A group of geocaching travel bugs from Amarillo are on a year long journey to determine which competitor will travel the most miles to win the 2009 Great Amarillo International Travel Bug Race. This will be the third year for the Amarillo Geocacher's competition and the first year to enter my own racer in the event.

 If you are new to geocaching, think of looking for treasure using a GPS receiver. Hidden caches and trackable items are published on the Geocaching.com web site and most of the links on this page will take you to the site as well. Feel free to explore the site to learn more about geocaching and the people in Amarillo and all over the world who love the thrill of the hunt.

I attended the starting send off for the 2009 Great Amarillo International Travel Bug Race at the Big Texan Steak Ranch on March 21, 2009 but at the time, I didn't have a race entry of my own ready to go. Each travel bug usually consists of a metal tag or coin attached to a novelty item with a cord or chain. The metal tag or coin carries a unique tracking number, and it is this number which geocachers use to document the movement of a travel bug from cache to cache.

The goal of each contestant in the race is to record the most miles traveled in one year. Each travel bug will depend on participating geocachers to move them from cache to cache. The winner in last year's competition logged over 9,000 miles and visited a number of countries in the process. You will be able to read all the rules and regs of the competition by clicking on the link to the event page listed above. 

I am relatively new to geocashing and had met a few Amarillo Geocachers at the event in Palo Duro Canyon State Park in February but I was not active in the group's Yahoo Email group. They had already been talking up the annual race in the yahoo group but I was unprepared to start an entry on March 21 because I didn't have time to obtain a trackable item and get it registered in time. Thankfully, one member of the group had an extra "Slug Bug" coin and he wound up giving it to me in order to get into the race. Thanks very much!

The kickoff meeting for the race was being held at the Big Texan Steak Ranch so it was a simple matter to go to the gift shop and find a key fob to attach to my trackable "Slug Bug" coin. After that, I had to register the travel bug on Geocaching.com and create a page for my entry. -> TB22B4R- 2009 Steak Ranch Racer- Dusty Reins

Every trackable item has some sort of mission to fill and that mission is usually stated on the item's tracking page. You don't get this mission statement while going through the contents of a cache so I wanted to make sure the mission for my entry was attached to my entry in the race. It took a couple of days to get a card printed up and laminated so it would be ready to enter the starting point. ->  Big Texan Travel Bug Hotel Geocache - GC185YX 

By this time it is a week after the start of the race, some of the entries in the race are well on their way and my entry was destined to go into the starting cache before I headed out of town to do some research on the history of the "Bug Ranch" in Conway, Texas along Historic Route 66. But it didn't get dropped off. I forgot to make the stop both coming and going.

So at the time of this writing, it is Friday March 27 and the Texas Panhandle is under a winter blizzard. 

I will keep you posted on my entry and the progress of other contestants in the race by adding to this article throughout the duration of the contest.

Current Progress Map - View map of progress.

UPDATE: May 25

Thanks to mrcorbina, the Steak Ranch Racer got to ride in first class accommodations on another cross-country excursion. The big guy looks to be in good shape according to mrcorbina who took a photo beside the racer while in the air over Ohio! The racer is now in the This Ain't No Hazelnut cache located in the oldest park in Tukwila, WA, aptly called Tukwila Park. The word Tukwila means land where the hazelnuts grow. Thanks to mrcorbina for an excellent move! The racer has now logged 5483.1mi.

UPDATE: April 23

The Steak Ranch Racer has been carried from Arizona to Pennsylvania by the St. George Crew logging a a total of 2686.3mi since the beginning of the race. St. George Crew dropped it off in their home cache of Snow Shoe where it was picked up by Team Bullis who entered "Found you in the boonies of PA and now will bring you to New England" into the log.  Thanks St. George Crew for the long ride and helping us to get on our way again! Now Team Bullis, our fate in the rest of the race is up to you!

UPDATE: April 13

The Steak Ranch Racer has officially logged 623.4 miles so far in the hands of the St. George Crew. The Crew has traveled to Phoenix, Arizona and I heard a rumor that there may be a tour of the Grand Canyon in the works!  There is a map view of progress so far having visited two caches in the Phoenix area. The map will always show the latest stops where the Steak Ranch Racer has been logged.

To learn more about this event and the Amarillo Geocachers, you may want to visit the Amarillo Geocachers Yahoo site and perhaps join in on the geocaching fun!

 In the remaining photos below:

Geocacher "goldtiger" holds up the trophy for his winning travel bug entry in the 2008 race.

Some of the 2009 race contestants pose for photo ops before being placed in the starting cache.

Here is a list of all the racers competing in this year's race.

TB14PDY- Amarillo Pinewood Derby Racer- moonlighting
TB14Z32- Princess Racer- Bunnybee
TB118TY- London Spoon Racer- randomgee
TB2B41V- King Racer- 2kings&3boys
TB2J11M- Duckie car- pinkpanda
TB22B5A- Travel Slug Geocoin 'Winner'- kgban
TB2J0T5- Abroad or Bust- Bow Jacksons
TB2AYBN- Key Faub Racer- bmsgolf
TB2WH5P- 1970 Mustang- Hoot51
TB2WH5F- Referree Duckie Racer- War-Pig
TB2WH62- Geo-smiley slug keychain- Geo-smiley
TB22B4R- 2009 Steak Ranch Racer- Dusty Reins
TB1574G- Gee-Mart Gift Card- goldtiger
TB2K8VK- Bug on the Go- jjones.ama
TB2J11F- TB Dog Tag- Miss Flicka
TB2HT1B- Blue Thunder- Ali Mae
TB2J6TE- The Traveling Key- bookboy*
TB2B41T- TB Dog Tag II- bloodmoonscream56
TB11992- Message in a Bottle- jimmy&sonya
 
Trophy Travel Bug from Last Year's Event:
TB152P5 - 1st Place Greater Amarillo TB Race 2008-2009

Congratulations to goldtiger's "Duty and Honor Racer" which logged 21,444.9 total miles for the 2008 race.

All the bugs total mileage for last year's competition was 109,874.6 miles. That is about four times around the planet!