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!!

This Is a Cache Only Line!

April 14, 2013 -- Had a spare hour and decided to go with the Lorax Gang on a beautiful day to cache a bit.  Our friends had had to put their cat to sleep that day and we decided to take the young son out to make him feel better.  Caching always has that effect on people.  The Lorax Gang, The Jenners 3, and Spencer went geocaching at the new Norbeck Park.

The first cache we tried to find was Jacquelyn's Cache which was supposed to be by the kiddie park.   After about twenty minutes of fruitless searching we gave up.  There were four of us searching all over the place with muggles all around (it was a beautiful day).  But no luck at all.  This was listed as a 1 1/2 star difficulty.  If that's the case, then I can only assume that it's missing.  I put a maintenance note in for the owner.  She needs to go and check it out to make sure the cache is still there since the last five people to try to find it have come away empty-handed. 

The second cache at the park was findable.  The name of the cache is Plastic Blocks Trading - Meg Dolphin Finder.  It is a lock and lock that was placed relatively easily for families to find. It's purpose was to trade plastic blocks/legos/duplos etc.  I have to say that there weren't any of those to be had in the cache when we got there.  Hopefully down the line, people will replenish the stash with some legos and duplos.   It was another one of those.  Okay, think logically and you'll find it.  Forest, trees, where could it be?  Once you figure out where it COULDN'T BE it's easy to find where it should be.  And that was the end of our caching that day.  Mission accomplished!!

The Great Cache-A-Thon Day Two

Following the wire to its source

Meet "the wire"

Yep, another sneaky one!

March 30, 2013 - Day Two of the Great Cache-A-Thon had two of the Jenners 3 and only one Lorax along this time as we continued our quest to find DII, C, B, and A of the Hiking/Biking ICC Trail, Georgia Trail series.   Oh yikes!  This one definitely took us awhile even on Day Two and once we found it, we were shaking our heads.  The problem lies in the fact that if you get something into your head about "what it SHOULD be" rather than thinking outside the box, you will never find what it is you seek.  Once you let go of your foregone conclusion and just let your mind wonder, then you end up finding your cache.  This one is not for the faint of heart!!

Checked off DII and moved to C!  And this was another sneaky one.  But once you are in the mind of mmacfarland, things end up being easier and easier as you go down the trail.  We (Drew) found this one without too much difficulty using the idea of "what has no earthly purpose being here" method of geocaching.  And this did not.  Another micro notch for our geo-belts.  It did take a bit of "reflection" to find as mmacfarland so aptly put it!

Moving towards the head of the trail and on to B! It was and wasn't where we thought it would be.  This one was difficult in that we had a pretty good idea where it SHOULD have been but it wasn't.  It really wasn't until we put our GPS's away that we found it.  And it was just tossed off to one side.  I think it had been found by a muggle and muggle-ized.  We ended up putting it where we are SURE it should've been in the first place and not 50 feet away from where both of our GPS's said it should be.  There was other evidence of tampering, but now it's back in its home and ready to be found by the next geocachers out there.

Down there!

"A" was our very last cache of this day and it was a honey! It was a quick find for us to end our day (rather than start it as we did this trail backwards).  Drew ended up taking the Kuwaiti coin (thank you very much) and we were all happy that we had done the entire trail from start to finish.  Upon further inquiry, we have discovered that mmacfarland has placed a few more caches since March 30, so now we must go back and find those caches to round out the trail.  Our next grouping will have to be mmacfarland's Emory Road trail.   Can't wait to try out that one!  TFTC!!

The Great Cache-A-Thon

March 30, 2013 - We FINALLY got back to caching after a long drought of no caching due to winter hibernation.  I realize that's no excuse, but it is mine and I own it.  On this day the Jenners 3 minus 2 and the Lorax Gang also minus 2 took off for the many and varied caches along the fairly newly built Intercounty Connector (ICC).  (That huge structure that sits about 50 yards from my house -- yeah, lovely).  Drew, Intrepid Lorax #1, found that the hike/bike trail next to my house had a virtual GOLD mine in terms of geocaches running along it and we decided to "cache in."  (Love it, don't you?  hee hee).

Our first cache catch of the day was H/B ICC Post and by a post it was.  See pic below:

ICC Post - note post

This was a nano and all you could do was write your name on the TEENY TINY little log that was in a TEENY TINY little tube.  No swag for this gang.

And we're moving on...

Next on our list was H/B ICC More Container Fun.  Not to be confused with Container Fun which we do next.  I think we may have inadvertently started on the wrong end of the trail.  Oh well, no go backs!

Evil, evil container

Container FUN?!?  More like container evility (is that even a word?--my guess is that if "Funner" is now a word then "evility" can be a word, too--so there!)  But we did find this one - see pic to the right.  Drew isn't so sure this is "fair" but those evil geocache hiders have done their work and we have our work cut out for us.  Thanks, mmacfarland for this wonderful hides!!

Next up - ICC H/B Container Fun - Yep, another case of Cache Evility right here -- and so close to home!

See pic below!  Who would think to put an evil bison cache in a thing that looks like, well some kind of ICC type thingy?  Only mmacfarland!  That's who!!  But Melissa picked up on this one right away and the cache was a cinch for our eagle eyed crack team of geocachers.  Is it a bird, is it a plane, no it's the Lorax Gang and Jenners 3 to the cache!!

Drew and Melissa eye the evil bison cache

Would you have noticed this?

Wow!  This day is going GREAT!  We will surpass our last great caching day by 10x!  We are on a roll.

Next up - Yep, you guessed it.  ICC H/B Log It.  

Did you guys-- ahem--"log" this one yet?

We learned that we needed to pay special attention to the titles of the caches by mmacfarland.  Those were clues as well.  SOOOO off we went to the next on the list.   I don't think any explanation is needed after you take a gander at the picture to the right.  Yeah.  That's it.

Rolling rock

On  the road again - to - ICC H/B Rock n Roll    And here is the pic from that little beauty. (left)  Rock.  Roll.  Well, you get it, right?  Love the puns.



What's next on this intrepid journey?  ICC H/B RIDE ON.  I have to admit that this one was one of my very favorites.  It was devious, intelligent, well-thought out, ridiculous, cunning, clever, canny, and all the other "c" words you can think of.   I really loved this one.  Turns out that all you needed to do was figure out the old adage "what is here that's not like the others."  If there is a bolt that is not bolting something into place, is it still a bolt?  That seems a little Zen actually, but that's exactly what the answer to this puzzle is.  It's NOT a bolt, it's a cache!

RIDE ON sign

Yeah, yeah, I know it LOOKS like a bolt, but the end of it is hollow and inside is stashed the log book.  Yes, it is BYOP!  This bolt was in the Ride On sign and it was not bolting anything in place so a quick unscrewing and checking to be able to check this off our list!

This is one devious cache

And we continue to...ICC H/B Picnic. (Picture left) This one was a no-brainer.  Meaning those that have absolutely NO brains can still find it.  Hmm.  Picnic table, by itself, off the beaten path, nothing else around.  Lock and Lock.  Done and done.  This was the first lock and lock that we came across on our ICC H/B caches for this day.  It was a welcome respite to have one that was a pretty easy grab.

Onward to ICC H/B Marking Time. (Picture right) Lorax Gang member #2 found this one with ease.  It's another of those that you just have to use your spidey senses and thought processes to find.  Melissa had an evil glint in her eye when she eye-spied this one.

The Russian Princess

Wow!  We are absolutely crushing the ICC H/B series!  Woo hoo!  Bring it on!  Next up -- Christmas Tree.  Okay, this one was pretty obvious and another quick find.  Luckily it was also a lock and lock so I was able to FINALLY drop off my Russian doll tracker bug.  I had had this since we did our first geocaching in Wyoming last June.  I felt really bad that I'd kept it so long and needed to set it free.  These caches were getting a lot of traffic so I thought it was important to place her in one of these.  Within a day of placing her in the cache she was off again on another adventure!  Whee!

Christmas tree.  Get it?

Bye bye Russian princess!  Hope you find your way back home!!

Next up for the Caching Gang was the first in the next series along the ICC trail (actually the last of the series on the next part of the trail since we were doing these backwards).  And this would be.....F- Hiking/Biking ICC Trail, Georgia Trail  

This one should have been E for EVIL.  Because that's what it was.  E-----V------I-----L!!!  As I said in my geocaching log, this one you find in many fairy tales as an evil omen or an evil ingredient.  Apparently, upon checking my iPhone I did not take a picture of this one.  Hmm.  Not sure why.  Probably because I was totally flummoxed and forgot to since the find was so hard to -- find.  But wary of this one, very, very wary.  And beware of poisonous fungus!


The next up was, of course, the actual E.  E-Hiking/Biking ICC Trail, Georgia Trail.    This one was a bit hard to find, only because it was so well hidden.  A traditional lock and lock.  Nothing that fancy about it really if you keep your wits about you and know the type of cache hider that mmacfarland is, but you definitely need a few easy ones interspersed with the really tough ones - see F.

Hmmm.  Is this....???

Stalking the lock and lock

Then there was DII and D in the series.  DII was a challenge because it was off the beaten path and down a pretty steep hill.  It took awhile to figure out where it could be because there were MANY places that a lock and lock could be placed on that hillside.  It was a matter of hunting around until we hit upon it.

Yep.  I found it!

This time I was the finder and I took my picture with my new iPhone 5.  As you can see it takes LOVELY pictures of a squinting lady holding out the phone and trying to figure out how to use the backwards photo capability.

By the fence under lots of grass

This ended up being our last find of the day.  Why?  Because D was the biggest challenge of the day and one that we were not mentally or physically capable of doing.  We were all pretty hungry at that point and needing to get home.  We did attempt it on this day, but gave up after about 15 minutes of searching when our stomachs began to protest loudly.  Our search continued the next day...

It's a Whole New Year!

March 22, 2013

New Year, New Geochallenges!

Yes, it is definitely a WHOLE NEW YEAR!!  And it's begun with a bang!  Well, not completely true, but my geocaching buddy, Melissa, reminded me that it's been WWWAAAAAYYY too long since we've been geocaching.  In fact, for me, it's been since October. It's getting to be Spring again when the weather is milder, and the plants and critters begin to stir.  Although you'd never be able to tell from the thermometers!  Yesterday was downright bitter.  But I digress...

With Spring comes the Caching Across Maryland challenge that actually began on March 16th and continues through May 5th.  The challenge is to find 10 caches across the entire state from the "panhandle" to the Eastern shore.  It is said that people have driven over 1000 miles in years past to get all these caches.  In the end, you are rewarded with a set of coordinates that take you to a special picnic for those that were clever enough and/or persistent enough to find all the caches in the challenge.

I accept the challenge.

I with my intrepid team shall take on the Caching Across Maryland challenge and defeat it at its core.  Or something like that.

So stay tuned for a lot more geocaching fun and games as Geocaching 2013 ramps up for another fun summer!

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!