog-Marking

No, not that kind of marking!! Waymarking with dogs, silly. My two blogging worlds are colliding today and an online waymarking friend, Team Mindawg, is flying out to Seattle to pick up one of our rescue dogs that she is adopting. They have been waiting patiently for Suki to heal up from her mange so she can be spayed and after 5 months of treatment, Suki is now spayed and ready to head to Denver to join Team Mindawg on their waymarking and geocaching adventures.

Team Mindawg will be staying with us for a couple days of waymarking and geocaching in the Seattle-Tacoma area before flying back to the Rockies on Sunday. And after months of gray skies we will be having our first warm weekend with temperatures reaching the mid 80's. Yahooo!! I can just feel my waymarking backlog growing as I type.

Anyhow, the photo is of little Suki, the newest Team Mindawg member, who will have many happy years of waymarking and caching ahead of her. When she was first flown to us she was such a sick little girl covered with mange and fighting an intestinal infection, but now she's a typical, spunky little terrier. She was going to be put to sleep because she had mange and wasn't considered adoptable! Can you imagine that! Now when people at the off-leash park find out that she is a foster dog they are ready to take her home and I have to let them know that, nope, she's already got a family waiting.

Digging out of a backlog

My backlog is tiny in comparison to some that are out there. Personally, I try to keep up so that my backlog is never more than 25 or so waymarks. Of course, I said TRY. Sometimes you visit a place that is so spectacular that you come home after the weekend with about 75 waymarks and no time to post them. Such was our incredible weekend in Ebey's Landing National Historic Reserve on Whidbey Island.

I've managed to post almost 30 waymarks from the reserve, our incredible, inaugural camping trip of the season, but still have over half of the marks to post and don't know when I'll manage to finish them all. In the meantime, the grid continues to grow like some out of control monster and I don't know when I'll have time to check out the new categories.

In fact, my grid mania is starting to fade. Not completely - I can't avoid a compulsion that well - but there is less of an urge to run out and find a Disney or Lego store just to get a box on the grid filled. I mean, who really wants to be hiding from a mall security guard, trying to take photos for some business/commerce waymark when they could be waymarking a piece of sculpture, a scenic hike, a park, a neon sign or a historic building? Not me, that's for sure. So I'm not saying I will stop waymarking the commerce categories, but I'm no longer going to make the effort to fill those boxes. If I happen to be at a mall (a rare occurence) I'll take my camera and GPS in with me, but until then I won't worry about it. Life's too short.

For now I'm going to continue to plug away at that backlog and ignore the new categories. Team Min Dawg will be visiting this coming weekend and I need a clean slate for all of the waymarks that we will be finding when we visit Seattle and also hike up to the Ape Cache on Snoqualmie Pass. The weather is supposed to jump 15-20 degrees on Thursday and hit the mid 80's. Let the waymarking season begin.

So here are a few photos of our camping trip on Whidbey Island. The photo above was taken from Ebey's Landing and shows Admiralty Inlet and the beach of Ebey's Landing to the left and the bluffs and Ebey's Prairie to the right.



This is a view out to Admiralty Inlet and the islands beyond from the historic Coupeville Wharf. I highly recommend the cafe and gift shop at the end of the wharf featuring products of Whidbey Island artisans.






Fort Casey was one of three forts designated as the "triangle of fire" and charged with defending the entrance to Puget Sound. It is now a state park and all of its old batteries can be explored. Great spot for flying kites. Also, be sure to visit the historic Admiralty Head Lighthouse, near the battery area. The top photo shows several of the immense batteries, the inlet, and the Olympic Mountains in the distance. The bottom photo shows our waydog, Frodo, peering anxiously from Battery William Worth's watchtower.




And finally, a shot of the Olympic Mountains, Admiralty Inlet, and the paragliding field at Fort Ebey State Park from battery 248. Fort Ebey was built specifically for defense of the Puget Sound during WWII when there was worry over the threat of Japanese submarines entering the Puget Sound to destroy the Bremerton Naval Shipyard. The views from the park's bluff trail are incredible and I highly recommend their campground over the campground at Fort Casey, especially for tent campers. Make reservations though, because the island campgrounds book up fast.

Happy waymarking!

Playing Catch Up

I promised I'd post about our awesome camping trip, but life got ahead of me and I've been trying to catch up all week. Each day I promised myself I'd get around to posting in my 2 blogs, but was unsuccessful. Heck, I haven't even finished editing my photos from the camping trip, let alone posting a few waymarks. Right now I'm trying not to think of the backlog or I'll get overwhelmed.

A waymarker and I were exchanging a bit of brief e-chat this week and she was talking about how she wasn't waymarking as much because she gets overwhelmed by the steady stream of new categories and can't keep track of them all. She had this awesome idea - a monthly Groundspeak LoBot with links to all of the new categories that have been approved within that month. When a bunch of new categories come through it can be easy to miss a few and this doesn't seem like it would be too tough of a solution. All the new waymarks in an area would be overwhelming, but new categories would be really helpful. Just a thought.

Okay, time's up and I have to get back to my crazy, hectic life. Just thought I'd check in and throw out the above idea. Hopefully I'll get the Whidbey Island photos edited this weekend and will get a chance to at least get them on Flickr, and maybe even get a few waymarks posted.

It's about time!

So why do I have a photo of a pile of crap posted in this blog? It's because that pile of tents, sleeping bags, gear bags, sleeping pads, etc. is our camping gear waiting to be loaded into our CR-V tomorrow morning for the first "waycamping" trip of the season! Finally the weather has cooperated and there will be high temperatures in the balmy lower to mid 60's on both Saturday and Sunday! The night temperatures will be around 45 degrees which is a bit chilly for tent camping, but we've camped in worse (try 35 degrees in a rainy windstorm). Also, we have two little dogs who love to sleep at the bottom of sleeping bags and they make awesome foot warmers.

So the camera and gps batteries are fully charged, the maps are printed and we are SO ready to hop on the ferry and get this weekend rolling. I've printed out the National Park's driving tour (we're camping at a fort within Ebey's Landing National Historical Preserve) and have extra flashlights packed for exploring the military batteries at the two forts (Fort Ebey and Fort Casey). This particular preserve is actually the first National Historical Preserve in the United States, created in 1978. It's different than a National Park or National Monument in that the land within the preserve is all privately owned. The area is a pristine example of early settlement in the islands of the Puget Sound. By the 1970's the area was still not much different than it had looked in the early 1800's when it was settled. Many of the early homes, businesses, barns, farmlands still existed. So the National Park Service purchased the development rights from the owners of the properties within the reserve. Then a locally elected management group was set up to maintain the preserve. The farmers can still farm their land, people live in the old homes, and the old buildings of early Coupeville (a historic town within the preserve) are still filled with small businesses. However, now there are mandates in place that limit development within the residential and business areas and the farms cannot be subdivided and turned into new housing developments. The two WWII era forts within the preserve are run as state parks. It's a wonderful park unit within the state of Washington that very few people know about.

So, I'll report back on Monday to share the adventure.

New Categories

I have to say I'm a bit shocked. Usually when I go to the category review page and see over 4 different categories to vote on almost every one of them is by a new waymarker that has gotten overly excited and doesn't quite understand what creating a category entails.

I feel a bit bad for them, but often, it's "nea" down the list of them with pretty much the same explanation: "You need to take more time writing up the category. The long description is an important part of the category, because it helps people understand what is being looked for - it can't be skipped. Also, you need to think through some posting requirements so, again, people know what you are looking for - we can't read minds." Yada yada yada....

Today when I opened the voting page and saw 5 categories that I needed to vote on I thought, "oh man - not again!" Boy was I surprised as I read the categories and they all seemed to be well thought out and written. The "Water Parks" category needed a bit of work, but it still worked. At first I thought the "Historic Houses" would deserve a no vote for being too broad, but as I read through their detailed description I better understood the category. Although I think a better name would be "Historic Houses: Pre-Victorian" so they don't get a bunch of Victorian houses submitted by folks that don't stop to read the category description and requirements before they post.

It felt good to be able to vote yes for a change.

Postponing the Crazies

Okay, I'm sitting here gazing out the window and snowflakes are softly falling from the sky, drifting past the blossoming cherry tree and the bright yellow daffodils in my back yard, Bach's cello 1st cello suite plays endlessly in the background (not because I have a CD in but because my son is practicing cello) and I once again curse the weather. If you've never heard Bach's 1st cello suite you really should - it is the essence of melancholy and is the perfect soundtrack for this tableau of suburban sorrow.

I will not be camping this weekend. When I took the dogs out last night to fertilize the lawn I realized that crazy or not I would be miserable sleeping outside in this weather. Earlier in the evening I had actually begged my awestruck husband (I'm always bitching about being cold) to camp out on the windy and snowy bluffs of Whidbey Island and called him a wimp for not being willing to consider it. But last night in the snow with the dog crap steaming in a pile of snow at my feet, I finally accepted my lot. The weekend trip to the island would have to be postponed. All that planning - the lists, the maps, the perfect campsite, the printed out driving and walking tours - now sit in a forlorn pile on the coffee table.

So now we are hoping to camp next weekend, our last open weekend before school gets out and we fly to the east coast. I might actually crack if we have another sunny week that ends in snow and rain. I NEED a day of blue skies. Even just one day would do me, but I swear I'll go psychotic if I don't get out for some camping and hiking soon.

A last minute day trip has been planned, a sad replacement for the weekend I had planned, but it will still be fun if I can let go of the bitterness. We'll be driving down to Centralia, Washington (named for its location halway between Seattle and Portland) and then taking Old Highway 99 north, visit a sculpture park along the way, and end up in Olympia for a late lunch at the Spar Cafe, maybe some time at the Olympia Farmers Market, and a quick stop at Wagner's European Bakery for some goodies to eat tonight while we watch a movie. We'll be hitting a couple roadside attractions along the way, some beautiful old historic architecture, and waymarking some great vintage neon which I'm sure will console me a bit.

The photo above was taken last weekend at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma. It is an example of Western Washingtonians thinking that the blueish tint to the overcast sky is actually sunshine and heading to the beach. You see, it's been so long since we've seen true sunlight that we forget what it looks like. Of course they are still wearing Goretex ski coats. Any Washingtonian worthy of the title knows that you can't put away your Goretex until the 4th of July.

Spring Craziness

Every spring, usually in early April and sometimes even as early as March, I start to get an itch to get out of town and go camping. It's like the stuffy air of a fall/winter spent inside starts to get me a little nutty and I crave fresh air and forests. The problem is that the damp season here in Western Washington lasts from about September through the end of June. I mean, we get some beautiful days during that time, don't get me wrong, but the chance of those beautiful days falling over a weekend are rare until late June. The photo below, taken from Deception Pass at the north end of Whidbey Island, was taken over just such a weekend - a glorious sunny stretch in October a couple of years ago.



Well a couple of weeks back I decided I couldn't take it any longer and planned a weekend trip to Whidbey Island for this coming weekend. I crossed my fingers and hoped that the stars would aline and we would get a beautiful weekend.

Well, as that began to look increasingly unlikely I figured we could stay in a hotel and just spend the days outside. No such luck - a couple with a fourteen year old teen and two dogs are about as welcome to hotel managers as a couple of lepers. Anyhooo - so the weekend is supposed to be off. But now I'm totally invested. I mean - this place is a waymarking paradise: central Whidbey Island is a National Historic Reserve co-managed by the National Park Service and a group of locally elected officials. It has been kept much as it looked in the late 1800's with wide open prairies, windswept bluffs and beaches, a small town with most of its architecture from the 1800's, and not 1 but two forts that have been turned into state parks with a ton of batteries to explore. The entire reserve is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district. I've downloaded walking and driving tours, trail maps and read up on the history. I have a list of good restaurants and cafes. This is killing me!!!! I must escape this suburban hell!!!

So now the question is do we stay home and take a day trip on Saturday down to Olympia or do we brave the cold (and possible snow) and head to the island anyway. Mind you, we are pretty hardcore campers so when I say "camping" I mean a three person backpacking tent in a walk-in campsite, not a motorhome with a heater, toilet and microwave. The predicted weather is highs in the mid to upper 40's and lows from the lower to mid 30's. At this point there's about a 30% chance of precipitation and the snow level is down to sea level, but central Whidbey is in the Olympic Mountains' rain shadow. How bad could it be? I don't mind cold weather camping, but I don't handle wet and cold camping well (which is why I hate snow camping.)

Our 14 year old is game, but this is a kid who wears shorts year round. Hmmm... well, stay tuned to hear if decide to embark on this mad adventure.


The photo above was taken during a past season of madness. We were backpacking in the Cascades up off of highway 2 and when we hit the last 1/2 mile we discovered that the trail (and our campsite) would be in snow. This did not stop the guys from swimming in the pristine glacial lake - or me from laughing at them after they hit the water and tried to scramble back out before their muscles seized up from the cold.

On the road again.... (I wish)

Well, we're not on the road yet, but I'm definitely itching to see the Tacoma area in my rearview mirror. Team Hikenutty absolutely LOVES road trips of all lengths, which makes us a big fan of the highway categories. So far the Website has categories for the Mother Road (US66), the National Road (US40), the Dixie Highway, the Pacific Highway (US99) and for Lincoln Highway Markers. I WANT MORE!!!

You'd think that those five would be enough, but recently I bought a couple of books that have me thinking of other great highways that could use a category.

First, I think that the Lincoln Highway could use a second category that is wider reaching. Currently only highway markers can be waymarked along that route, but last summer while traveling along the Lincoln we saw some awesome spots. Old service stations, vintage motels, roadhouses that have been open since the 1920's, road camps, and more. These places deserve their own category! I'm fine with the current category keeping its focus on the roadside markers, but I think there is some great Americana along the route that should be grouped together in its own category.


(L) Muffler Man in North Platte, NE; (R) Old Lincoln Hwy. motel in Cheyenne, WY


One more category and we should have the major east/west highways covered. We have the center of the country covered, but what about up north? Highway 2, dubbed the Great Northern, is the longest of all of the great transcontinental road trips in the U.S. and also the most stunning of the east/west passages. It takes you over the Cascade Mountain Range and past the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington, over the Rocky's and through Glacier National Park, the North Woods of Minnesota, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, into Canada, over Vermont's Green Mountains, through New Hampshire's White Mountains and ends up in Maine's beautiful Acadia National Park. Along the way you'll experience gorgeous spots and plenty of vintage Americana. I've never really travelled this route however I have been to Grand Coulee Dam country and here are a couple photos of that area.


(L)Banks Lake, a Grand Coulee reservoir, seen from atop Steamboat Rock; (R) Steamboat Rock


Now that we have the east/west covered, I'll move on to the north/south corridors. So far the only full, cross-country north/south route that has a category is the Pacific Highway, US 99, which confusingly doesn't get near the Pacific Ocean. I propose four more - yep four - north/south routes that are all truly exquisite road trips.

First (and nearest and dearest to my heart) is the Pacific Coast Highway, US101. This is completely different than US99 (which is full of Americana, but very light on scenery). Many consider it to be the most beautiful long distance road trip you can take in the U.S. and I would definitely agree with them. Sorry to all of you easterners out there but there isn't much that can beat US101's views of the Pacific. You'll start up north in one of my favorite stomping grounds, Olympic National Park and from there you'll head south, hugging the coast. See the beautiful Hoh Rainforest in Washington, the many peaceful, pristine beaches of Oregon, Redwood National Park and Big Sur in California. And as many of you know, kitsch can only reach its full potential in beach towns for some reason. Maybe it's the salty air. I've travelled 101 from it's beginning in Olympic National Park down to San Francisco and the roadside attractions just can't be beat. These places should be gathered together in a Coast Highway category and I'd be willing to lead it if anyone is interested.


(L) Redwood National Park; (R) "Hole in the Wall" in Olympic National Park


Now I'll move across the country to the Atlantic Coast to U.S. 1, the "Colonial Coast Highway". It dates from 1926 and originally ran from Fort Kent, Maine all the way down to Florida's Key West. This summer I'll see the Atlantic for the first time (other than flying over it in a plane) and will have the chance to drive along a small portion of this road. It travels through some of the Nation's first and greatest cities and nowhere else will you get such a taste of history while you're on the road.

Moving back across the country to the wild west we'll hit the next great highway that should be waymarked - U.S. 93. Jamie Jensen, in his book "Road Trip USA: Cross-Country Adventures on America's Two-Lane Highways", calls it the "Border to Border" road trip but in fact it starts far north of the Canadian border (also numbered as highway 93) up in beautiful Jasper National Park. This trip is an exercise in extremes. The first half is spent in the Canadian and U.S. Rockies, and the second half in the Southwest's desert region. There you'll drop into Las Vegas, cross the Hoover Dam, cross route 66 west of the Grand Canyon and then head into the lush Sonoran Desert. Lots to see and do and above all else, WAYMARK! I'd show you a few photos of the southern portion of this route, but alas, they were taken before I owned a digital camera.

And last but not least, the Great River Road, which follows the mighty Mississippi from its headwaters in Minnesota to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico in New Orleans. We spent a day travelling along the river road last summer and it was quite enjoyable. I would love to spend some time along the northern portion of the road some day. I hear that Minnesota's portion of the road is incredible. There have to be a few folks in the Midwest who'd be interested in starting this one up.


(L) Mississippi River overlook in Davenport, IA; (R) Riverboat Paddlewheel


So there you have it. Six new, amazing categories just waiting to be created. I think the two coastal highways should be first. Any takers?

Category Dictatorships

It has always been a pet peeve of mine when category creators view a category as something "owned" by them. These category dictators see group officers as people to share the work load, but nothing else. In their opinion, they thought up the initial idea and could care less what anyone else's opinion is. I don't see it that way. They are leaders, not owners, and by refusing to listen to officer's suggestions they limit the category.

Close-mindedness leads to categories that become stagnant. If there needs to be some tweaking of the category it helps to have open communication, as I talked about in my last post. Without this communication and tweaking to waymarkers become frustrated and don't continue to submit to the category. Unless I am extremely interested in a subject I won't submit more than one waymark to a category that is unclear as to what type of waymarks they're looking for, or to a category where the officers are rude when they make comments. There are plenty of other categories out there to take up my time. I kick it to my ignore list and move on.

Another issue I have come across as an officer is when leaders go through and re-evaluate waymarks that have already been approved. Nothing is more irritating as a waymarker than to have a waymark approved and then denied. If an officer is regularly approving things that the leader doesn't think fit, then the leader isn't doing their job very well. It indicates that either the category needs to have a few changes or the group needs to sit back and discuss reviewing practices and what is and isn't acceptable. Just re-evaluating an officer's approved waymarks and not politely discussing the problems is micro-managing. It treats the symptoms and not the main issue.

I'm not saying that the leader's vision for the category means nothing, I'm saying it doesn't mean everything. We all share the Waymarking Website and a single person cannot own one section of it. A category is created to share places with the world and a leader is only the category's guide, not its god.

This has been your latest installment of Janell's Pet Peeves. For more, just ask me about chain store categories. (kidding :) The photo above really has nothing to do with this post. The Victorian triplex is posted in the "NRHP - Contributing Buildings" category which is led by a person I've found to be a great collaborative leader, JimmyEv. So I guess that it has a tiny bit of context.

Great groups have great communication

Something that I've noticed lately: the better the communication, the better the category. When a category is approved and the officers start reviewing waymarks they soon find that maybe the category definition or requirements aren't as clear as they expected they would be. That's okay, because if a leader and the officers are doing their job they will talk about issues that are raised and adjust things accordingly. No category is perfect and even the most well written and thought out descriptions might need some tweaking over time.

Discussion, disagreement, even debate, is necessary - in some categories more than others. Next time, before you hit that "vote" button when reviewing a questionable waymark, consider sending out a group email and asking the group about it first. Often there are underlying reasons that things are going to vote - something unclear in the category description that could be fixed. Why not talk it over and see if there's a way to make things clearer. It will save you work in the long run by limiting the posting of waymarks that don't fit the category. It will definitely make people who post to your category happier, because no one likes to put the work into posting a waymark and then have it declined.

If officers in the group don't have the "email group member" ability then be sure to email the group leader and see if they will change this. If you are the group leader, then what are you waiting for?! Go make the changes so your officers can better participate in discussions. I assure you that your category will benefit from the change. There really isn't a reason not to do this. In fact, I wish that it was an automatic feature for officers. Maybe make it automatic, but allow the leader to take back the privilege if an officer is abusing it.

Anyhow, just my 2 cents. Happy waymarking!

How small is too small?

Recently I was voting in peer review for something and at the time thought that the available waymarks might be too small in number for the category to be viable. So how small is too small? I can't remember the exact voting criteria, but I know that one of them is "abundance". I've always thought that could go either way - there are so many possible waymarks that there's really no reason to waymark them (my beef with most fast food categories) OR there are so few that they will be too difficult for people to find.
When I think about it though, if something is interesting with maybe a bit of historic importance thrown in, doesn't that make it exactly the type of place to be waymarked so others can find the spot in the future? If there are only 50 possible spots worldwide, wouldn't it be great to create a place where interested folks could find all 50?

Here's another thought. What if the 50 spots aren't worldwide, but they are all in one small area? Would it meet criteria then?

There really is no exact answer. Drawing the line somewhere would be foolish because there are too many factors involved. This is yet another example where being too rigid will limit the Waymarking Website. Better to embrace the fuzziness of the criteria in this case than to create some silly line in the sand.

So here's a confession though. When voting, I admit that my willingness to vote "yea" for a category is definitely affected by how interesting the category is to me. Try as I might to be objective, there are times when I just can't swallow a category and I might invoke the "too many/too few" criteria. I try not to do that very often, but sometimes it happens and I know I'm not the only one who does this so don't get all "holier-than-thou" on me. I'm not saying it's good practice, just that it happens.

Just thinking as I type here, so sorry if this post is difficult to follow. If you do understand what I'm talking about, let's hear how you feel. Oh, and the photo above is 8Nuts MotherGoose's photo of the Dubuque Shot Tower which we visited last summer. "Shot Towers" is one of those categories were the total possible waymarks are very limited, however, it still seems like a worthwhile category.

Car-marking

I've noticed recently that several of the category descriptions say something about waymarks with "photos taken from car windows will be denied." Well, I'm here to tell you that most commercial waymarks that I post have photos taken from car windows. Who cares?! Now, I realize that you don't want a photo with an antenna running through it or part of the car door in the shot, but if it's a business, it's not like we are photographing a breathtaking or even interesting subject that needs extra care taken with the angle of the shot. Why would I get out of the car to photograph a cigar store, or a Burger King, or a Pizza Hut? I'm not going inside the places, for God's sake!

Now I know that some of you are saying, "but you have to get out of the car anyhow to get the coordinates at the door." Actually, no, I don't really. For the sake of the category officers I will try to get as close to the door as possible, but again, puleeeeeease, what is with this requirement?! If I take the coordinates from the first row of the parking lot, 15 feet from the entrance, is some poor waymark visitor that's going to show up, find the coordinates, and then say, "damn it! There's no McDonalds at this spot! Where the hell is the McDonalds?!" No, they will know where the McDonalds is from a mile down the road. That's what thirty foot golden arches are for.

Sometimes, it is important to be absolutely exact with your coordinates - a benchmark, a historic marker, a Toynbee tile.... But a restaurant or other business establishment is not a tiny, difficult to locate spot. If you can get a person within 20 feet of the door, unless they're an idiot they should manage to look up and notice the business. An exception to this rule might be a business inside a mall - then it would be important to get coordinates at the closest mall entrance, not from the far reaches of the parking lot. But that's the thing, people. There are always exceptions. Being rigid will just cause your category to lose some perfectly good waymarks. Is a waymark really less worthy of your category because the coordinates are 15 feet from the door? In my opinion, no.

So before you hit that deny button, take a deep breath, count to ten, and then ask yourself "is this really worth turning down a perfectly good waymark?" My guess is that 9 times out of 10 the answer will be (should be) no.

I'm sure that some of you are wondering if a denial spurred this diatribe. Nope. I have never had a waymark declined because the information and photos were taken from my car. It's just that most of the ultra rigid requirements, IMO, are detrimental to the hobby and really turn new people off from continuing to waymark. This is just the most recent of the many rigid requirements that I happened to come across right before writing this blog post.

Oh, BTW, the photo above is of "Bob's World Famous Java Jive", a US Route 99 Americana landmark in south Tacoma, and YES, I took this photo through my car window.

Bingo!

Assuming that my weather station waymark that I just submitted yesterday is approved, I finally got around to finishing off my 2nd bingo on the waymarking grid. Since weather stations aren't especially exciting, I thought I'd post some photos of favorite waymarks from this row of the grid.


Oregon Trail - Independence Rock in the "Wagon Roads and Trails" category - Many emmigrants left home in the spring, hoping to make it to Independence Rock by July 4th, hence the rock's name. Names of the many travellers are inscribed on the rock.


Left - Pick-Quick Drive In - Fife, WA in "Independent Diners"; I highly recommend a stop here if you're in the area. It's extremely popular, so you may wait awhile, but if you love drive-in food (burgers, onion rings, hand-scooped milkshakes in about 40 flavors) you'll love Pick Quick.
Right - Sears Tower in "Engineering Landmarks"; From 1974 to 1996 the building remained the tallest in the world at 1,730 feet.


Henry M. Jackson Visitor Center - Mt. Rainier National Park in "Googie Architecture"; I have several favorites waymarked here and although the Space Needle is a googie icon, I went with my favorite, the soon to be demolished Jackson Visitor Center in the Paradise area of Mt. Rainier NP.


Art of Chicago in the "Waytours" category; my favorite part of visiting Chicago was the art. Everywhere you turn there seems to be another world class sculputure - Chagall, Picasso, Calder, Moore, Miro - they're just sitting there amidst the skyscrapers waiting for you to find them.



Corina Bakery in "Independent Bakeries"; This little family owned bakery is somewhat hidden with a side entrance in the Merlino Art Center, but don't make the mistake of missing it if you like cake. I love the lemon coconut layer cake and a cup of french-pressed coffee, my husband is nuts for the Red Velvet cake, mother-in-law loves the hummingbird cake and my son is a fan of their super huge lemon bars. Don't miss it! News Tribune Review


So there are some of my favorites from grid row "27". There were some Engineering Landmarks, Googie Architecture, and Waytours that I REALLY wanted to include, but that would have made this long post even longer, so if you have the time check out my waymarks in those categoriers. There are some fun ones. Happy waymarking!

Coal, Fossils and Graves: A reason to visit existing waymarks

I know that most waymarkers live for finding a new spot to waymark, but this weekend I went on a hike specifically to visit one. It was an old ghost town located near the town that I grew up in and I had heard stories about the town and mines of Franklin from my great uncles, both miners. Thanks to the new Franklin waymarks I finally knew where the town was and how to find the trail to get there. We hiked the short muddy 1 1/2 mile trail, knowing that pretty much whatever could be waymarked up there was already posted. Boy would we have missed out on a fun afternoon if we had decided to go off looking for new spots to mark.
The best thing about a ghost town hike is that if you keep your eyes open you will see things that others may have missed - the ruins of old buildings off under 75 years of moss and duff, a coal car trestle amongst the alders, old tangles of cables and rusty pipes, and for us, fossils!

The waymarks we visited where the Franklin Ghost Town, Franklin Mine, and the Franklin Cemetery, all waymarked by Prying Pandora. While at the mine, a covered 1300' deep hole in the ground (covered with grating) that you can drop rocks into, I mentioned to my son how many leaf fossils can be found in coal and the stone in coal mining areas. He gave me the "uh-huh mom" nod as he continued throwing things into the mine. So I wandered over to the sheer rock wall that was behind the mine opening. It was AMAZING! This rock wall, about 8 feet high and 10 feet wide, was covered with leaf and twig fossils. It was like an imprint of the forest floor - millions of years ago. Above you can see one of the photos that I took of it.

Then we hiked on to the abandoned cemetery that some boy scouts and school kids had dug out of the blackberry briars. Daffodils, which had been planted on graves over 75 years before, had naturalized and were blooming everywhere. Bleeding heart was sprouting up and soon their purple flowers would take over when the daffodils finish their show. It was beautiful and touching and so peaceful.

Anyhow, I just wanted to write this and remind you to check and see what other waymarkers in your area (or an area you are traveling to) are out marking. You may just discover a no longer hidden treasure. If you are in the area and decide to visit Franklin a word of caution: the area is riddled with mines and there have been many cave ins in the past, resulting in 1300 feet deep holes. Stay on the trail!

Below are some of the photos from our lovely Sunday hike.


A bolt on an old coal car


Exploring moss covered ruins; a bolt being camouflaged by nature


Another old building's foundation


The mine


A grave at the cemetery


Another grave; Berry blossoms


A coal car trestle near the cemetery