Pulling the Mask Off the Imposters (#4)

The Nano cache

Uh - yum?

Opening the nano to sign the log

July 12, 2012  (and July 14, 2012)  - The Lead Lorax and I had tried this one on the 12th with little success.  Perhaps it began when we started into the Bamboo forest and I spotted a snake slithering its way into the high grasses.  The squeak that came out of me was nonsensical, but Lorax turned around to see what had made that noise and saw me gesturing him back.  He caught a glimpse of the rascal as its tail disappeared into the weeds.  Yeesh.  Not a good omen.  It took a good five minutes for me to collect myself enough to continue.  I am not a reptile lover.  Well, not unless said reptile has at least a FEW limbs.  Anyway, we started back into the bamboo forest/maze but were able to continue because of storm damage.  We decided perhaps it was not a great idea to get ourselves trapped in a maze with serpents on the loose and me only able to squeak and grunt like a mute when one was around so we abandoned that path and chose to walk around the "pond."  Why do I put the word in quotes?  Because it was actually a round pool of pea green soupiness that was beyond disgusting to look it.   Yuck.  We finally made it to GZ only to find that we just could not locate the Imposter.  It was sort of cloudy out so we didn't have the added help of sunlight and we were pretty sure of what we were looking for, but it wasn't to be found that day.  We gave up temporarily vowing to come back with more of our gang to help us spot it.  Fast forward to July 14, 2012 when we had the whole Lorax Gang and two of the Jenners 3 with us to search.  Back around the pea soup mess we trekked.  It still took us about 20 minutes to find even knowing what it was we were looking for and here we have the pics to prove our find (see pics above).  Yes, the tiny little DOT of a thing in E's hand is the nano that we had to extract from the *ahem* brown pickle (let's just call it that) to sign to prove we'd found it.  Also, in keeping with another reason we do these geocaches are these pictures of the beautiful raspberry bushes we found.  Some were even ripe!

Ripe raspberry

Raspberry bushes on the way to the cache

The Quest for Dopey - Silver Spring, Maryland

Posing with Dopey

July 13, 2012 - Lucky Friday the Thirteenth!!  After yesterday's disastrous hunt we decided not to try to find Bashful just yet.  Instead The Lorax Gang and Jenners 3 (-2) decided to go after Dopey since that's precisely the way we felt after our last geocaching venture.  We didn't have much light because we didn't start out until 7:30 pm.  The GPS led us right to the very spot where the geocache was supposed to be (unlike our phone app of yesterday that completely led us down the garden path--so to speak).  Trouble was, we STILL couldn't find it!

Who's Dopey?

We looked everywhere and the most frustrating thing was that we were SURE we were in the right spot.  Around and around and around we went in the same area without finding the stash.  The clue even said, "Look up" which we did to no avail.  Then suddenly I happened to look up at the branch and there inside the hollow part of a branch, being held in by two sticks, was the cache.  Oh happy day!  I was so glad to see that Dopey grin!  We took pictures, signed the log, and put it back as we found it just as it got dark.  Tomorrow we will continue our quest to save Snow and probably try to find Bashful once again, but this time with the GPS.

The Quest Continues...Silver Spring and Kemp Mill, MD

July 12, 2012 - TheLoraxGang of 1 and I went out to continue our Snow White quest.  We discovered we had to actually go BACK and re-find Grumpy owing to the fact that we neglected to get the code from the cache needed to figure out Snow White's hiding place.  That was easy since we'd already been there.

Sneezy or Sleepy?

Feeling as though we were on a roll we went to the next dwarf hideout which was a park we were very familiar with having found three other caches there.  Using our iPhone app we didn't have much trouble finding this one -- and Sneezy was quickly uncovered, apparently suffering terribly from allergies in the wood as his picture will attest.  I suggest a heavy dose of Zyrtec and to stay out of the woods!

Happy and Sneezy

We collected our code and moved on.  Since we were two for two on the dwarf cache collection we opted to move on for #3.   Originally we thought we were headed for Dopey, but somehow we ended up going for Bashful.  And Bashful to the extreme he was!  We parked and walked.  And walked, and walked.  And bushwhacked, and hiked, and hunted, and rummaged, and explored and investigated -- got tangled up in countless spider webs.  Got bitten by...well, I hope they were flies.  And we marched on into the night until the sun starting setting and the moon began to rise.  At that point, we decided that Bashful was just having an extreme case of shyness and we just weren't going to find him that day.  I can honestly say that the iPhone app for Geocaching.com is NOT the same as having a dedicated GPS unit.  It bounced all over the place and also took forever to update where we were in relation to the cache. In short, it was a disaster.  The only reason we didn't use the trusty Magellan was because I neglected to download the cache info to the unit and that flub cost us dearly.  Not only did we not find Bashful, but we got lost in the woods and ended up having to hike across a person's private yard and driveway to get ourselves back to a road we recognized so we could hightail it back to the car.  I would ordinarily frown on doing that, but it was either that or trek through the dark woods at night trying to find our way back to our trail which had disappeared.  So Bashful remains at large at this point, but intrepid explorers that we are we will be back another day!!

Quest for Snow White - Grumpy - Cloverly, MD

The Jenners3, TheLoraxGang, The V-4 Team caching together

July 09, 2012 - Took a gang with us to search for this one. This actually ended up being "caching in the dark" due to the fact that the light quickly faded during our previous cache that we couldn't find! In any event, we did find it, found Grumpy, took our pic and replaced Grumpy in the cache. Fun stuff! Can't wait to find the others.  What's the worst thing about caching in the dark?  Little demons hiding out around corners to scare the bejeebers out of you!  Happened to me, twice.  Once - scared, twice - petrified.  I guess I don't learn my lesson too well.  Thanks E and M for scaring the Imposter #4 out of me!

UPDATE:  Upon reading further on this one, seems as though we were supposed to extract a CODE from Grumpy which will provide clues to get to Snow White.  OOPS!  I guess he was too grumpy to give it up.  Seems as though we will need to re-visit the Grumpster to get the code from him in order to continue our quest for the Fairest Of Them All!!

UPDATE #2 - We did go back and re-find Grumpy and get the code -- July 12th's post has the info on that re-find of this previous cache.

Searching With the Serpents - Silver Spring, MD

Serpent swag

Jenners3, Lorax Gang and V-4 Team at the cache

Night caching

July 09, 2012  The Jenner1 and the Lorax Gang -3 went geocaching today.  This cache was a GREAT CACHE!!  Best stuff I've ever gotten in a cache and the largest cache size I've seen so far!  I hope more people go to this one. It's fairly easy but still a little bit challenging AND the cache itself is AWESOME!! Thanks so much for placing so many cool items inside! We took a NOAA coin and left some NASA swag.

THEN the rest of the LoraxGang joined us as well as the V-4 Team.  D and I decided that they should do the Searching with the Serpents cache since it was relatively easy and they were raring to do another one after Grumpy EVEN THOUGH it was completely dark out!  So we sent them in with the camera and a flashlight and the GPS.  Lo and behold they found it!  First true night cache - other than the one where I was left on the top of the butte all by myself in the dark.  Anyway, THIS venture was successful and a great time was had by all!  Stay tuned for more geocaching adventures!

Splintered Sunlight - Silver Spring, Maryland

Using your head in geocaching

The Lorax Gang grabs the cache using their brains over GPS brawn

July 08, 2012  We really had to use our noggins for this one because our GPS conked out on us when we were 300 ft. away. Dead batteries. So we intrepidly pushed on even though we were dead in the water, GPS speaking.  When we got to where we thought it should be we looked around for it. Then we remembered the title of the cache and lo and behold THERE IT WAS! Best of all, the cache contained BATTERIES which we snatched up gratefully. We left behind some NASA swag.  Bless you for attending to our needs without even knowing it!  That is truly fortuitous!

Big Tree? Tour

July 07, 2012

TheLoraxGang at their first true cache.

1 of the Jenners3 with the cache

The poor tree, however, did not survive the derecho of July 2012.

Jenners3 and TheLoraxGang found what's left of the this tree on the Big Tree Tour today. We fear the storm on the 29th of June (the derecho) was the cause of what happened to this beautiful tree. Only about 15 feet of the tree is still standing the rest of the tree was snapped off in the storm (see bottom photo). The geocache is still there and in good shape but the tree is no longer the magnificent piece of nature it once was. BTW the terrain is VERY bushy and VERY thorny. I suggest long pants and water shoes.

NO PATHS at all to get in there if you start at Layhill Park. Not sure how else people have navigated to get there, but we ended up IN the water following the stream to get back to the car. Lots of fun, though, and TheLoraxGang is ready to swing into action for more geocaching fun!