The adventures of Hitchhiker dotSphinx

Introduction

Very important: The original destination cache no longer exists. Please do not try to take the hitchhiker to GC2139 as instructed on the card, but take it to GCM51Z instead. Thanks !

Hitchhiker dotSphinx wants to visit his family living abroad in California. His journey started in the Netherlands.If you find him, please take him with you and put him in another cache, hopefully bringing him one step closer to his goal. His goal is to reach cache GCM51Z. Once he gets there, his family will come by and pick him up.

His parents are anxious to know how he is doing. Please inform then where you found him, and where you are taking him to. You can do this by reporting this at the Geocaching site, or by sending an e-mail to raymond@dotsphinx.com. Attaching a photograph would really make them happy.

All his adventures are logged here. There is also a tracker page on the Geocaching web site.

Thanks for helping a puppet explore the world!

Log

Sunday, 13 February

The hiker was in the hands of Justintime, who was kind enough to send me a picture!. Apparently, dotSphinx is in great condition and is on his way west. He dropped him in Big T' Travelers Inn (Version 2.0) cache to begin his journey westerly in the direction of the big state of CA.

Log Date: 2/13/2005
Dropped dotSphinx Hitchhiker into Big T' Travelers Inn cache- good place for ongoing TB and hitchhikers of this sort to travel westerly!! Hopefully dotSphinx can hitch a ride and move on into the big geocaching world where he belongs... Let the Force be with You,dotSphinx!

Log Date: 2/5/2005
Found this hitchhiker in How I Wish You Were Here cache in the Freeman lake area. Had never heard of such of thing before... Pretty Cool. He's as chipper and flexible as ever and ready to be a hitchhiking along again very quickly.

Taytuh the Mastiff meets dotSphinx
Monday, 20 December

Finally I received a really nice picture of dotSphinx. Thanks, Baruba Juba! The little pupplet has arrived in Kentucky. Unfortunately, it somehow lost its backpack and also the card is no longer directly attached. Let's hope the card and the hiker will not get separated.

Baruba Juba posted a note for dotSphinx (Hitchhiker) (Unknown Cache) at 12/20/2004

Log Date: 12/20/2004
Placed dotSphinx (Hitchhiker) in the How I Wish You Were Here Cache in Elizabethtown, Ky. It is in the Freeman Lake Park area. Hopefully somebody will pick it up and get it moving along!!

Best Wishes dotSphinx!!

Baruba Juba

Cruising through South Carolina
Saturday, 13 November

My Hitchhiker is still sound and safe in South Carolina:

Baruba Juba found dotSphinx (Hitchhiker) (Unknown Cache) at 11/13/2004

Log Date: 11/13/2004
I picked him up at the SCGA meeting in Anderson, SC. I don't know who brought him to the event...but I am logging him in. I will be going to Kentucky, USA in December (a month from now) I will take him there to a cache to move him Westward toward California!

... and before that:

Sissy-n-CR posted a note for dotSphinx (Hitchhiker) (Unknown Cache) at 10/3/2004

Log Date: 10/3/2004
My son, Mackerell, left Dotspinx at my house. Today, CR and I moved him to the Travel Bug Rest Area Cache (GCBCE6) in Walterboro, SC. Still no pics-sorry. This cache is visited often by travelling cachers, so I am sure he will get a ride somewhere interesting. Good Luck Dotspinx,

Sissy

Photographs, anyone?
Friday, 01 October

At Semptember 4th, the hiker was dropped in GCK0BW, Goose Creek (South Carolina). September 30th, he was retrieved again. Still no photographs though, sniff...

Log Date: 9/30/2004
Retreaved from "Don't Ruin My Guarden" GCK0BW. Will move him along shortly.

Log Date: 9/4/2004
Left Dotsphinx in 'Don't ruin my Garden' GCK0BW in Goose Creek, SC.

Still alive and kicking
Wednesday, 25 August

It's been a while since I heard something from the hiker, but finally some positive news came in. He is currently located in Summerville, SC:

Location: Netherlands
Sissy-n-CR found dotSphinx (Hitchhiker) (Unknown (Mystery) Cache) at 8/22/2004

Log Date: 8/22/2004
Picked him up yesterday in School of Fish Cache. I do not have access to a digital camera at this time. He is currently at my home in Summerville, SC. We will try to get him westward bound.

Sissy

Land in sight!
Sunday, 27 June

The Hitchhiker has arrived in the United States, great! He appears to be somewhere in North Carolina, somewhere near the Shearon Harris reservoir. Unfortunately, nobody so far has sent any digital photographs, which is a bit of a shame. Here is the log entry:

"I found dotSphinx yesterday in the cache "rad, aka glow in the dark" (GCJJ4P) at the Summer Fun event (GCJG8X). I'll be moving dotSphinx on soon. Thanks!"

Florida, here I come!
Wednesday, 09 June

The hiker has been picked up by Dekromme and is now preparing for its flight to the USA, great!

"Zoals reeds aangeboden , en afgesproken, Dotsphinx Hitchhiker opgehaald om de grote reis over de ocean te beginnen. Zullen hier voor een mooi plekje in florida voor zoeken."

Reboot and retry
Sunday, 06 June

The hiker is back where it started: it is at the Travellers on Holiday hotel again. I noticed that Dekromme was going to visit this cache before going on holiday to the USA, and mailed Team Aragorn to see if they could pick him up. So they did, thanks, Team Aragorn!

"DotSphinx wants to go to America. Its owner asked us to drop it in 'Travellers on Holiday' because a lift had already been arranged from there to Florida. We wish you a nice trip, DS!"

Lord of the Rings?
Saturday, 08 May

Team Aragorn came by and transported the hiker from Belgium to the Netherlands again.

"Omdat er een hitchhiker gesignaleerd was in deze cache, hebben we die vandaag ook nog even bezocht. We hebben hitchhiker 'Dotsphinx' geruild tegen travelbug 'Cachedorados Calculado'."

Belgium, here we come!
Friday, 02 April

The hiker has left the Netherlands! Ronpeer was so kind to place him just over the border in the Kattenboscache.

Hitchhiker dotSphinx re-launched!
Sunday, 25 April

Today I finally got to re-launch my Hitchhiker. Until today, I just could not find the time to set the hiker free again, after we returned it home from the Travellers on Holiday. We dropped him off at Eindhoven's Kwartet Noord-Oost. This cache is very frequently visited, so there is a very high probability that it will make its next move within one or two weeks..

Hitchhiker dotSphinx brought home
Saturday, 28 February

It turns out that the Travellers on Holiday cache hardly gets any visits. And, history shows that it takes quite a while for travellers to actually get out of the cache. This (and the fact that I wanted to show the hitchhiker to my brother who happened to be in the Netherlands for his job) made me decide to return the hitchhiker home.

By the way, on the way home, my one year old son pulled the little chain too hard, and the teared the card. I fixed this by reconnecting the card on its left side.

Hitchhiker dotSphinx unleashed
Sunday, 25 January

We finally set our hitchhiker free, and dropped him off at Travellers on Holiday, a cache that collects travel bugs willing to travel internationally. I sure hope they accept hitchikers as well. Anyway, it is not your typical cache as you can tell by looking at the photo.

Let's hope the hitchhiker can make its way out of the Netherlands. Umm, let's also hope the kind people behind this cache do not take him straight to his designated destination, that would not be fun. Making it to the east side of the USA would be great, but any country other than the Netherlands would be great just as well!

Hitchhiker dotSphinx revealed
Friday, 02 January

I have been tinkering with the idea of unleashing a Geocaching Hitchhiker to the world for quite some time now. Well, sometimes you need some new year resolutions to get the job done. So here he finally is, Hitchhiker dotSphinx! I can hardly wait to set him free...