I wonder if the admins at geocaching.com have a plan for this eventuality and if so, what is it? If it is a better plan than we have I wonder if they would be willing to include letterboxing within their bailiwick. I know, I know, heresy, but better than losing it all.

So I just did a quick google search and it looks like geocaching.com has approximately 100 full time employees and generates over 11 million dollars a year in revenue. It’s a privately owned corporation with a CEO. That’s definitely not a company built on sand and they surely have a back up plan.

I can always dream! =)

-- Ryan, knows about coding... not as much about business!

It’s ok Ryan, not everyone dreams about selling a butt ton of t-shirts and other assorted useless stuff.
G’caching is definitely more retail oriented than L’boxing which is why L’boxing is by far superior!

Found on WikiLeaks:

LAST WILL AND WEBSITE TESTAMENT
of Green Tortuga, Esq., Former Steward of AtlasQuest

I, Green Tortuga, being of sound mind and dwindling patience, do hereby relinquish all rights, passwords, and ceremonial twigs associated with the website known as AtlasQuest to the institution known as Wassamatta U.

Let it be known:

• This transfer is involuntary, mildly bitter, and executed under duress involving antlered bureaucracy.
• Wassamatta U, (a moose of suspicious ambition), shall assume full control of AtlasQuest’s sacred infrastructure, including but not limited to:
• Cryptic clue archives,
• Damp container registries,
• And the squirrel embargo.

• The site shall be taken public, monetized aggressively, and rebranded as “StampTech Global.”
• All logbooks will be digitized, tokenized, and sold as NFTs.
• Trail clues will be replaced with QR codes and motivational slogans.
• The ceremonial squirrel council has been disbanded in favor of a shareholder board.

Any objections must be submitted in triplicate, notarized by a raccoon, and buried beneath a defunct geocache.

Signed in reluctant ink,

Green Tortuga, Esq.
Trail Whisperer Emeritus and Former Keeper of Coordinates

Witnessed by:
• Rocky, Squirrel of Legal Affairs (now furloughed)
• Marjorie of Notary Services (currently unionizing)
• One clipboard-wielding intern from Wassamatta U’s hostile acquisitions division

No notes.

I'd rethink that racoon idea. They always stick stuff in water. Best to put that LAST WILL AND WEBSITE TESTAMENT in a lock-n-lock, just in case! 😉

Racoon washing his cotton candy. 😂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfbb4yRBH64

Noooooooo. Only some of the dinosaurs need to survive!

I hope GT is okay knowing a whole bunch of people are currently discussing his eventual demise. XD

Wellllll... for SOME of you, it may only be "currently"...

I'm just as curious about it as everyone else. Maybe even more so than the rest of you.... ;o)

But alas, I fear that I will not be around to learn about my eventual demise. *sigh*

-- Ryan

At least you can take comfort in the fact that you will be the very last person to die in your lifetime.

I want to know more about this squirrel embargo. Was this something caused by the Moose?

Well, he caught on with that third one. ;-)

This bears repeating. If for whatever reason, Ryan isn't able or chooses not to continue and no one picks up the mantle, all of the clues will be lost (OK, not all, but generally speaking). Not just AQ but, now, LbNA as well. Should that time come, desperate measures might need to be considered.

Not to be a doomsayer, but if you think about it, this whole system is a bit of a house of cards. I'm in communication with another letterboxer who has all of their clue pages printed out and stored in a binder for future reference. My first thought was that was over-reacting but I'm re-thinking that - maybe that's something I should do as well.

Of course, I'm sure there will be time for that in the future, should this eventuality come to pass. Still something to think about.

To clarify... I (and other unnamed technically AQ Administrators) (I know, I know, scary prospect..), have access to the database. All the clues ( as well as finds, plants, and DOZENS of other tables of information) will be retrievable AND EXPORTABLE. Just as Silver Eagle was able to "mine" the old Yahoo Board posts and export them into a useable format... all the AQ data could be made available in a variety of formats. Again, that is an EXTREME case... AQ would be up and running for quite some time, without any real intervention necessary, before things started to degrade, and we would have YEARS, I believe, to address the situation.

Maybe I should have left with that.

But yeah, I'd expect the website could keep plodding along for years before it degrades too badly. Plenty of time to copy your clues.

(Printing them out seems like overkill to me, though.)

AQ won't shut down the day after I kick the bucket. Short-term (ie several years), things will keep on chugging. It's the long-term (thinking in decades here) that's more unclear.

-- Ryan

Hopefully it lasts until my membership expires in 2121 - I'd hate to lose out on some of that!

Well thanks for that, really. I know it wouldn't just fold the next day but not having AQ or LbNA around is a chilling prospect.


Yeah, I thought of that as soon as I posted it, better to store them electronically (on a flash drive, maybe?)

Clue Tracker!

I have hard copies of all my plants. After the zombie apocalypse we’ll be burning furniture for warmth, reading by candle light, and stocking up on ammo.

I do that also. When I first started planting, I printed the clues, a map with the route and spot marked, made notes I thought I might need to know for future reference, and then stamped the image on the sheet, in case I might need to re-carve and replace it. A bit obsessive, I know, but since I haven't planted thousands, it was doable for me, and I enjoy looking back through them sometimes.

GT, you are welcome to add me to the list of those who may be able to help should your time come before mine. But I'm older than you, so... I would not be helpful on the server end, but I am fluent in php, js, html, css, and rusty in SQL but could pick it up again. That being said, be careful out there! We don't want to lose you!

I learned to code in Fortran in case that’s remotely helpful 🤣

Zoinks! Like man you do know zombies feast on fresh boxes too!

Sorry, but AQ is a strictly COBOL shop. Now, where did I leave those punched cards again?

-wassa (who, yes, actually DID program in Fortran and COBOL on punched cards...)

When is that exactly, I need to pencil that in on my calendar. Also, I guess I need to stock up on wooden furniture!


Hey Uncca Wassa, did you have to walk uphill in the snow to school... both ways?

We must be era-twins. I turned in my trays of punch cards to the wizards who took them behind closed doors, to the massive machines, and back came yards and yards of green & white striped paper, less if it stopped part-way through the cards because there was an error. Fun times . . . NOT!!

I loved Fortran, but punched cards, not so much. One typo and the card was ruined and you had to start over with a new card. Pretty expensive since I was paying my way through college at the time and boxes of cards weren't cheap. Today I still marvel at being able to just backspace and retype mistakes online.

I have a lifetime subscription paid in full . I’m too old, blind, and osteoporosis-ridden to box, plant, or maintain. Can you take my lifetime funds and extend it to maintenance or whatever?

Warrior Woman
team player