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!