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Farms, Food and Fun Geocache Adventure Debuts on Routes 5 & 20
Auburn, NY (May 27, 2008) – The Routes 5 and 20 Tourism Promotion Group has announced the start of a new initiative for 2008, designed to attract visitors to this historic roadway. The “Farms, Food and Fun Geochache Adventure” is a modern day treasure hunt, combining the tools of the high tech GPS (Global Positioning System) unit with a bit of old fashioned detective work. “We hope that geocaching will become all the rage on Routes 5 and 20 this summer and fall,” stated Lisa Burns, Tourism Director of the Livingston County Chamber of Commerce and coordinator of the geocaching project. “We have hidden twenty caches or ‘treasure boxes’ at strategic points within the Routes 5 & 20 corridor and we are challenging visitors and local residents to locate five of the caches,” Burns continued.
Geochaching is a growing source of fun for all ages that got its start in 2000 in the state of Oregon and since then it has spread internationally. Individuals and groups have set up caches all over the world and post online the location coordinates – latitude and longitude. A cache is usually a small water-tight container with a logbook, pencil and trinkets. When a geocacher finds the cache, he or she writes in the logbook, takes a trinket and leaves a trinket, and then posts online that they have been successful. For more information on this new phenomenon visit www.geocaching.com.
“Geocaching is a perfect way to explore the agricultural treasures of historic Routes 5 & 20,” said Meg Vanek of the Cayuga County Office of Tourism. “We have built our geocaching adventure around the theme ‘Farms, Food and Fun,’ with clues to stops in Cayuga County including ‘Granny Smith lives here’ and ‘Something to wine about.’ It’s going to be a lot of fun finding the caches throughout the six counties,” Vanek added. The Route 5 and 20 web site, www.routes5and20.com will provide the modern-day detective with coordinates and clues to find the caches. Those that locate five caches are then eligible for our grand prize valued at $520, which will be awarded in November.
The “Routes 5 & 20 Farms, Food and Fun Geocache Adventure” will run from June 1 to October 31, 2008. Participants will record their finds on a special section of the Routes 5 & 20 website. The cache location information and clues will be posted on www.routes5and20.com as well as the official geocache site at www.geocaching.com.
The Routes 5 & 20 Tourism Promotion Group is a collaborative effort of the tourism promotion agencies of Cayuga, Seneca, Ontario, Livingston and Genesee Counties along with Skaneateles Area Chamber of Commerce.
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