Aann's 2012 CHESTER'S Travel GPS

UPDATE: 09/24/18 - Chester the Dog was allowed to move on to a more peaceful and comfortable place with me holding his paw, cradling his head and speaking softly to him. I'll miss him forever.

This is basically Chester's 2012 travel and caching blog...!!
Chester the dog loves to travel and geocache, cuz he usually gets to romp in a desert, field, forest, wash, or creek along the way!! His mission is to be discovered and get a scritch behind the ears and meet new people. He shakes hands and 'high fives' too! Log him as found and for extra credit, write a bit about him or post a photo of him or you with him!! Woof, arf, growf!!!

Chester was a rescue dog from Pima County Animal Care Center. My first foster. He was also my foster failure! I picked him up and joined Tucson Cold Wet Noses when one of my other dogs was dying of kidney failure. I didn't want to only have one dog. Well, I rescued Chester (then Chet) whose eyes totally screamed at me to save him in the photos I had of him. I drove down to get him. All the way across town I ranted out loud to my daughter that I was a nut case for doing this. I didn't know what rescue was, I was looking to adopt another dog, now I got dragged into this. 24 hours later, I adopted Chester. He had been a stray, was sick with kennel cough, and was about a year old. He was my first foster failure. Chester helped Tonopah, my 8 year old border collie mix, live an extra two months. My belief is that Tonopah felt the need to 'train' Chester as to how best to run our household!! That was September 2, 2009. Tonopah died and Chester took over and helped us to heal. I went on to foster dogs and cats for Cold Wet Noses and Chester was fabulous with all the other pets that came to live with us.

In 2012, Modoc, my other dog, passed away from cancer in her jaw. It was Chester who showed me she had it by licking her face for a couple days until I finally stopped and took a good look. Modoc, a mixed black lab, died just after she turned 13 years old. So now Chester was my only dog, but lived with 4 cats of my own and a chicken and a box turtle as well as a couple foster dogs and cats. All the fosters moved into new, loving homes. My son was ready to move to college, so I stopped doing rescue for the summer and am between fosters. Once I got my son off to college, I had had to leave Chester for 42 days at one point, I decided to take him camping to spend more time with him & pay back for all the time I spent away from him this summer. It was fabulous. Chester is a great companion, camps in the truck or tent, hikes, has been in stores with me, does motels, and has been thousands of miles traveling with me since then. He has been to the Grand Canyon, ET trail, Death Valley, the Pacific Ocean in California, Feather River Canyon, Las Vegas, Reno, Yuma, etc. Update 2/2012 he just returned from a 2500 mile trip with me to the MOH trail outside Deming, New Mexico, and visited Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, White Sands National Park and Petrified Forest National park, as well as Roswell, Taos, Vietnam Veterans State Park in New Mexico, and Echo Ampitheater in New Mexico (to name a few). He is a gem. And I am honored to have found him and been the recipient of his affection. I do wish he would quit stealing bread and tortillas off the kitchen counter, and it's a shame he is addicted to cat food. But Chester is the dog of my dreams. I hope he and I spent many a day together exploring this USA!! 

Thanks to Motel 6 who accepts pets with no extra fees or questions!! PLEASE spay and neuter your pets. Let's put the rescue groups out of business! I promise, we will still stay busy!!!  BTW Rescue dogs are the best. I swear they are thankful!
Cache on!

UPDATE JUNE 6 2012....CHESTER PASSED HIS CANINE GOOD CITIZEN TEST! I am soo proud!

UPDATE August 10, 2012...Chester and I just completed the Backroads2010 and Chester the dog July 2012 Epic Road trip. We visited 11 states and traveled 6542 miles. We got 428 caches in which he was with me or near by at all! Pacific ocean at elev 0 to Pikes peak at 14.110 ft! Yellowstone NP, Redwood NP, Mt. Rainer NP (talked the park service guy into letting Chester into the Visitor Center!). Chester slept in motels, at friend's, my son's apartment (very cute to see Chester and Darrin's cat see each other again for the first time in a year!), campgrounds, rest stops. He did eat one bag of donuts and a few pieces of jerky. He played in rivers, lakes, the ocean, and ran across a beaver dam. He growled at a bear. He raced along the beach chasing sand pipers, ran through the high desert of sage, frollicked in grassy meadows, and climbed every rock he could. He was kissed by a toddler in Wyoming and 'trained' by 11 year old Michael in Utah. He met people from all over the world. He helped me shop in Bowlin's, met the gals in the NM visitor center, and kept me safe from creeps. He traipsed about in the Pikes Market Place in Seattle with us. He posed with the world's largest totem pole and people had their photo taken with him at many stops. He slipped down a snowy bank and we found he does NOT like it when I fish. He had his first attempt at swimming, but decided it was not his cup of tea and later would sit on the bank while I swam! He was injured in Utah and recovered...THAT was scary. He was patient and well behaved and a total gem to have along on the trip. I bought him a pile of patches for the different places we visited and will sew them onto his 'Park It' blanket when I get a chance! Thank you, pal!

It's a cute little GPS travel tag attached to a rather large, furry, gorgeous mutt; Chester the Dog!!
I activated this tag for Chester on January 1, 2012 to see how many caches he accompanies me on!

Caches - Around 1965!!! It's really hard to me to go through and figure it out exactly with all the notes/discoveries/etc. Got 428 just on the Epic Road Trip alone in July/August)(Most of the below information has been updated as of 12/12)
Series - MOH series (100 near Deming, New Mexico), a bunch on the ET highway and the entire Leapin' Series in Tucson and most of the Mahna Mahna series in Tucson, the '12' and the Tugies Turtle geoart out in the desert South of Tucson, Tin Can Alley between Phoenix and Quartzite, half of the F2K series near Florence, some Pole Leapin' caches near Yuma,

CITO - 4 (on in January 2012 at Alamo Wash, Sept 2012 Alamo Wash and the Bugmann Aftermath CITO, Veteran's Day Cache Bash Crash CITO)
Events 4 - WWFM IX - Tucson, Bubble Party (Flash Mob), Bugmann's Horseshoe II Aftermath Campout, Tugies 20K event, SchnauzerQueen's Cache Bash and Crash campout
Discoveries - 24!!!
Challenges - Who knows. Probably 175 or so. He was my model for most of them but Groundspeak dropped them Fall 2012. I reached 200 so I know he was in most of them or with me. A few - Lake Mead, Tick Tock, Grand Canyon, Raven, Dinosaur Tracks, Iguana Rock, Stand up for Art, Crossing Borders, Face Lift, Record a Record, Windmills, Footprints in Sand, Fancy Framing, Babad Doag, ET highway, Oversized, Blythe Intaglios, Be a Kid again, Leapin Cito, Dip Cito, Ape, Death Valley, Larger than Life, Photo Phil and Shopping Cart Nellie, Mary Ann Barry, Cancer Sculpture, PIkes Peak, Seattle Needle, Pikes Market...
FTF - 43 (Short in Tucson with Raven Art Studio, The March of Progress in Colorado, Raven's What's Your Count in Tucson, Nice place for a Walk in Tucson with Raven Art Studio, The Staging Place in Tucson with Raven Art Studio, Another C in Tucson with Raven Art Studio, Bats Akwards at Madera Canyon in the rain, Raven's Spider in Tucson, Raven's Gem in Tucson, Reel One In (in California), Ram It CO-FTF with Raven Art Studio in Tucson in the pouring rain! D.I.P. #001 to #030 CO-FTF with Raven Art Studio and Yaoma in Tucson. Slingshot co-FTF with Ysabet and Raven Art Studio. Redington's Jurassic Nest by ourselves, just him and me!
States - 14 (AZ, NV, CA, NM, TX, OK, KA, CO, OR, WA, WY, MT, ID, UT)
Miles - 13,686.2  (travel bug miles, he actually traveled further by road)(10870.3 as of Sept 19th!)(12317 as of Oct 30)
Streak - 122 days! He probably wasn't with me for a couple of those but we pulled it off this year!
Counties....He accompainied me in finishing up all Arizona counties this fall.
DeLorme - We took a Fall Loop tour of Arizona and finished ALL the DeLorme grids, now to get up there and claim the cache!
Oldest caches - He was with me on at least 15 of my oldest cache finds...GC12, GC16, Tarryall, Geocache, Unoriginal Stash, Rabbit Eye View, Senda de Tonto, XKD-380, Golden Arrow, Sticky Fingers after the Saguaro, Hang em High, Carkeek Cache, Catalina Nature Trail, Island Park Village Resort, KY in AZ....
Epic Road trip from July 4 to Aug 10, 2012 of 38 days, 11 states and 6542.6 miles!
Rawhide treats - quite a few
1 stolen donut (update...more stolen beef jerky, one co-cacher's beef sandwich, and the rest of my bag of Hostess Powdered sugar donuts on the return leg of our Epic Road trip when I went to the rest room. Really, Chester? REALLY?)
And one time, last day of the year, getting locked inside the truck all alone!
High Five, buddy!! We rock!

Synopsis...over the course of exactly one year, Chester and I found, together, about 1965 new caches (I got 2163 total that year) aquiring 13,686.2 miles over 14 states just on his tag...it was actually much more. Several camping and shorter road trips and one Epic 6500 mile 38 day trip. Lots of outdoor events and tons of challenges, now gone. All of my FTF's this year were with him except for one. He sucks at seeking out caches, but he excels in being my friend when no one else is available to cache and travel with me. I am totally blessed to have this mutt in my life.

Retiring this tag for travel as of 12-31-2012 and starting a new one....but nothing will ever match this year!