The complete video of Tisha’s journey.

Part One: So I finally found a hobby that gets me off the couch, but still allows me to mess around with electronic gadgets. In this clip, I attempt to explain the strange world of geocaching. This was recorded at Saw Wee Kee Park in Oswego, IL.

Part Two: In this clip, I explain the concept of Travel Bugs and how that will help us with our mission of sending Tisha to Chicken, Alaska. Unfortunately, we decided to hold off on launch today after discovering that the cache we had intended to use for her was a bit too small. We will try again over Labor Day weekend.

Part Three: Well, she is finally off! We came out to Saw Wee Kee Park again and found a great spot near the Fox River for the start of Tisha’s adventure to Chicken, Alaska. For navigation geeks, the official launch point is N 41° 40.402 W 088° 23.605.

We will be tracking her progress along her journey at Geocaching.com and reporting it back here as we get updates along her trip.

Two and a half years after her original launch with the goal of reaching Chicken, Alaska, Tisha has returned home.    Her total milage was slightly over 5400 miles with Seattle being her farthest reaching travel point.   Unfortunately once she got to Seattle, someone didn’t read the directions carefully and brought her back to the midwest instead of pushing her northward toward her ultimate goal of Alaska.

It really isn’t the same chicken that was originally launched in Saw Wee Kee park in Oswego back in September of 2010.   The rubber chicken that was attached to the registered dog tag became detached and somewhere along the way it was replaced by a laminated photo of a chicken.   Still, it is good to have her home.   She will get a makeover and we will try it again.   Stay tuned…

Great news everyone!   Our original Tisha Chicken that we launched on August 22, 2009 has finally resurfaced after six months of no action.   She has landed in Tacoma, Washington which brings her traveling distance to 2758 miles.   She is just 2000 miles away from her final destination of Chicken, Alaska!   But this is no time to celebrate.  Her most challenging and dangerous section of the trip begins now.   Pray for our dear Tisha!!

Tisha had several visitors during her 3-month stay in DeKalb County, but finally on August 28 she was picked up by a geocacher and she is currently on the move. This individual called into the SmorgShow Podcast and you can hear him on Episode 29. She has not yet been planted in a new cache yet. Check back for continuous updates!

Well, one day after Tisha was planted in the new SmorgShow Podcast Cache in Oswego, a local geocacher retrieved her! It took nearly 3 weeks after that point for her to find a new home – only 20 miles away in DeKalb County, IL. There she will rest for 91 days until she is moved again.

We decided to give it another shot. This time, we took advantage of the advertising potential of this by promoting the SmorgShow Podcast on the attached luggage tag. Hopefully now, as Tisha makes her way to Chicken, Alaska those who find her will call the podcast hotline number and leave a message for the show.

A sad day to start the new year. Just received word that Tisha has been kidnapped. Her total journey was 40 miles. Will have to try again in the spring. Note from the Geocache log:

Location: Illinois, United States  Log Date: 1/1/2010
grabbed this guy, unfortunately the chicken is no longer attached and it wasn’t in the cache, just the tag on a keyring.

Tisha has finally been picked up from her original launch point in Oswego, IL. We were starting to get a bit worried that she would be stuck there through winter if someone had not come along soon. She has moved about 45 miles north, which I suppose is good since her destination is Alaska. Here is the log entry from Geocaching.com:

Yesterday we picked up a travel bug in Oswego – when we got home we learned that its goal is to make it to Alaska. We were good for the first 45 miles, and this cache provided a nice roomy stopping point. If anyone planning to head North hits this cache, consider helping out the little guy (its number is DGEGWQ)

It would be great to hang out at this bar. Tisha is going to have an awesome time once she arrives.

As a child, I remember discovering Chicken, Alaska on a military map with my best friend, Peet McCain. Chicken didn’t appear on the average travel map that you used for long, family road trips. I soon became obsessed with this far away land and wanted to learn more about it. After calling Alaska directory assistance repeatedly on my high school radio show, I quickly realized that no one really knew of this place, not even the local phone operators. We were put on hold for several minutes while they tried to locate the town in their system. It turns out there was no established phone service! How odd! And as of the most recent census of 2000, there are still only 17 people living there (consisting of 4 families). There is a post office as you can see in this picture, but still no phone service! However, after years of calling to see if we could establish contact with someone there, Chicken Alaska can now be found on just about any road map. We take personal pride that we were somehow responsible for putting Chicken on the map. So while we would love to visit there someday, it is not really a convenient drive so we instead decided to send Tisha Chicken there in our place. We will be launching her into the wild on August 30, 2009. Check back for the video of the historic event!

The name Tisha Chicken was taken from a book written by Anne Hobbs Purdy, a former inhabitant of Chicken, Alaska. “Tisha” is the story about the Alaskan wilderness and the difficulties of a close-set community, prejudices against natives, and the hard winter. We will soon be launching Tisha into the wild through the popular outdoor sport called Geocaching. Please check back soon when we post the launch video where you can witness this historic trip. From there we will report her progress along the dangerous, 2700 mile journey to Chicken, Alaska.