Every time I head out caching, I expect to see interesting things and have a good time. Today certainly lived up to those expectations, and hopefully next time around I can handle things as well as I did today :-)
We started Saturday with a goal of finding 15 caches. Mainly, since my allergies are acting up and I'm on a ton of meds for them, we decided to stick to park and grabs. A very nice way to ease back into things. We grabbed 11 of them pretty uneventfully - the 12th was when things got interesting.
We pulled up to GZ, shifted into park, and a cop pulled up behind us. She comes up, asks why we're there since the nearby business is closed, and Evan decides to just tell her. Of course, he does this by saying "we are out geocaching, and there happens to be one in that lamp post." She stares at him like he's crazy, then he explains what geocaching is, shows her our map, the GPS, etc. Meanwhile, I grab the cache. I am SO glad it was actually there. I'm also glad it wasn't just a pill bottle, as is normal for lamp post caches. This one was a decent size and has a few goodies in it she could look at. She seemed to get a kick out of how many people had signed the log. When I signed, she headed back to her vehicle and left. Pretty easy to deal with, but HUGE adrenalin rush. I was always worried that my first encounter would go poorly, but I am glad Evan made the decision and we went with it.
We headed to one more park and grab then met up with some friends (James and Lisa) to help him move his travel bug eastwards. Drove east above 45 minutes then did a quick look for a large cache that we could drop the bug in. Found just what we were looking for near the Lake Lavon dam. It was a little odd to walk around out there near a tiger refuge with so close by, but we long ago purchased some bear spray...which was at home. As we climbed down the hill and walked across the field, we kept our eyes open. Needless to say, nothing really happened. When we got close by, it was pretty obvious where it would be, so I climbed to the center of a bunch of cedar trees and made the find. Then James climbed in to actually get it (I am not a fan of sticking my hands in holes...). Let the bug and helped move it further along in its goal.
In the end, we made 14 for Saturday. Not too shabby!
Sunday we had plans to meet up with James and Lisa again and go on a 'cache walk'. I made a path for the John Carter Park in Plano. It is a nice park with a ton of caches hidden along its paths. I made a path with ~20 caches on it and a loop, with the option to head back halfway if needed. Sent the starting address to James and packed up my walking gear.
Since there was still time to kill before meeting up, Evan and I went out for a few more park and grabs. First thing, we pull up to the GZ and there is a cop in their car sitting there. Needless to say, we decided to save that one for later. Did not need a repeat - how many times can you get lucky before having problems?
Hit up a few more park and grabs in the area, most were nothing special. The last one we found before meeting up with James and Lisa was my favorite - it was in a neighborhood park that was oddly empty (it was beautiful out!). I think I might go back and chill there with Dylan some day when I need something to do with him.
Then we headed to the park. Sprayed/applied the sunscreen and bug spray, made sure water bottles were full, and went on our way. Every cache we found was different from the others, and it was very enjoyable. After our 7th cache, we decided to exercise that 'cut back' option and leave the other half of the trail (well, slightly more than half) for another day. At that point, we had found 7 of 7 caches we'd searched for, although some took more time than others.
On the way back to the car, we searched for the last cache on the way - Rusty Bridge #4 (you have to be a paid member to see this one). The other ones we've found in this series weren't easy, but they were not like this one. We ended up looking for an hour and not finding it. After reading the logs, seems that is not abnormal. I'm sure we'll be back when we hit up the rest of the trail.
24 finds for the weekend. Not our best weekend, but definitely not our worst!
2 comments:
I thought I was going to have an encounter with law enforcement on Sunday. He was parked across the street from a cache we were looking for. Turns out he ignored us even though he turned his cruiser around in the spot were parked. I was looking forward to explaining geocaching. ;-) I've never personally be approached, even though I do a lot of night caching.
I always worry about it, but now that it has happened, I am not as concerned as I used to be. She was really nice and that made it easier. But I don't want to do that again...
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