FTF Day!

May 19, 2013 -- Once the initial thrill of Geocaching in general wears off.  (For us, it still hasn't completely..) the next thing to do is find something you haven't done before.  For the Lorax Gang it was accomplishing an FTF or "First to Find".  There is something truly thrilling about getting to a brand, new cache and seeing a completely empty log, knowing that the last person that saw that log was the person who placed the cache there to begin with.  Pretty darn cool.  The Jenners 3 had accomplished that feat last summer, but we had to travel pretty far to do it because of the avid nature of the geocachers around our area.

So on Sunday, May 19, I happened to check my email and saw that a series of caches had been placed nearby.  At my morning Gulp* session with one of the Lorax Gang, I happened to mention it.  She jumped on the idea and decided to go for it. We called the other member of the Lorax Gang and our team of three was formed to strike out for the elusive FTF.

mmcfarland which has been our cache hider of choice of late had also placed the new set of caches in a park nearby our neighborhood.  We ended up parking at a nearby Educational Center.  We noted there were no cars parked nearby -- which was good news for our FTF possibilities.

Our "bonus" turtle

We headed down the path and the first one we were headed toward was North East South Test along the Muncaster Mill trail.  Knowing mmacfarland's caches pretty well since we'd found all the caches along Park Vista ICC all the way to Georgia Avenue, the one thing we noticed were the titles of the all the caches gave you clues as to their whereabouts.  So the first one called, "North East South Test" must mean something.  We let our iPhone lead us to the general area, but we just didn't know what we were looking for other than a nano.  I stood there thinking of the name, trying to glean some info from it as mmacfarland often does "North East South Test"- why not West?  Why Test? Then it dawned on me "N - E - S - T".  Each letter of each word in that exact sequence spelled out the word "nest."  So we were looking for a nest.  But, of course, a nest can mean a bird's nest or a lair type nest, or a crazy broken bundle of branches that look like a nest.  On our quest we came across this fellow: (left)


A box turtle.  We took his pic, but that's all, as taking turtles out of their habitat is illegal.  Besides he was happy where he was.  And it was a bonus, as M put it.  A bonus to our own happy geocaching adventure. Shortly thereafter we stumbled across this (left) and this (right).

Pointing out the obvious.

The NEST

So it was a nest.  Just a homemade one.  Complete with fake eggs and a real nano.  We excitedly pulled out the log and YES!! PRISTINE!!  NO ONE ON IT!!  Lovely, lovely surprise!  We thought for sure we'd get skunked, but NOT THIS DAY!  The Lorax Gang's official FTF and my second.

WOO HOO!!  The fever was starting...

What the Lorax Gang didn't know, but I did was that this was a just the first in a string of caches that had been placed the day before.  They thought that this one was the only one.  Imagine their surprise when I said, "Let's find the next one!"  

And so we did.

Next Up:  Protrusion

The name says it all, but the problem was the terrain showed A LOT of protrusions, so we just had to keep looking through all of them until we hit the one that had the stash in it.  Finally the least likely one was the winner.  A small protrusion of a stump in the ground was the cache location.

Protrusion

Well hidden

Third FTF?  V.  Okay, is that V as in five or as in the alphabet character? Or something else we haven't even considered?

Along the path we went with our trusty iPhone and Magellan leading the way.  About another 1/10 mile and we were at the site.  Nothing was stand out really.  Until we noticed the shape of the logs.  The seemed to form a, you guessed it, "V" shape.  Upon further investigation:

Not a flattering angle

Like this is better?

 But we did find our cache and our third FTF of the day.  We were on a ROLL.  Next up??

Mighty Fallen

Now I had a pretty good hunch, as did my colleagues, that Mighty Fallen must refer to a tree.  Since we were in the forest.  Surrounded by trees.  Many of which had fallen.  MANY.  Which didn't make this an easy one by any means.

Then we spotted what SURELY had to be THE TREE.  We investigated.  Nothing.  Looking around the area where our GPS had sent us, we saw no other tree that could possibly fit the description of "mighty fallen" other than the one we were standing in front of.  What the what??

D and stick

D, being our most resourceful, and least likely to stick his hand into a rotted log (me, being the most likely) had resorted to taking a stick (see above) and digging around the stump (see right of pic -- the end of the massive stump).  Lo and behold about a foot down under a huge crush of leaves, we uncovered the cache.  Now I have to take a bit of exception here because technically nothing is supposed to be "buried."  I think a foot down under leaves constitutes "buried."  Yes, we did find it, and yes, we did get the FTF, but I think maybe it shouldn't be so deep.  We, of course, placed it back where we found it.  I also just looked to see if anyone had trouble finding it after us.  No one mentioned it so I guess I should keep my trap shut!  And I think the hint really does help so there you are!

Lovely M and her dolphin

Last FTF of our all FTF day:  Z

Owing to the fact that V was the shape of the wood in which we found the cache, Z was a no brainer.    Kind of like Z for Zombie (also a no-brainer--get it?)  So off we went on the trail to find our Z-shaped logs.  iPhone tracked to the spot.  Z logs found.  Presto!  Zingo!

FIVE FTF's IN ONE DAY!!  HOORAY!

D at our last FTF of the day

All in all a perfect geocaching day.  We didn't stumble across any other fellow geocachers and made our way back to the car without incident.  A great day for geocaching for the Lorax Gang and the Jenners3.  TFTC!!