"Had an exciting pokemon go night, all thanks to the broken trackers; wanted to share our story"

#PokemonGO: So, my family absolutely has been hooked on Pokemon Go since launch. Theres 4 of us; me, my wife, and my 2 sons (aged 6 and 3). When we upgraded our phones, the boys got the hand me downs and their own accounts and play via mobile hotspot, and we go out 2 or 3 times a week and play together and have a lot of fun. While Mom and I are focused on completing the pokedex, the boys favorite pastime is fighting Gyms together, but we always manage to have fun no matter which spot we were hitting up. Our one goal, since day 1, has been to find a snorlax and catch it. We've only ever seen it on nearby once when we were driving, and were unable to actually locate it, and that was probably 2 months ago.When the trackers went down last week, I was devastated. We relied on the tracker a lot to find the pokemon we are looking for, especially when we're at a nest. During the afternoon, we were at a clefairy nest, and even though we caught one or two, there were some on our nearby list that we just never managed to catch before they despawned. It was disheartening, and we were kind of stuck missing what once was. "Without tracking, this just isn't fun, its just random luck." We went home kind of down.That night, I took my mom out to dinner, and we were going to go swimming but it ended up being too late. "Let's just do some quick pokemon go," I said, I figured we'd go down to the local park where there were 3-4 pokestops close by and lure them for half an hour and have fun. Everyone thought it sounded like fun. My mom doesn't play, but she's gone with us once to a huge hotspot (the Lighthouse in Long Beach) and saw how crazy the crowds can get.This time was different, as there was no crowds playing pokemon at the park... and yet, what happened was the most fun we've had in a very, very long time; possibly forever."There's a snorlax!" I exclaimed, as I booted up the app. My wife didn't believe me -- I have a tendency to pull peoples legs -- but when she saw it with her own eyes she was excited. But we didn't have the tracker... and the park was pretty big. My boys were getting really excited, as we booted their phones and turned on my hotspot. My mom suggested splitting up, so we could cover more ground, and that's what we did. My wife and 3 year old went one way with my mom, me and my 6 year old went the other way.We checked near every pokestop, every lit area of the park, walked clear in each direction until we were pretty sure we must have passed it. We had a general idea of where it was, but couldn't quite get it on our map.Then, just like that... it fell off the nearby. Part of the excitement was that we didn't know how long we actually had, without the trackers, it might have been 3 minutes or 15 when we first saw it. But now, with it being gone -- I backtracked just to make sure we didn't outrange it -- our hunt was at an end.But wait! I remembered that the pokemon fall off the nearby a minute or two before they were actually gone, so there was still a faint chance.That's when I heard it, from across the park. My wifes voice saying "It's here!" She was a good 100 yards or more away from us. I told my son, we have to run if we're going to catch it... and we did. I've never seen him run with a more determined look on his face. And then, all of a sudden, there it was.At that point, not even the realization that this was a 222 CP snorlax could make me depressed (even though my wifes came up at well over 1800). It didn't matter, we all managed to catch it (well, except my 3 year old who ran out of balls catching rattatas and pidgeys!). And we cheered, happy in the park, having a very fun, unique family moment with pokemon.And thats when I realized... we would never have gotten such a moment with the tracker. We would have scanned, saw where it was, and gotten it with no fuss or muss. And we never would have had the experience we had, the bonding as a family, the thrill of the hunt or the near letdown of it disappearing off the nearby. All of it combined for an awesome family memory.So sure, maybe it's less efficient without the tracker, maybe it will take us longer to complete the pokedex, maybe these moments would be a rarity... but there's something to be said for playing for the memories, than just for the compulsive grind to fulfill our addiction to the game.So thank you Niantic for killing trackers this week. You've given us a memory that will not soon be forgotten.P.S. As Karma would have it ,we spotted a second snorlax on the way home, and managed to catch that one too!Pics:Snorlax on the nearby list; no pic of him on the map because he was about to despawnSecond Snorlax on the way homeTwo Snorlaxes on recent list! via /r/pokemongo http://ift.tt/2dcPN1a