20,000 Leagues Under the....Park

October 10, 2012 - Charleston, SC

Finding the cache!

Recording for posterity.

My sister and I take an annual trip together and this year was the year of Charleston.  Since I was down there I decided that I would HAVE to do a cache since I was in another state and could rack up another State Badge by finding one.

This cache was from a series of caches named after books.  From the title we surmised (quite cleverly, I might add, that the cache MUST be near water).  And so it was!  In fact, it was in a park that was next to a marina and near a school (you know, like school of fish....right?) 

Charleston is a beautiful and friendly city and one that I would have LOVED to have done more caching in, but I had already been on my feet for three days straight and probably logged about 20 miles so I just couldn't do any more extensive walking than this.  Besides it was our last day in Charleston and we didn't have more time to spend on geocaching.

This one was a very easy cache and I was able to drop off one of the errant tracker bugs I have! 

Saving Snow

August 18th, 2012 - It was a warm and sunny day (not a dark and stormy night).  It was finally the moment we had been waiting for. We had found all seven dwarves.  Our scouting parties had been successful and we had gotten the necessary codes to fill in the blanks for our coordinates to where Snow White was being held captive by the Evil Queen.  Actually one code was MIA, but I think that was on purpose -- to make us think a little harder. 

Saving Snow White

Once we plugged in the coordinates in our handy dandy GPS gadgets and got the directions to the "prison" we could see we were going to a very familiar place.  We'd been here for about four other caches.  We were ready!  We picked what we thought was the logical path to go down.  We headed down it chatting!  We were close! About 600 feet away!  Walking, walking, walking.  Wait a minute!  Now we're 1/10 of a mile away?  What?  We walked up and down the path once.  Twice.  Back and forth.  We couldn't seem to get any closer.  Was this a wicked enchantment put on our GPS by the Evil Queen?!?  The GPS kept bouncing and telling us we were close, but no cigar. 

There she is!

The ensourceled stump

Finally it seemed as though we were going to have to do some heavy bushwhacking in order to save Snow.  Hang on!  I pulled out the GPS and looked at the description, "About 10 feet off the path."  Okay, that does NOT jive with what is going on here.  Maybe we got the coordinates wrong!  I looked at them again -- nope they're right. Then my son says, "That's an 8."  I said, "No, it's a B."  He replies, "No it's not, it's an 8."  Well, darned if he wasn't right!  My poor eyes were not seeing the number 8, they were seeing a very clear letter B and as such I had filled in that part of the coordinate puzzle with the corresponding number for "B" rather than an 8.  Once we cleared up that misunderstanding, a short walk and the cache hiding place was pretty clear.  We found it easily.  And so to end this happy tale, Snow is once again FREE!  Huzzah to the scouting party!  Huzzah to her rescuers!  And they all lived happily ever after!!  The End!!

Shades of Blair Witch - Kinda

Blair Witch nearby?

August 12, 2012 - I started out my Sunday by spending two hours on the phone with a few nice gentlemen in India.  No I am not a phone sex goddess.  I was on the phone trying to get some help with my dead-in-the-water computer.  After talking to four different help desk people in four different departments it was determined that it PROBABLY is my video card.  The nice gentlemen offered to order (for a fee of course since NATURALLY my computer is out of warranty) a new part.  I respectfully declined thinking I could pick one up quickly at a brick and mortar store nearby.  The problem with that turned out to be that those stores are more interested in having you buy a new one that helping you repair on old one.  No stores locally had what I needed in stock so I was forced to order it online anyway.  So WHY in the heck are we going through all this fal-de-rol when this blog is supposed to be about geocaching?  I am (as the lawyers would say) trying to establish my mindset when I set out to cache that day.  I was pretty well squelched mentally, emotionally, physically, morally and within the depth of my soul.  Computer problems just plain bum me out.

So dear husband had proposed we again go out geocaching/wine-tasting which really needs it's own moniker, don't you think?  How about geo-drinking or Cache on the Vine?  Anyway, I'll think about that.  Since I was occupied for most of the morning we couldn't start out until after noon.  That made our choices of where to cache and then go wine tasting pretty narrow.  Off to Mt. Airy again we go.  This time we decided to go to Elk Run winery and picked caches nearby.  The first cache I chose was in the Gillis Falls area of Mt. Airy.  It's unbelievable how much we second guess ourselves as to where to park.  It's like a scene from It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.  We drive by the "parking area" twice because it just didn't look like where we need to be.  In any event, we finally ended up parking there and walked down the trail.  The GPS had us about .5 miles away.  Part of the way there I accidentally lost the cache and had to restart my GPS.  When I did that, I noticed there was ANOTHER cache about 150 ft away!  Excelsior!  Had to grab that one, right?  We backtracked a bit and walked down a side path towards what looked like a large VERY old brick fireplace. This is the Blair Witch part (which, I actually have never seen except for some clips).  Anyway, it was spooky to see this intact fireplace in the middle of the woods without ANYTHING around it (like, say, walls and a roof).  The cache was RIGHT in the open so no hunting for this one.  It is definitely a newbie cache.  We took a small shell and left a Barbie notebook.

Yeah, I felt safe on this path

We left the fireplace behind and traveled on to the next cache (which is actually the cache we were heading for).  The trail was QUITE muddy and had pretty large pools of water in some areas.  We walked on ahead and started to encounter old cabins(?) off the trail to the right.  They were abandoned and its appears they are riddled with bullet holes.  Lovely.  I don't know why they were there or what they were, but I am curious about that.  Sad that they aren't either restored or just plain torn down.  They look so, well, creepy just standing in the woods abandoned and shot up.  I'm pretty sure they are bullet holes because we heard bullets being fired pretty much the first hour we were in the woods.  Rapid fire, almost like target practice, but who knows?

Under the rubble

The next cache was pretty easy to find under an area of rubble.  Probably one of the cabins that had been almost completely demolished.  You could still see the foundation underneath.  The cache was under a plank of rubble.  The problem with its location was that there was a HUGE swarm of mosquitoes guarding it like it was the lost ark of the covenant or something.  Dear husband couldn't stick his hand in there because he is TRULY allergic to bug stings of all kinds.  So I quickly stuck my hand and there to grab the cache.  I know I say this every single time, but I really, really wish people would try a little harder with the swag. The CRAP people leave behind is stuff I would just toss in the trash.  I took a small plastic luggage tag and left a sandwich bag of NASA swag.  Oh, hey, how about Swig and Swag -- my name for geocaching and wine tasting?  I kinda like it!

Would you like a glass or three?

So on our way leaving the area, we hear a person crashing through the underbrush from above us.  Then a voice says, "I bet you all just found what I'm looking for."  It was another geocacher!  Fancy that!  That hasn't happened to us before.  I told her that it was pretty easy, but I wouldn't spoil it for her. She also mentioned that the "nano in the woods" cache just down the trail is really easy.  I figured we had time for one more cache before our wine tasting so both husband and I decided to try for it.

Our well-earned picnic

So here was the problem.  The cache the other geocacher was talking about was NOT the one I had downloaded to my GPS and I was confused thinking that the one I did download was the one she was talking about.  So we headed off in the direction my GPS was telling me and I figured this would take just a couple minutes and we'd go.  Well, the cache we were headed for had a difficulty of FOUR STARS and was a bison tube (think 1 1/2 inch tube) hidden in the middle of the woods.  I didn't realize my error until we had been searching for awhile.  Dear husband wasn't to be deterred though since we'd already started this search.  We read all the entries (or so we thought), the hint (none), the description (not many clues) and still we could not find it.  We probably spent close to an hour looking for it, and ultimately had to go away with a DNF which was very sad.  :(  Oh well!  Maybe next time as the Dodgers would say (the Brooklyn ones, not the L.A. ones which I think are doing quite well this year).

And so it goes.  We got to Elk Run JUST IN TIME to taste six wines, buy a bottle of Riesling, a chunk of Gouda and some french bread.  We went out to the outdoor tables and enjoyed our time sitting by the vineyards.
 
"Oh, by the way," I said to dear husband, "Did you tell the boy (our son) where we were going?"  "No I thought you did."  "Nope."  "Oh well, he's 14, he probably won't even leave his room.  I doubt if he'll know we even left."  "Touche."

Cache or Charge?

August 06, 2012  - So I read the description for this cache on Geocaching.com and noticed that someone had dropped a tracker bug in it.  I love tracker bugs so I convinced my son to go with me to grab it.  I don't really like to cache alone.  Too many crazies around--especially if you find yourself digging around in the woods off the beaten path.  Any looney tune can follow you in to the woods.  So, he agreed (in exchange for a McDonald's run after our caching adventure, of course).  Ever the negotiator.  But he was being nice and accompanying me so I have no room to dispute his intentions.

Dear son with the narcoleptic dwarf

Probably shouldn't show the clue, but too bad!

We easily found the park and were the only car in the lot.  We took to the path and found ourselves in the edges of the woods.  The GPSr was taking us to an area that had some fallen trees, lots of leaves, and debris.  I decided to go over and check under one specific tree that looked likely.  My spidey sense were tingling.  Well, I don't know what kind of spidey senses were going on but as I dug around in the fallen leaves by the tree trunk  I did not come up with the cache, but rather a stack of credit cards instead.  Yep, credit not cache.  Someone had obviously had their wallet stolen and the contents of the wallet (including license, credit cards, and other convenience cards) were in one large pile under this tree.  That was pretty jarring to find.  Upon closer inspection the cards were all expired and had been so for about four years.  This was one old crime.  I am going to attempt to find this person and send her cards back to her, just to let her know that they were finally found. Closure (if you believe in that sort of thing).  Anyway, I guess it's good to know that some nefarious person is not still in possession of your driver's license must be of some comfort, right?  A few minutes after my discovery, my son found the cache that we had come to actually find.  Our last little person, Sleepy, slept right through the whole credit card uncovering.  We roused him long enough to find out our last clue to discover where Snow White is being held.  He gave it up quickly (probably in order to go back to sleep) and now we can go rescue the princess.

Examining the cache for clues

A Doc In The Woods

Intrepid cachers doing their cache finding salute

August 05, 2012 - On the way home from the in-laws this morning (for brunch) I casually pointed out to dear husband and son that there was a cache pretty much on the way home and that it was one that I really wanted to get.  Always being the good guy, dear husband said, "Where is it?"  At which point I proceeded to drag my geocaching bag out of its hiding spot and kick off my sandals for sturdier shoes.  Grabbing the GPSr, I quickly pulled up the cache and found that we were a mere 1.5 miles away!  YAY!

Cache ahoy

The part of geocaching that always confounds me is where to START.  I plugged in the parking coordinates to the car's GPS and once again it took us to the wrong spot.  I think that maybe the coordinates the car uses are different than the GPSr (maybe in type).  In any event, I was able to negotiate our way to a park--seems as though this is where all good caches begin.

Doc in good hands

We parked and headed out with just a mere 800 ft. to go.  Following the path and some of the comments from recent finders I figured it was probably very close to the trail.  It was and I found out that I am getting pretty good at figuring out where I think it should be--which is usually is.  Only took me 33 caches before to really get the hang of it [;)]!! 

So we found Doc in good shape and we found the Beijing Geocoin that I had my eye on from the comments.  Someone had just dropped it off in this cache not too long ago.  It is BEAUTIFUL!  I logged it and found out that it has traveled from Missouri to Alaska through Washingon State, California, Arizona and then back east to Virginia and on to Maryland.  I am going to release it probably on an upcoming trip to South Carolina.  P.S.  Not sure why I look so demented in this photo.  Maybe it was the heat.  I hope it was the heat...

First to Find!

At the mouth of the culvert

Looking down the culvert

August 04, 2012 -

Saturday's.  This is how they usually go...  "What do you want to do?"  "Geocache.  What do YOU want to do?"  "I dunno.  Maybe go to a wine festival.  Maybe go biking.  Maybe go to a festival or craft show or something?  What do you think?" "I want to go geocaching."  "Okay, but maybe we can do something ALONG with geocaching."  "Okay, deal."   At that point, dear husband gets on the internet to figure out what's going on in our general vicinity.  Once he figures out what looks like fun and I agree, I hop on Geocaching.com to figure out what geocaches are near to where the "thing" is that we are doing.  Today was an absolute win-win in terms of synchronicity.  So he found this winery in Mt. Airy that had a wine and cheese pairing going on and I found a BRAND NEW geocache that had just been published the day before.  It would be our very first "FTF."  And THAT is exciting!  It's akin to being the first to scale Mt. Everest, or the first to step foot on the moon, or the first to discover a new medicine---okay, no, it's not really like that at all.  But it is cool and some caches are specifically set aside for FTFers only, so I guess now that I have one under my belt, I can try those caches, too.  It was a goal that I wanted to attain and today I had a chance to do so.  

A fresh new, very tainted scrape.  Ugh.

So we took off for Mt. Airy.  We used our car GPS to put in the coordinates for parking, but it had us going to wrong area for the cache.  We read the description again and figured out where we should be parking and headed there.  We parked and got out near our quarry.  We were on the top of a small overpass that had a culvert underneath it and a creek running through the culvert.  The GPS had us about 16 ft. from the cache at the top of the culvert.  Keep in mind that the title of the cache was "Birthday for Crawdaddies."  And there were crawdads in the creek.  Yep, we had to make our way down to the creek, which was NOT easy at all.  There was a small portion of land that was mowed short but everything around the water was very high grass with God knows what lurking in it.  As usual, I had on shorts and tennis shoes. And as usual, I got a mighty nasty scrape from a bramble on the front of my leg.  Sadly, I didn't even feel it happen.  That's how used to getting scraped up I am.

Just hanging around

Steve decided to try and come in from the other side.  I'm not sure how much of an easier time he had, but he didn't end up with wet shoes like I did.  He actually walked through the culvert.  We started searching on the side we THOUGHT it was going to be, but coming up empty handed.  I was starting to panic a bit thinking that someone else was going to come to try to find it to get their own FTF as we were still frantically looking ourselves.  I decided to go over to the other side of the creek (getting my feet COMPLETELY soaked in the meantime).  Sheesh.  So Steve is on one side pulling up large rocks to looking under them, and I'm on the other side, poking in the underbrush with a stick and hoping that the Basilisk isn't hovering around in the grasses.  Then I see this small crevice that I'm convinced the cache will be in.  I turn to get a flashlight from my pack when what do I spy hanging from the branch of a little sapling on a caribiner, but the CACHE!!!  I hastily grabbed it and opened it quickly.

A fresh new untainted log.  Ahhhhhhh.

And what do I find???????????    A blank log book.  A beautifully blank log book.  So nice and clean and white.  Nary a name on it.  With shaking hands, I wrote in the log with the enclosed pencil:  "FTF!!!!  The Jenners 3  TFTC!  Our first FTF!  So excited!"  Or something along those lines.  Then, little paranoid me, I decided that I had to write over it with INK just in case someone else got here before I could log my cache on geocaching.com and they erased my entry!  It could happen!  So I was just finishing up the inking of my entry when I heard voices coming from the road above us.  "Honey!  Do you hear that?"  I figured it was another geocacher trying to get the FTF!  I felt awkward and just wanted to get out of there.  Then this voice says, "Are you the first to find?"  And I said proudly, "I am !"  Then he said, "Congratulations!  I put the cache here yesterday and I was bringing her (pointing to the woman he was with) here to show her where I placed it.  It was in honor of her birthday which was yesterday."  So he was the cache OWNER!  How cool is that??  I thought to myself, this could not be any better. To meet the cache owner at the very time you  get your first "First to Find."  How poetic!  It was really, really cool and they could not have been any nicer.  So Zekester and Simon, you guys are awesome!  We hope to do more of your caches in the future and thanks for making our first FTF so memorable and great!  We took the "lovers in a tryst" - Popeye and Olive Oyl dolls hugging each other, and left a cool Matchbox car for the SECOND to find!  All  in all, a fantastic day for geocaching!

Double Your Fun

Really?  REALLY?  Really!!

August 2, 2012 - Our first cache in the dog days of August.  Actually the days around here have been dog days for most of the summer--whatcha gonna do?  Go caching!  So this was the last of the Imposter series for us to finish up.  [Ed note:  So I THOUGHT!  Another Imposter was just published on August 5 so apparently this series is ongoing.] We were pretty confident that we'd have no problem at all with this one considering the last Imposter of the series (#2) which we thought was crazy hard!  So we took off for the spot--just three of us.  Two Lorax's and a Jenner for the hide.  The hint given was "not your typical LPC (lamp post cache)."  And that couldn't have been truer.

We did the whole "look under the skirt of the lamp post thing" to no avail.  There were bushes all around the area and we looked extensively in those.  There were dozens of old bottles, empty beer cans, a wine bottle, a dirty diaper (gag!) and empty, crumpled up cigarette packs.  We pushed those around for awhile, but nothing popped out at us.

We even look at other lamp posts to see if the one we were concentrating on was like the other ones.  Were they all painted recently, did that one have a box on the back like ours did, stuff like that.  I drew the line at climbing the post, though.  :)

Not THAT desperate for a chew!

Then, all of a sudden, I saw a clump of chewed up gum.  No....it couldn't be...no way.  I poked it with my trusty stick and turned it over.  There was the micro sticking out of the bottom.  Evil genius!  Devious beyond measure!  Disgusting!  I love it.  So, we finished the Imposter series with a flourish and we did indeed, double our fun!

Undercover Cache

Seriously???  And what does D3Y mean?

July 30, 2012 -- With the success of finding Happy we decided to take a chance on one of our most devious DNFs.  The cache behind the shopping center.  We knew it was an "imposter cache" but it was listed as 1 for terrain (very true) and 1 for difficulty.  Very NOT true.  I suppose if you were used to seeing these types of caches, maybe it would've been easier, but for the neo-geo, this kind of thing is not an ordinary cache.  AND we'd already done two of the other imposters in the series.  There is a fourth, but we really haven't tried for that one yet.  The other two were as tough as this one but had a difficulty of 2.5.  I think this one should've been at least that difficulty as well.  So back to the same site we'd already been to two other times.  Luckily we had no muggles nearby, but unluckily, the dumpsters REALLY needed to be emptied.  There was a total sickly rotted smell coming from them.  Like rotting fish.  Ugh!  It was hard to stay focused when that smell was wafting around the area.  Could it be a rock, a stick, a leaf, a switch box, a lock, a branch??  We were all being driven crazy.  I circled the area several times, then finally for some reason I started to pull at the stickers on the electrical box.  One seemed to pull off very easily.  Lo and behold UNDERNEATH the magnetic sticker that had the letters DY3 on it was the cache which consisted of a very tiny plastic bag and a strip of paper for a log.  Why did I mess with the sticker?  I don't know.  But there you go, it was indeed "in plain sight" as the hint said, but who would think to look under a series of nonsensical letters and numbers on a piece of equipment.  It just looked like a code for the big box.  Imposter, indeed!

Happy to have Happy

Our new recruit was the eagle eye that found it.

 July 30, 2012 - This one was a long time coming.  We were attempting to finish up the Snow White cache.  We still had Happy, Doc, and Sleepy to go.  Happy was very elusive for us.  We'd tried for Happy once before and spent close to an hour looking for him to no avail.  There were five sets of eyes, but no one could find him.  Needless to say, none of us were very---happy----about not finding Happy.  When two of your party of five start whining about going home and not looking any more you need to cut your losses and move on.  So we did.  Fast forward about two weeks.  I had this cache on my watchlist.  I had tried to email the owner about the cache to make sure that the big storm at the end of June didn't mess up the cache.  I never heard back from the CO so I put it on the watchlist.  FINALLY, yesterday, someone found it!  Of course, as with most cachers, the findee was lazy about his log.  He wrote Good hike, nice trail,

The hidden cache

Where we THOUGHT it probably was (or underneath all that)

TFTC.  No info whatsoever.  Thanks.   I like when people write something that helps me out just a little bit, like -- tricky hide or not exactly where the GZ coords are, something like that.  Oh well.  At least someone had finally found it.  I called my geocaching buddies to coordinate a new rescue mission.  They were up for it and so was I.  One of our group declined to go, but he's a teenager so I'm so not surprised.  Back to the same spot.  The GPS was still consistent in where it was leading us. The thing that threw us off the most was the fact that it was sending us to an area nearby that was just devastated by the storm.  Lots of trees down, leaves, branches, sticks, etc.  We thought that maybe the cache was in the tree and was now underneath all that mess.  The find by the fellow geocacher yesterday gave us the renewed hope we needed to give it another shot.  In the midst of us once again discussing where it could be--arguing about whether or not it could be up a tree, our eagle eyed friend was saying, "Excuse me, excuse me.  I think I may have found it."  Finally we all turned around and there he was, cache in hand, with Happy smiling like a Cheshire cat, and so was our buddy!  GREAT FIND!  So we can check that off our list of "can't find but we'll be back - CFBWBB"  Still have a couple more on that list, but Happy is not one of them!

The Lorax Gang and our new recruit celebrating the find.

Johns Stash Cache - Not a Cache and Dash

Dear sister with her web whacking wand

THAT'S A STUMP?

July 29, 2012 -- Yowzah!  Okay, first of all, again, I did NOT read the car coordinates at first.  So we drove and parked to where I thought we should start.  But there was no entry spot into the woods and you can't just go tromping through somebody's yard (although I have done that, but ONLY as a last resort when The Lorax Gang and I were hopelessly lost and it was getting dark) but I digress.  Anyway, we came back to the car, reread the coordinates for parking, put the coordinates into our car GPS and went there. Again, not a good place as far as I'm concerned.  We got as far as a horse trail and turned around since there was no way to get INTO the woods unless we had had hacksaws and axes.  We didn't.  Finally we went to a deadend road and it showed us as being about 800 ft. away.  Perfect.  So we went into the woods and started walking.  Okay, we ended up in someone's yard and then came back and followed the GPS.  It did tend to bounce quite a bit due to the tree cover, but FINALLY we got to within about 20 ft.  A BIG thanks for the hints, fellow geocachers, otherwise I know this would have been a DNF for me and my sister!   But we did find it and swapped out an Avenger bouncy ball for a soccer ball.  Of course, the inevitable happened afterwards--once again I couldn't find our way back to the car. We ended up having to use my iPhone Google maps to find our way back. So basically we needed three different GPS units to accomplish this cache! God I love technology!!!

Victoria Sprung

Sister dear with her very first find

July 29, 2012 -- Since my dear husband and son went to an Orioles game today and the Lorax Gang was busy I was going to be on my own--unless I could convince my dear sister to accompany me.  Since she's been retired for all of one month, she jumped at the chance to go.  She's up for any kind of adventure as long as it doesn't include any type of WORK -- fun only for her -- at least for awhile.  So we started slow with a cache one street over from where she lives.  She was surprised, as most new geocachers are, to find that there are caches right in your own backyard--so to speak.  Once you start, you find that they are just about everywhere these days (well, in highly populated areas, that is).  As usual, though, I got myself and my sister lost while trying to track it down. We went through one set of woods before coming out and realizing it was in another set of woods. In the second set of woods it was really easy to find. I have to agree with the recent logger who says this one needs maintenance. There was water in the container. No holes, but the top really doesn't fit well. Sister dear was excited at the adventure of it all.  We left an Avenger bouncy ball and took a monkey toy. TFTC!!! k back to the car because, of course, I parked much farther away than I had to.  THIS is how I end up getting so much exercise from geocaching.  The cache is in need of some maintenance because it was wet in the cache.  The top didn't really fit very well on the cache.  A new container is probably in order for this one.

Easy Cache -- Easy Money

Signing the log

Cache among the rocks

Rocks, rocks, and more rocks is right!

July 28, 2012 -- This was the second cache that we found on this day.  I had originally gone for a completely different cache, but no matter where we went on the path, we didn't seem to be gettinjg any closer.  So we decided to give up our initial cache and just go for the two closer ones.  The first cache was relatively simple to find (see previous log). This was more of a challenge but after awhile you get a sixth sense about where geocachers are going to hide their caches.  The hint was about rocks and it was a good hint! We  left a basketball squishy ball and took a Cars notebook. We liked the log book.  The title of the cache makes sense now.  Of course, our hardest cache of the day was still ahead of us -- finding our way back to our car.  I really, REALLY have to figure out how to use waypoints on my GPS.   It would certainly help in times like these.  We did find our car without HUGE problems.  Knowing that both dear husband and I both have no sense of direction, the waypoints would be a huge help.  That's my next challenge in my geocaching career.

Looking West from Sugarloaf

Searching for the cache

Could it be???

AH HA!

What to choose -- the doorknob, the business card or the rock? 

July 28, 2012 - Sugarloaf Mountain - West Overlook -- Here's the typical way we cache: Don't read the description of where to park. Use the GPS to figure out the closest place to park near the cache. Am usually WRONG. Head for the cache you intend to grab but find that as you travel you are getting no closer. Obviously you are circling your prey. Okay, now look at your GPS and realize there is actually ANOTHER cache in the area that's closer than the original cache you were looking for. So you decide to find that one instead. Now you realize that you have to leave the path and go straight up the side of the hill. Full bushwhacking ensues including a terrifying moment as your trampling sounds flush out a herd of deer that you are convinced is a grizzly bear. Finally you are close to your prey and your GPS tells you that you are mere feet away. HUZZAH! You FOUND IT!! Smile! Take a photo of your with the cache. Open the cache only to find out that all the good stuff has been taken and no is keeping with the geocaching motto of putting back as good or better than you take. Put the cache back as it was, climb down, turn the corner, and find out you are right next to a parking lot that you could've parked in rather than hiked for 3/4 of a mile through the bramble infested, spider-webbed, rock strewn, thorny woods. Sound familiar to anyone else???

We left a Bride and Groom TB since this cache has people coming to it pretty regularly. Please move it along and PLEASE only take as good as you put in to the cache! It makes it more fun for everyone. Plastic army men just are not cutting it, neither are girls pony tail holders or a....DOORKNOB???  Come on, people, can we try a little harder?  And a rock, a rock??? A ROCK???  We are SURROUNDED BY A BAJILLION ROCKS.  Wow.  The irony.

Walking the Path of History

Okay, who's going to stick their hand in there?

Pony TB poses by the Woodlawn Manor horsies

July 22, 2012 - The second cache of our day was on the Slave Trail of the Underground Railroad in Silver Spring near Woodlawn Manor.  We have been here SO MANY times for caches!  We even have an appointed place to put the bamboo stick we use as a "magic wand" for getting rid of spider webs as we geocache.  This one we found without too much trouble and without any snakes. I call that a WIN-WIN!  It was a really nice path and a good hike although it was probably a lot longer than it had to be due to our navigation errors on where to park. We had major trouble actually figuring out where to begin this and it took us three tries driving, parking, and walking before we ended up at Woodlawn Manor. We first parked at Sandy Spring Friends School and even got on the right trail but we were afraid we were on the Adventure Park "no trespassing" area so we left and went to Woodlawn Manor where we were positive that the Slave Trail is.  It turns out that 3/4 of the way through our hike we ended up RIGHT at the same place we started when we parked at the Sandy Spring Friends School so obviously we were on the "right track" with that trail and it would've ended up being a much easier hike! No matter though, it was a nice day, not too hot, and the trail was great. We found the cache without any problems. The Lorax Gang took the Pony tracker bug and I took Waldo. Now I know where he is! We left a Gnome tracker bug and a cool bouncy ball that lights up.  Of course taking so long on the trail meant that we all were going to be late for our next event which was a cook-out at the pool, but as you know, geocaching ALWAYS takes precedence!

Missing Maid Marion

Thar she blows!

July 22, 2012 -- Too many days without geocaching makes for a boring week!  I really wanted to go out on Saturday, but the weather had other things in mind.  It rained on and off all day and would've made for some messy geocaching.  Which, while it could be fun, could also be miserable so I opted to wait for Sunday and see if it would clear up.  It did, sort of.  At least it wasn't raining.  It was still wet, but that's okay. You just have to be careful on paths with leaves so as not to slip.  The Lorax Gang and I went off in search of the Robin Hood stash.  It was a pretty easy one to drive to.  We figured it was off Sherwood Forest Road - get it?  And it was!  The cache was in a really pretty neighborhood park.  There was a creek and a fallen log and it was just the kind of place that kids would probably spend HOURS in before the advent of video games, that is.  We're lucky that at least The Lorax Gang enjoys these outings!

Poison Ivy Parade

THIS is as close as I get to that buggy box!

Sissies.

July 18, 2012 - The gang went back to the Sandy Spring Cache to actually track it down so we could post another find!  We'd gotten close the night before but the dark had forced us to stop.  So we squeezed this one in between dinner and a visit to the neighbor's house (for The Lorax Gang).  Just enough time to nab another cache in the woods--which, by the way, were FILLED to the BRIM with the dreaded poison ivy.  Lucky for us (so far) we didn't get smacked with any, but JUST IN CASE, I headed to REI today to pick up some Tecnu which is body wash to get rid of the oils from poison oak and poison ivy.  Never can be too careful, I say!  I also got a first aid kit to put in my pack as well. My couple of scratches and the one bad fall on my knee are enough to convince me that a first aid kit is needed --especially for longer hikes in the backwoods like the Jenners3 did in Idaho.  Ah, Idaho, how I miss you!

Seriously?  This is what I have to choose from?

ANYWAY, back to the cache -- our youngest Lorax member found this cache.  Unfortunately it was just COVERED in ants.  But being the intrepid explorer, I just picked it up and dusted it off.  Nothing too interesting inside this one.  I don't think people are taking the geocacher's code of honor to heart that you should put in something of the same value as the thing you remove from the cache.  I mean, a fork?  Really?  And some old crayons?  Hmph.  So took nothing, left nothing, signed log.  And off we went.

Signs of Life at the Spring!

Travelocity tracker bug ho!

July 17, 2012 - The Lorax Gang was up for a little geocaching fun so we went for a cache or two, albeit a little later than we usually do.  We went for a pretty easy one since one of our crew was having major thumb issues, and bushwhacking and thumb issues don't mix well.  We went to a park nearby -- again one that we've all lived by for years and years and never knew was there!  A local Girl Scout Cadet troop had hidden this stash right off the walking path so it was pretty easy to find which was lucky because our last try was DNF!  :(

Also lucky for us, there was a tracker bug in it!  And so we left a tracker bug and picked up the geo-gnome tracker bug seen here with one of the Lorax Gang.

The beautious Sandy Spring

We tried for a second at the reknowned Sandy Spring -- only reknowed because it is what the town is named after, not for its beauty or charm (right).  Our initial foray into the area was not successful because we were 0.2 miles away but could never seem to get any closer.  I made a note to self -- "read the dang Magellan user manual, you knucklehead!"  Finally, as darkness approached we got pretty near our quarry, about 200 ft. away, but alas, it was truly too dark to do anything about it, so we chalked this one up to being called for darkness and vowed to finish it another day!  -- Maybe....TOMORROW!!

Withdrawal Setting In

July 17, 2012  - Haven't been geocaching since last Saturday and our last venture to find Happy was very UN-Happy since he was a DNF.  I think withdrawal is setting in.  MUST--GEOCACHE--TONIGHT!!  I'm pulling out my cell to dial The Lorax Gang to see if they're up for a few park and grabs tonight.  Wish me luck!

Bashful Comes Out of Hiding (QFSW - Bashful)

Poor Bashful - and no wonder!  Look at him!

July 14, 2012 - (starts July 13, 2012)  This was just NOT a good day for geocaching.  It WAS a good day for getting lost, though.  Lorax #1 and I took off to find another in the Snow White series of caches - Bashful.  It was listed as not too bad to find. (2.5/2.5)  I think those numbers might want to be upped due to the ferocious storm on the 29th of June.  Things just aren't the same as they were before that storm hit.  We didn't have any problem finding the trail and heading off into the woods.  We were using my iPhone instead of my trusty Magellan eXplorist GC because I had forgotten to download this cache to the eXplorist before we set off.  I can tell you that I won't make THAT mistake any time soon again.  We got TOTALLY LOST, the app wouldn't update quickly enough and the closest we came to the find was something like 100ft.  That's a pretty big area to search when you are in the woods and losing the light very quickly.  Not only did we end up losing the light but we lost the trail!  We ended up in someone's back yard, tried to surreptiously hike through it to find the trail, got self-conscious that we were being watched and went BACK into the woods.  That lasted about five minutes since the trail was just GONE so we went back onto the property, walked down their very nice, very asphalt, and very bramble-less driveway to the main road which was the road we had started on, just pretty far down.  We had to hike quite a piece to get back to the car.  Very grumpy at not finding it (pun intended).

Bashful Cleans Up Well

And we're not in the Amazon, either!

July 14, 2012 - This time we took The Lorax Gang and two of the Jenners 3 to find it ALONG WITH the uploaded info in my trusty GPS. We were able to track Bashful's general area down, but he was being SUPER-Bashful.  Turns out he'd come out of his Tupperware home and was covered with dirt and---TERMITES! We cleaned him and his house up -- repaired the hole in the Tupperware with duct tape and put him back on slightly higher ground away from the mess and stress of the termite filled dirt. Bashful is much happier now and we're happy to have found him! OMG!  Speaking of amazing (and we were since I was talking about geocaching - :)  LOOK at this leaf!  It almost completely covers E!  And she's 10!  I could NOT get over the size of these leaves.  It was like we were in the Amazon or something, but no, just Wheaton Regional Park!