Geocoin Update: From Alabama to...Cozumel?!

In the past, I've complained about the tendency of geocoins I've released to drop off the face of the Earth. When I release them, I imagine getting e-mail notifications of their journeys around the world. That will happen for a while, and then...silence. I will eventually mark them as missing on the geocaching site and then put them out of my mind.

I recently reported about the return of the "Free State Mover #3" geocoin, which showed up again after 2 1/2 years of inactivity. I recently got e-mail about another one for which I had given up hope.

Free State Generic #1, I last heard of being dropped off in Alabama two years ago. It spent 2008 in its home state of Maryland, 2009 travelling to Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, and South Carolina, before revisiting Florida in 2010 and coming to rest in Alabama in 2010. It then joined the ranks of the ones I had written off.

On Friday, it was grabbed by geocaching user "Rubio-Raffin Family" with the note, "found in Cozumel. Taking back to AZ for some dry heat." (I don't have a map update because it hasn't been logged into a cache since its Alabama days.) I now wonder what it has been doing for the past 2 years and how the heck it made its way down to Cozumel.

So after thinking it over, I think dropping off the face of the planet is fine, if they eventually resurface. It's particularly exciting to see the return of a coin I never thought I'd see again -- much more exciting than steady progress.