"My best day so far in Pokémon Go (and it’s even just the morning part for now)"

#PokemonGO: Hi there,I’m a french player (so please excuse my approximate english), and I started in late-August. I would describe myself as a very casual player, with the slight difference of much added knowledge thanks to all your great work here. Congrats to all of you ! :)Being casual, and living in suburban/rural area (would say rural where I live and work, though more suburban in between), I’ve only reached lvl 30 this week, and had never encountered any Lapras, Dragonite or Aerodactyl in the wild (I should also add at this point I’ve never use any scanner or thing like that). Neither any Chansey, even during Valentine’s event (how it looked like here, or even in the close by park with its Vulpix nest at this time)…And just 2 Snorlaxes, one being 19xx CP and having fled after the first ball, the other one being 3xx and remaining my only one to this day (it was caught in an airplane BTW, around 30s before having to turn my phone off for takeoff). My PoGo live mostly comes down to walking a bit one WE over two in our local nest, because we happen to have one ! Though nothing like this one in the big park I’ve mentioned above, which 45 min away from where I live and where I go from time to time when I can and it’s worth it — e.g. not when it’s a Venonat nest. ;p Also try to fight against spoofers for the local gyms (while reporting them when it’s too obvious, like two gyms several hundred meters apart in an open field being taken by the same player within less time than travelling between both require, all of that while I’m the only human being around there); this is really hard since they have multiple Dragonites, Snorlaxes and Blisseys that I or the other players around here don’t. Anyway…Though currently, I’m visiting in Santa Barbara, California (in Isla Vista and the UCSB campus to be more precise). And I definitively understand the differences they are between urban or campus players and me. They are mons everywhere, and a lot of varieties (Isla Vista is an electric biome, but the campus seems to be a bit more desert — which would explain the very numerous high lvl Blisseys in the gyms here — + standard biome, though still pops way more different mons than where I live). Also enough gyms for 100 coins per days (if you manage to get in, but that’s at least the case for some Instinct players), which is not the case where I live (we have 8 reachable ones — which is already quite good for rural —, but over an area at least 10 times as wide as Isla Vista + UCSB). I’ve also finally hatched an Aerodactyle and a Chansey while here, which is amazing (some players I’ve met in my early PoGo days had a theory that Stops are more likely to give rare if you haven’t ever spin them… They only had anecdotal evidence though, and I never think this could be an interesting research topic, but after hatching those back-to-back while being in a totally new location, I must say I’m wondering if they could be more than RNGejus here. This could be a way for Niantic to make us travel more maybe. Or just that being rural, going to bigger cities — which was the case here in both stories — allows for better eggs, though it’s still a good luck to have such great eggs). And despite all the threads and comments here about Tauros having vanished recently that worried me a bit about the feasability to get one, I’ve already managed to get one + seen one on nearby that I couldn’t reach in time (in that order, reverse would have been really frustrating at first).I won’t write about all the other awesome things I find here from a french person perspective to focus on PoGo, especially since they must already be a lot of things about that around the web. ;)Today is Saturday, so I don’t go to work (I could and often do since I’m a scientist, but here I’m rather taking some good time on the WE). When waking up this morning, I saw that the two very near gyms were Mystic, which I also happen to be. That was the first time they weren’t Valor or Instinct, this area being completely dominated by the later (quite helped by what seems to be the top player here, a lvl 38 with multiple 31xx Blisseys). This motivated me to get out, put a mon in each for the coins (at this point, I should also add that I’m a free player, since even if I wanted to spend money in this game, I couldn’t since in-app purchases don’t work on my phone), and do a little tour in the neighbourhood.This started quite well, since the closest interesting spawn point (at a stop called “The Maze”, really interesting things happening there) had a Pupitar, while I was sitting on a sole Larvitar as the sole representative of Tyranitar family. I also hatched a 93% Bulbasaur around the same time, which even if I already managed to get a Venusaur thanks to Christmas event, is always nice. ;)At this point, I discovered where everyone around there seems to be, partying hard at ΣΠ. I moved along and headed to the center of Isla Vista. That is when I saw a Totodile on the tracker, near a not so distant Pokéstop. Decided to get there (only have one for now), started the catch but lost network at that very moment (being on roaming doesn’t seem to suits my phone very well, I regularly get disconnected and sometimes it can be very hard to get signal again). Decided to head through the next stop where an Exeggcute was supposed to be (still need some candies to max my recently hatched-and-evolved Exeggutor) while waiting for the Totodile to get back on the map (it often takes some seconds for mons having disappeared during network lost to reappear on the map, while the others stay there). The Exeggcute wasn’t here anymore, but instead, in the tracker, there was a shadow I know pretty well for having seen it once in the tracker while being unable to reach it1.Forget the Totodile, rush that Dragonite. And then it was here. Boom, just like that. In the middle of my way to the Dragonite was this majestic beast, a Lapras. Touched him and kept running to the Dragonite while trying to catch. It went in with the first Ultra, apparently the catch rate is not so low for this mon (thus decided to go with a Pinap berry, I must say I love this new berry like almost everyone here). This is when I saw a bunch of people on their phones, just where the Dragonite was supposed to be.Seeing me arriving, they asked if I was here for the Dragonite. Yup. Well, it was easy to guess, since I decided to wear one of my PoGo tee today. Apparently some of them also came the same way than myself and catched the Lapras on their way. And then it was here, on my screen. This beautiful dragon. One, two, three Razz+curved Ultra and it was mine (so few attempts was crazy given how red that ring was, but I still think Razz were a better choice than Pinap here). A 2402 Dragonite with its dual dragon moveset. Bad IV (49%) though, but still. It’s a Dragonite, my only one.Prior to that, I was only sitting on 49 candies, from 8 catched Dratinis and a bit of walking during Halloween. Never give a thought about walking those almost 400 km remaining for being able to evolve the best one (and then a bit more to have an usable Dragonite, since a lvl 12 one is probably not really useful, even with 84 % IV). Evolving one of the higher level was not an option, they all had crap IV (<50 %) and the best one was something like 480 CP, so not a really high lvl. I traded most of them for candies on the Halloween event, and the other ones catched after that at Valentine’s.At this point, my battery wasn’t very high (I decided not to buy an external one for several reasons), so I decided to get back home. This was already my best PoGo session so far, but it wasn’t even finished. On my way, I found my first 100 % mon (I’ve appraised every mon I’ve catched, since appraisal was here before I could fill my box, so it’s definitively the first one — got a couple of 98 % though), which also happened to be lvl 30 mon. OK, granted, it’s a Voltorb. But still, having a 100 % mon is a thing for me, and having it lvl 30 is even more awesome. Sure, I wouldn’t have refused that to be the Dragonite or the Lapras either, but hey… this is already a hell of RNGesus PoGo session.I’ll probably go out again in the evening, maybe I’ll have some other good surprises, who knows! :)So, this is the time for my conclusion, thanks if you have read me down to here. For my ending words, just get to the TL;DR below.TL;DR: If you’re a suburban or rural player, don’t despair! One day you’ll go into a big city or university campus, and have a very good journey like me. ;) Apart from that, thanks to all the Silph Road community for its work and this sub. I read you everyday, and you’re awesome!1: One day, while I was in a train to get to my work, I saw this shadow on the nearby tracker. But obviously I couldn’t jump out of the train to go catch it. The day after, it was an Aerodactyl, but same story (it hadn’t fully download by the time I took the screenshot, but I wouldn’t have had a screenshot at all else since the train was going away, though you can still see it in the background tracker tab). I was astonished to have two of the rarest mons spawn at around the same hour of the day in the same place, just one day apart, and was really frustrated not to be able to get them. But now I’ve got both. :)P.S.: Whole album.EDIT: And I knew I would forget something… I’ve also got my Metal Coat (or whatever the name is) to evolve a Scyther into my first Scizor, got BP/IH. Not the best according to http://ift.tt/2mVDsUI, but still better than any other mixed combination or the third charge moveset. Though the important part is this is only my 4th upgrade items, after two Sun things and an Up-grade, so I’m happy I got it. :) via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2mxzu1X