It's been two years since I sat down to the keyboard to crank out
Bink Ink. The last time I did this, I ended up with a 27- page novel. Hence, I condensed it into digital form and posted it on our TrekTrax blog site. I've done the same again this year with the intent of having more pictures than text!
The following is a chronological look at what we've been up to over the past two years. You'll notice that much of it has been consumed by the tabletop board game we created -
Trekking the National Parks!
January 2014
Bink Ink LLC is created! Mission - create a tabletop board game that's entertaining, educational and engaging. One that will inspire people to get out of the city and experience our country's treasured landmarks!
Early June 2014 - Just prior to attending the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, OH, Terry and I were playing golf in San Diego. On the 17th hole, Terry slips on a hidden tree root and tears the crap out of her right foot and ankle. In the picture below, she is wearing a Boot that will be part of her daily garb for the next 6 months!
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| Origins Game Fair - Columbus, OH |
June 2014 - Origins Game Fair. We launched the idea of Trekking the National Parks - the Board Game at the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, OH in June 2014. With only a prototype of the game and the burning desire to bring it to life, we offered the concept to Conventioneers. Fifty people believed enough in us and backed our game on the spot!
Cuyahoga Valley National Park - #43
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| Everett Street Bridge - Cuyahoga Valley National Park |
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| Cozy Cottage at the Inn at Brandywine Falls |
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| The Inn at Brandywine Falls |
Immediately following Origins, Terry and I made our way up to Cuyahoga Valley National Park located about 2 hours due north of Columbus. This urban park sits between Cleveland and Akron. Unfortunately, with Terry's foot all buggered up, we didn't get a chance to do much hiking. However, we did have an excellent stay at the Inn at Brandywine Falls.
(For more details about Cuyahoga and the Inn, visit our trektrax post of June 23, 2014.)
Rim to Rim in a Day
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| From L to R - John, Christoph and Warren wading in the Colorado River |
The burning desire to hike the canyon rim-to-rim in a day finally happened. On June 30th, Warren, Christoph and I departed the North Rim at 3:40am. We arrived at Phantom Ranch around 8:45 am. It was already
98° at the river and we still had 9 miles of uphill climb ahead! We crawled out of the Canyon on the South Rim at 4 pm. By that time the temperature was hovering around 100
°. Not the ideal temperature when attempting a 23-mile hike!
This trek proved to be both physically and mentally challenging; however, we accomplished our goal and made it out alive! The beer at the Bright Angel Lodge was ever so refreshing!
July 2014
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| Another picture of Half Dome far in the distance! |
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| Kris and Tim Lopes |
We can never get enough of Yosemite so Terry decided to treat her brother Tim and his wife Kris to a couple of nights at the Wawona Lodge in Yosemite. Although they've lived in Merced for a long time, they had never been to Yosemite!
Kickstarter Campaign begins.
To raise money and awareness for the creation of the game, Charlie put together a very professional Kickstarter campaign. Kickstarter is an online crowd funding website that helps entrepreneurs launch projects that might otherwise die on the idea board. Our Trekking Kickstarter project launched while we were visiting Yosemite and was fully funded in its first week! Charlie's campaign achieved 372% of his funding goal! Check out the campaign on this link:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/charliebink/trekking-the-national-parks-the-board-game
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| Haboob invading the neighborhood |
Every summer, we Phoenicians are treated to nasty dust storms that leave the neighborhood gasping for a breath of semi-clean air! These haboobs are violent windstorms that kick up the desert sands and transport the crud directly into my swimming pool!
August 2014
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| Trekkers atop Cadillac Mountain - Acadia National Park |
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| Round rocks of Acadia shoreline |
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| Acadia National Park Coastline |
Acadia National Park in Maine marks our 44th park visit. Terry is still hobbling about in her boot; however, I get out of bed before she arises to take some early morning photos of this rugged landscape.
September 2014
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| Trekking the National Parks - the Board Game |
With our Kickstarter campaign fully funded, we forge ahead and place our order for 3500 games! Delivery is anticipated for some time in mid November…which means we should be able to honor our pledge of getting the games to our Backers before Christmas!
Park Visit #45 -
Great Smoky Mountain National Park - TN/NC
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| Terry's still wearing an ankle brace, yet hobbling along better now! |
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| Sunsets in the Smokies are sensational! |
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| Mossy rocks make for a moody morning |
Great Smoky NP draws more visitors than any other park. Twice as much as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone or Yosemite. However, there are no Entrance Pay Stations to count visitors so I'm curious how they come up with the 10 million annual visitors the park claims to have passing through!
December 3, 2014 - Games arrive in Phoenix!
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| 52' Semi Delivers the Games! |
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| Forkin' unloading the 19 pallets of "cargo!" |
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| Terry (still in Boot) and C-Dawg preparing to ship! |
December 3rd will always be a memorable date for us as that is when the 19 pallets, 3534 games arrived. Our good friends Mark and Nance Hunter helped us unload the cargo, which filled up our 3 Car garage AND the 10x10 Storage unit we rented! Fortunately, it rained on December 2nd and 4th allowing us to transport the games rain free.
January 2015
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| Gilbert Art Walk |
After spending much of December shipping the games to our Friends and Family and Kickstarter Backers, Charlie began peddling the games at various Art Walks. In the photo above, he's set up his "selling station" at the Gilbert Art Walk in downtown Gilbert, AZ.
February 2015
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| Artisan Market - Scottsdale, AZ |
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| On the Bridge at Artisan Market |
The other major outdoor art event we participated in was the Scottsdale Artisan Markets. This very popular and well attended event was very good to us. Sadly, the local merchants raised a fuss with the Scottsdale City Council claiming us "tent people" were creating a "negative impact" on their businesses. They succeeded in getting the City to shut down the Artisan Markets at the end of 2015.
For the life of me, I could not understand how an event that draws potential customers to an area could ever be viewed as negative; however, the gallery people and other shopkeepers were hellbent on throwing us out. So here's how I CAN potentially create a negative impact on their businesses now that we've been removed. I urge all of you to NEVER shop at any of the shops or galleries located on Main Street or 5th Avenue in downtown Scottsdale…and please tell your friends and family to do the same! Thank you!
May 2015
At the recommendation of a customer we met way back in December, we entered our game in the Mensa Mind Games Competition - a very well known and prestigious gaming event that takes place each spring. Sixty-three games were entered and only five earn the coveted Mensa Select honor. Many of the games submitted were created by well known game publishers. Rarely does a first time submission win this competition.
Lo and behold….Trekking the National Parks was among the 5 chosen and from what we can tell, our game received the most votes!
NP#- 46 - Congaree National Park
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| The Boardwalk where the Championship Trees grow |
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| Trees Knees! |
Our 46th park visit found us wandering about the "championship trees" located in Congaree National Park. Congaree, located just south of Columbia, SC is know for its unusual array of giant trees that hold records for size of species. Before achieving National Park status, this park was originally called Conagree Swamp National Monument. It was created to protect 26,000 acres of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest - the largest such area left in the USA.
NP#47 - Shenandoah National Park
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| Dark Hollow Falls |
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| Twosome trekking Shenandoah! |
After visiting Congaree, we drove north to Shenandoah - our 47th park. Located just 75 miles west of Washington D.C., Shenandoah is situated in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Skyline Drive, the park's 105 mile scenic drive runs the entire length of the park and features 75 view overlooks.
As with all of the parks we've visited, the best "views" are found once you get out of your car and hit the trails!
July 2015
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| Henderson Clan |
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| Tosh, Jaylynn and Pappa John |
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| Khai in the pool |
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| Jaylynn in December! |
The Henderson Clan loaded up their Tahoe and paid us a visit over the 4th of July Holiday. Always a delight, the kids are growing up fast. At 4, Khai is reading books and such like he's in college. Jaylynn is 3 going on 23!
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| Homeshcoolers Convention |
Later that month, we secured a booth at the Arizona Family Home Education Convention at the Phoenix Convention Center to offer our game to homeschoolers. The game was a huge hit and we will be attending this event again in 2016.
August 2015
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| Lopes Family Reunion |
Charlie, his girlfriend Jessica, Terry and I along with Tosh, Greg, Khai and Jaylynn attended the Lopes Family Reunion at a lovely park in Scotts Valley, CA.
Back to Alaska!
Following the Family Reunion, Terry and I made our way back to Alaska to finish off the four parks we had not yet visited. The journey began by flying to Anchorage, driving to Fairbanks, then flying in a very small aircraft to Bettles where we stayed a couple on nights at the Bettles Lodge.
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| Bettles Lodge |
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| Capt Jim and the Float Plane we took to Kobuk and Gates |
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| View from the cockpit on this rainy morning |
Our journey north of the Arctic Circle proved to be exhilarating! The only way to visit Kobuk Valley and Gates of the Arctic is via a Float or Bush Plane. We charted a Float Plane to take us out to the Kobuk Sand Dunes and then to Walker Lake in Gates of the Arctic.
As the song goes "the weather outside was frightening"when we boarded our DeHavilland Beaver aircraft. Low clouds, drizzle and a touch of wind made takeoff and landing a thrilling experience!
Our first stop -
NP#48 - Kobuk Valley National Park
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| Above the Arctic Circle - Park #47 - Kobuk Valley |
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| Sand Dunes of Kobuk Valley |
Sand Dunes above the Arctic Circle? Yes indeed! Kobuk Valley actually has a couple of rather large dune fields and the summer temperatures on the dunes have been recorded to reach the century mark!
Stop #2 -
NP#49 - Gates of the Arctic
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| Typical terrain within Gates of the Arctic |
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| Terry at Walker Lake |
After departing Kobuk, our next stop was Walker Lake in Gates of the Arctic National Park. As you can see by the picture above, the cloud cover was dense, so our anticipated flightseeing tour of the Arrigetch Peaks was aborted. While disembarking from the Float Plane, I happened to slip on the pontoon and fell, camera in hand, into the frigid waters of Walker Lake! Much to my dismay, my Canon 5D Mark II bit the dust…or should I say, drowned in Walker Lake!
The picture of Terry at Walker Lake was taken with a camera I borrowed from our travel companions!
NP#50 - Wrangell - St. Elias National Park
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| Mt. Drum - Wrangell St. Elias NP |
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| Kennecott Mines outside McCarthy, AK |
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| Regulars at the Potato Restaurant in McCarthy, AK |
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| Newbies to The Potato |
Our 50th park visit found us first wandering about the funky town of McCarthy, AK where we happened upon one of the town's featured restaurants - The Potato! After spending an hour touring McCarthy, we were given the full tour of the Kennecott Mining Town.
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| Kennecott Mines |
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| Reflection of Mt. Drum from Lodge window |
During our visit to Wrangell, we spent three nights at the Copper Center Princess Wilderness Lodge, where it's Christmas in August!
NP#51 - Lake Clark National Park
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| Trekking about Lake Clark |
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| Lake Clark from the air |
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| Our Cabin at Lake Clark |
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| Lake Clark Shoreline |
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| Richard Proernneke's famous Cabin |
We spent 4 hours in Anchorage waiting for the fog that had settled over Lake Clark to lift before boarding our tiny aircraft to catch our flight to Lake Clark. The wait was well worth it as Lake Clark proved to be one of Alaska's finest!
September 2015
All good things must come to an end and on September 11th, my position as Director of Business Education was eliminated from the company's payroll. I have been affiliated with Ewing since 1988 - first as the company's Marketing Director for 11 years. Then, I worked closely with Ewing when I was the Director of Business Development for FX Luminaire. Ewing was FX's biggest and best customer.
For the past 5 years, I produced and presented a series of educational workshops to help Ewing's customers become better business people. Ironically, I was going to retire my position at Ewing upon completion of this year's seminar series. The company needed to make cutbacks and I was it, hence retirement came early for me!
And thank goodness I was relieved of my seminar duties, because Terry and Charlie immediately put me to work marketing and selling our game!
Yet before I jumped into my new full-time role, Terry and I made one last park visit!
NP#52 - Mammoth Cave NP - Kentucky
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| Natural Entrance to Mammoth Cave |
The original plan was to take in Mammoth Cave while I conducting my seminars in Memphis and Nashville. With no seminars to conduct, Terry and I flew out to Nashville, TN and then drove up to Kentucky to see what these mammoth caves were all about!
October thru December 2015
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| Phoestivus for the rest of us! |
We were turned on to another outdoor Art Fair called the Phoestivus. The two evening events we participated in were very cool by Phoenix standards (hovering around 40
°); however, the second event proved to be the most lucrative single day event we've ever done.
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| Trekking the Parks with the Binkele's |
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| The 2000th Game sold at Gilbert Art Walk in November |
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| Trekking celebrates its 1st Anniversary on December 3rd |
Since departing Ewing, all of us have been busy with the game. As this edition of Bink Ink shows, most of the highlights over the past two years are centered on two themes - promoting the game and visiting the parks!
This little project has become quite the "adventure" for the Binkele family. What started out almost three years ago as a wild idea about creating a board game about our country's amazing landmarks has since evolved into a full time business for the three of us!
As for moving forward, Terry and I plan on hitting all of the 7 remaining parks on our bucket list in 2016. Unless we order more games, we will most likely sell our remaining inventory by this time next year. Charlie will have to make a decision as to whether we continue with Trekking or move on to other projects. Time will tell and regardless of the direction Trekking takes, it's been one hell of an exiting ride!
We wish all of you a happy, healthy and eventful New Year. Until we meet again….Happy Trails to all!
The Binkele's
P.S. If you'd like more details about any of the park's we've visited, take a look at past blog postings. Or if you 'd like to learn more about our game, click on the link above.
