Spotlight on – Geo13 !

What is your real name?

Paul G. Bunn and Dorothy Thompson Bunn

What do you do for a living? 

Retired United Methodist Minister and Retired Public School Teacher. We were Methodist Missionaries in Africa in the 1960s. I am also a NC licensed nursing home administrator.

Care to share any information on your family? 

We have 4 daughters and 7 grandchildren. They live in NC, VA, MD and PA.

Are any family members geocachers? 

One granddaughter in Maryland, aged 20.

When did you start geocaching? 

January 1, 2002

Where did you first learn about caching?  If another geocacher, who? 

From our son-in-law, shawhh, a geocacher.

What is the origin of your caching name? 

Geo from geocaching and 13 from my birthday.

What has been your most memorable caching moment so far? 

Caching 9 months in 2002 from NC to SC to GA to AL to MS to Arkansas to TX to LA to KS to MN (where we attended our first geocaching event).

What kind of caches do you most enjoy looking for? 

Ammo box hides requiring a hike

What kind of events do you most enjoy attending? 

Events like those done by rldill

Describe your ideal cache hunt. 

I suppose I enjoy caching most with my wife, Mrs. Geo13. We loved the bayou caches in Louisiana, seeing the marvelous shore birds and many huge, 18' long alligators sunning along the beach on our 1 mile hike along the river.

What famous person, dead or alive, would you like to take caching? 

Michener

Any other interests outside of geocaching? 

Travel, cruises, gardening, reading, fishing

Have you gotten other people interested in geocaching? 

If so, about how many people?  Lost count!

What type of GPS do you use? 

Garmin 76CSx and Garmin Fortrex!   Do you use if for anything besides geocaching?  No

How often do you geocache now? 

Varies--when home, usually twice weekly. We are on a two-month geocaching trip from NC to PA, from PA to CA, from CA to BC, From BC to Nova Scotia and back home. We have driven 8500 miles since June 5. We just found ?Found 50 States and DC cache, I'm Going to Disneyland (9th to find).

If you could hide a cache anywhere on the planet (forget the guidelines for this one), where would you put it and why? 

In Amboseli, Kenya. I love the game lands in east Africa.

Can you think of a theme song that would best describe your caching experiences?   

On the Road Again!

What do you want to be when you grow up? 

A mature geocacher!

If you were a cache, what kind would you be?  What would your name be? 

Geo13

Do you prefer Cache run or long hike? 

Long hike!

You have traveled extensively in and outside the US. 

What other country did you enjoy geocaching in the most and why? 

Canada, we will have found geocaches in all 10 provinces as well as all 59 states and DC.

Did  you ever have to explain what you were doing to authorities in other countries?   No

What part of the US did you enjoy most?  Louisiana

What is it that takes you on all of these journeys – business, leisure travel, something else?

Geocaching. Earlier, we took each of our 7 grandchildren on a cruise: Bahamas, Aruba, Venezuela and Mexico through the Panama Canal, Tahiti and Hawaii, the Galapagos, New Zealand and Australia, Korea, Japan, Russia and China.

Where did you spend Christmas last year!?  Myrtle Beach, for the past 24 years.

What is the longest time you have been away from home? 

Since we have lived in Connecticut, Belgium, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and North Carolina, I suppose away from home is when we leave one of these places. 9 months full-timing in our 5th wheel in the mid-West.

Any other stories you’d care to share about your travels? 

Just that what I enjoy most is doing the DeLorme Challenges, learning the entire state for each challenge--and the all-county caches. We have found the DeLorme challenges in GA, SC, NC, VA, MD, DE, PA, MO, MN , TN and AL. We have found the all-county cache in TN, NC and AL. Also, we were 3rd, I think, to complete the Mother of All Caches in SC. We would like to do all the DeLorme challenges.

You not only have more finds than anyone else in North Carolina, at present you are the 7th most prolific finder in the world neck and neck with ventura_kids and mondou2!  For you are the numbers important or is it the activity that you enjoy and the numbers just come? 

The latter. We are not interested in the numbers. When we returned in 2002 from the 9-months in the mid-West, my son-in-law said, "You are 7th in the world." We had only 750 finds at that time. Since then we have been 1st in NC, 6 years now. That is not important to us. We geocache primarily for our health. I lost 20 pounds and was able to stop taking blood pressure medicine, due to our hiking and geocaching activity. It is a great sport for people who do the caches that require some physical activity.

How many Delorme challenges have you completed and is any one more memorable than the others? 

We have found 11 Delorme challenges (see #7 above).   Pennsylvania is the most memorable, requiring a 15-mile bicycle ride in the mountains of Pennsylvania to find the final cache.

Anything else you would care to share? – the soapbox is yours! 

Thanks for asking us for our geocaching experience! We have made so many friends across America while involved in geocaching, people we would have never known otherwise. We have stayed in their homes, gone with them geocaching, had meals together.