2018 - A Geocacher's Year in Review

Wow, what a year it's been! For our third full year of geocaching, we've accomplished so much, let's do a year in review:

January: We earned a souvenir on January 1 to welcome in 2018, then, later in the month went in pursuit of Signal the Frog, and found him in Australia!
March: I went to New Jersey and found, among other caches, my first 5/5 Earthcache. We began a Planetary Pursuit, which, in addition to making us Official Space Explorers, netted us nine planetary souvenirs. I used the Flash Geo-Art in Baltimore in pursuit of those souvenirs, and was able to complete all but one, which was missing due to landscaping issues.
April: We began this year's quest to make our Earth a better place, and participated in a CITO event.
May: North America held it's first Giga event in Cincinnati, and we were there to experience it! We also completed two GeoTours while in Cincinnati (the Butler County Donut Trail and the Earthcaching 101 GeoTour), earning the souvenirs for those GeoTours.
June: The Find Your Chesapeake GeoTour was launched, and we earned the geocoin by finding twenty caches on the GeoTour. The GeoTour souvenir will have to be a work in progress, since there are 44 other caches to find, and they are quite a distance further to travel.
July: The hunt for Hidden Creatures, which began in June, ended, yielding thirteen new souvenirs for our profile pages.
August: While on vacation in the Outer Banks, the Duck Walk Geo-Art was a goal that was completed. We also celebrated International Geocaching Day by finding a geocache on the third Saturday in August, and earned a souvenir as well.
September: We concluded this year's quest to make the Earth a better place by attending a CITO event and learned that we were Adrenaline Junkies.
October: We visited and completed the Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area GeoTrail, learned that we were Caching Connoisseurs, celebrated International Earthcache Day on the second Sunday in October by logging an Earthcache and earning a souvenir and completed the Spring Grove GeoTour, which we had started two years ago.
November: We earned wings, and a souvenir, by being Social Butterflies, attended our first GIFF event and completed the City Park GeoTrail in Hagerstown, MD.
December: We already knew this, but now it's official, we've been deemed Trackable Lovers, and we thanked the old year, earning a souvenir on December 31.

What are my goals for this upcoming year? One word: Trifecta. Perhaps a road trip to Washington (under the premise of visiting my step-daughter and her family), find a cache in all of the states from here to there, attend the Project APE mega event, find the last Project APE cache in the United States, visit Geocaching Headquarters, complete the HQ GeoTour, and maybe even dip down into Oregon to visit the Original Stash Plaque and the Finding Bigfoot GeoTour. Is it do-able, or even affordable, at this point? I don't know, but dreams don't cost much. In the meantime, the remaining 44 caches on the Find Your Chesapeake GeoTour are lower hanging fruit that are within my grasp, or even the Caching the Rain GeoTrail in Montgomery County, MD or the Eight Wards of Washington, D.C. GeoTrail. I would also like to try my hand at kayaking, put out a few more caches and maybe even (gasp!) host an event. Whatever happens, I look forward to it.