Remembering ZenKitty

When I started geocaching in July of 2010, I never thought I would meet so many awesome people while doing this new found hobby of mine.  Throughout most of 2011 and 2012 I saw many logs with the handle of Zenkitty.  Immediately I thought it was a woman.  I don't know if anyone else does this but I try to picture what the people look like before I meet them when I see their geocaching name.  For example, my name cougarcach24.  I've met people who thought I was a middle aged woman or I was a college kid.  I chose that name because I did graduate from WSU and our dining center money was called "cougar cash".  So I figured cougar and we're "cach"ing so that made sense.  I added the 24 after it just because that was my favorite number.

May 12, 2012 there was a meet and greet at the park in Centraila, May Days (GC3FQ3K) led by (at the time) the WSGA SW Washington chapter representatives, Geek&Gopher.  That was the same day I met them for the first time.  At the time I had no idea how much of a relationship I would have with them.  Bob, Bev, Derek and I went down to the event to meet some of the Lewis County cachers.  We got there really early so we stood around and talked to each other.  We signed the logbook and met the hosts, Geek&Gopher or as I call them now Brenda and Ray.  When more people showed up we started mingling.  I remember walking with Bev to go talk to a really tall guy standing next to a shorter man, who ended up being his brother.  He introduced himself as Zenkitty.  You're Zenkitty!?  I thought you were a woman!  He told me he got that often.  He used his cat's name for a geocaching handle.  We also met his brother Bak09.  I've seen that name often as well.  As more people came that knew him our circle had gotten bigger in the matter of minutes.

I enjoyed meeting new people at that event and it was a scavenger hunt event so we had a fun game that requiered us to drive around Centrailia and look at the murals scattered around town.  We answered a question, wrote it down and once we got all 10 of them, we headed back to the event and turned in our papers.  I was the first one back with the correct answers so I got to pick a travel tag and I got a cache container I ended up using in Tumwater called The Prize (GC3MM8R).

Zenkitty (Jim) suffered from an illness that eventually took his life April 2015.  He told Ohjoy that he wanted to be celebrated at the train station in Lacey because he loved trains.  July 22, 2015, we had an event, Remembering Zenkitty (GC2BN5C) in his honor and a very large turn out showed up hosted by Ohjoy and co-hosted by TracyTom and Jackson Clan.  We had snacks and drinks, signed the log, traded travel bugs and if anyone wanted to share stories about him they could.  We did see a few trains go by during the two hours we were there.  I didn't know Jim that well but I did cross paths with him and remembered how many people he met and how he impacted the geocaching community.

RIP Zenkitty!  >^.^<

Next Adventure:  Into the Wild and Into the Wild Truth