Everyone is interested in something, and chances are that there is a travel bug that is based on that shared common interest. This is one such story.

As I was planning a geocaching adventure several months ago, I looked for several caches clustered together. I also like to note the travel bugs that were logged in these caches. On this occasion, one travel bug stood out. Not because of one of my interests, but one of my colleague's interests; this was the Fire Marshall Smokey TB. My colleague, Mark, is a firefighter.

Smokey's mission was to have his pictures taken in front of the local fire station. I thought that, with Mark's access to fire fighting apparatus, it would be cool to snap a picture of Smokey on a fire truck.

Now, Mark is used to my eccentricities at work, so I had no problem asking him to take a picture of Smokey with a fire truck. He took custody of the travel bug. The next day, Mark did not have the picture I asked for, but I could see that Ambassador Smokey was having an interesting effect on those who were exposed to him.

It seems that Smokey generated some interest in Mark's son, who looked up the web address and was fascinated by the idea of geocaching. His son's interest and the information that I provided about caching had a positive impact, much bigger than I'd ever expected. The very next morning, Mark had taken 20 pictures of the travel bug and had written a blurb on Smokey's adventure at the Firehouse.

Since then, Mark has joined me on several lunchtime geocaching adventures. It seems that Smokey had a greater impact as an introduction to geocaching than any verbalization I made.

I like to think of Smokey as a Geocaching Ambassador. When you find a travel bug, do not hesitate to share it with your friends and family. Enlist the help of anyone you need to help the TB accomplish its mission. The Travel Bug is a tangible representation of geocaching and, as such, can generate more excitement than mere words.

I am sure that there are other Geocaching Ambassadors still in cache boxes out in the wild; please help them spread awareness of our sport.