In Casus Ursus

Shown with my Garmin Montana for scale.

I received a gift in the mail today.

It is a hand made travel bug called In Casus Ursus, which means The Adventure Bear in (my best understanding of) latin.  It was designed and crafted by a geocacher from Maine who goes by the name brdad.  I have not met him in person, but we hang out on the #geocache IRC channel together, along with a great bunch of geocachers.

If you are not aware, a travel bug, or TB for short, is an object that is intended to travel from cache to cache.  Sometimes they are an object of some kind, or sometimes just a dog tag, but they all have a code that can be used to track it online.  As cachers find these TBs they move them from cache to cache so they end up travelling around, sometimes great distances.

The code is smudged out - only people who physically
discover a TB should be able to log it.

Most TBs are released to the wild by placing them into caches.  This one is too nice for that, so I am going to take him to caching events, and let people I meet discover enjoy him in person.

The bear is 7 1/2" by 4 1/4" in length, and made from tiger maple.  Since I am Canadian we have decided to give him a Canadian accent, as you can see from the tag on his belly.

In Casus Ursus has been dedicated to my son, Tonka Tyke, who at the age of 2 has discovered the joy of geocaching, and loves to go on adventures.  Here is to a lifetime of seeing the world through the wonders of a toddlers eyes.

You can track In Casus Ursus online at geocaching.com (http://coord.info/TB4DCHT)

This, my friends, is one awesome gift.  Thanks brdad!