Today, Tom and I traveled to Martinsburg, West Virginia in order to do the Mystery Caches of Berkeley County (MCBC). I had recently started a list of trips that Tom and I could take to use up my vacation time at work, and the GeoTrails in Berkeley County were on the list. In researching them, I learned that the MCBC cache pages had been updated in January 2019 to state that there were only 60 geocoins left and that only 11 of the remaining 14 caches were needed to qualify for them, instead of the initial 13 out of 15. Then, we saw in the latest issue of FTF Magazine that a new GeoTour would be launching in Berkeley County at the beginning of June, and I figured that with the possibility of people pouring in for the new, official GeoTour, that the remaining geocoins would be snatched up in no time. Tom made a phone call and learned that there were only "about 20" geocoins left. He also learned that the MCBC would be deactivated before the newest GeoTour published - we had to hurry!
After plotting a course of action, we got an early start, and despite being unsuccessful at the first cache we attempted, we were able to complete the required 11 caches in about 6 hours, and were able to get to the Visitor's Center before they closed and claimed our geocoin. While there, we toured the Belle Boyd House, which was amazing. We completed two more MCBC caches, to include the first cache we had attempted, later on.
I was really pleased with the caches along this trail. They were in good condition, easy to find, and as long as we didn't take things at face value and tried to think outside of the box, easy to solve. We were even able to contact the cache owner, WVTim, and he gave us some sage words of advice, which helped us along the way.
I think we'll definitely return to Berkeley County, to work on both the Smart Caches of Berkeley and the Berkeley Gadgets GeoTour.
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