2014 Goals Progress Update!

   In just the second post for our new blog, we set some pretty lofty goals for the year 2014.  There were 3 goals we would like to achieve this year.  We would like a FTF every month of 2014, We would like to maintain a 'find-a-day' streak throughout the year, and finally we would like to find 2,014 caches in 2014!  Now that we are more than halfway through the year, let's analyze our progress.

   A FTF per month for the entire year: When we set this goal, we figured it would be the easiest of the three.  We had already maintained a FTF in each month since July of 2013, and hadn't even been trying.  Turns out, there seem to have been fewer caches published in 2014 than there were in 2013.  January started out very strong - we were actually able to make eight FTFs!  It gave us a false sense of security for February, as we passed up the first few caches that had published.  Suddenly, the end of the month was approaching and we hadn't made our FTF!  After an exhuastive search, I came up with a few possibilities for our final weekend of the month.  We were able to make the FTF some 38 miles from home near the town of Elizabeth, Colorado.  That is when we realized this goal wasn't going to happen as passively as we had hoped for.  There have been a few similar struggles in making the FTF happen in the past few months - but hopefully our persistance will pay off.

Sweet FTF prize!

   Find-Per-Day: This would have been a pretty easy goal, however we cleared out a majority of the park 'n grab caches near our home and work.  That leaves us with more difficult hides, or hides that are a distance away.  We seem to be doing a fairly good job of keeping up.  There are some days where finding a cache seems more like a chore than a hobby, especially when the sun would go down and we still hadn't found that cache of the day!  We keep pushing on, though; knowing that if we miss a day we may never be able to maintain a streak like this again!

Sometimes a cache needs to be found after dark to keep a streak alive!

 

   2,014 finds in 2014:  Upon setting this goal - I realized it was probably going to be the hardest.  We have never found 1,000 cache in a single year, yet alone over 2,000!  Early on I set a weekly goal as to how many cache finds I would need at that point to be on track to make the goal.  As of this post (August 1st) we are a few HUNDRED caches behind that goal.  We should be well over 1,000 finds, however we are only at 780 finds in 2014.  I have saved a few lists of powertrails that we have yet to complete, which should help us get back on track for this goal.  It's quite the challenge - I hope we can meet it!

If Every cache was a big red one - it would be easy to make our goal!