AAR: 2019 Metro Gathering ~ Pirates of Port Royale

This year, Tom and I attended our first Metro Gathering, and had a pretty good time. This year's theme was Pirates of Port Royale, and there were plenty of things to do.

Prior to the event, there was their "Golden Ticket" contest. Golden Tickets were periodically hidden in geocaches, and hints to their whereabouts were posted on the Metro Gathering website, along with a general location (the state). If you were to find the "Golden Ticket," follow the directions and bring it to the Metro Gathering, you would get a special geocoin. It took me a while to figure out the hints, but I eventually got the hang of figuring out which geocache to look in for the Golden Ticket. Unfortunately, the majority of them were in New Jersey, so I never actually found one, but, knowing how much I love a good puzzle, I'll definitely keep track in upcoming years for one that I might have a chance of finding.

There were 50 Adventure Lab Caches put out in conjunction with the event, with 30 put out on September 7 (available until September 28) and 20 available on the day of the event only. There were also five for Waterloo Village itself, for a grand total of 55 lab caches. Twenty-eight of those lab caches were located with regular geocaches, so finding those caches were like a two-for-one. Tom and I left home a day early so that we could tackle the lab caches. We had two options, a three-mile loop with a higher terrain or a one mile trail with a lower terrain. We decided on the loop, because the trail was one mile down, and one mile back. Four plus hours later, we had completed 19 of the lab caches and Tom had about ten wasp stings to boot. The next morning, before the event started, my parents, Tom and I headed out along the Morris Canal Greenway for ten more lab caches, and when we returned to Waterloo Village, we worked on the 20 event only lab caches, in concert with the five Waterloo Village lab caches. It took a lot of coordination, but we completed them all. I think that if we lived closer, the quantity of lab caches would have been a lot more manageable.

There were also a lot of contests and drawings. There was a Silent Auction and something called the "Tricky Tray." For the Tricky Tray, $5 bought a page of tickets that you enter for a chance to win certain items. I entered my tickets in various geocoin and Pathtag lots, and didn't win a single thing, but I'm okay with that. There were other contests that I missed participating in, but the one that I didn't miss, and was the most excited about, was the costume contest. I spent a bunch of time constructing an outfit which garnered me an entry into that drawing. I really liked what I was able to create.

Tom took tons of pictures to enter into the Photo Contest. The deadline for entering is September 28, and Tom wanted to enter twenty pictures! His entries are attached to our Attended log, check them out and let me know what you think. I'm not sure when, or how, the winners will be announced, but I'll keep checking the Metro Gathering website for more information.

Speaking for myself, I had fun. I would love to go again, and next time I might be able to manage my time better and actually enjoy Waterloo village and the nearby Indian Village.