The weather outside the window is dismal. It has been raining since dawn and slowly the fog is gathering. I read for awhile and did a few chores but the fact that this is my final day of my Thanksgiving vacation weighed heavy on my mind. Damn this pandemic, I needed to go out for awhile.
I turned to the computer and opened the Geocaching site. I looked for a cache near-by that I hadn’t found yet. There were a couple close to my home but they didn’t really excite me. Then I read about a multi-cache located in a near-by cemetery. It was last found a little over three months ago and no one had attempted it since. Sounded good to me!
I put my camera gear in the car; the GPS in my jacket pocket, (loaded with the cache co-ordinates) put a wide brimmed hat on my head and headed off to find a cache. I had a rough idea where my search would start. I knew the cemetery having driven past it hundreds of times. The map on the web site showed me which roads in the graveyard to take to start my search.
The owner of the cache started the search at a family mausoleum. The location of the next cache would be found after I solved a simple puzzle. He gave the location with letters instead of numbers and by looking at the names of the various people buried in the tomb, I could substitute the correct (?) numbers for the letters.
The first location was easy, the mausoleum was right beside the road. I stopped and went out and copied some of the details and then returned to the car to figure out my next destination. The rain had slowed to a slight drizzle so I was able to keep my notes dry as I was copying the clues. Still, it was nice returning to the car where it was dry to do my computations. Not only was it dry but there was a radio to listen to also! Nothing like some music on a rainy day, it goes well with the beating of the rain on the roof.
My second spot to search was a little under two tenths of a mile away. It was still located in the cemetery. Rather than walk, I took the easy way and drove. The road I took brought me up near the top of a high hill overlooking the cemetery. I got out of the car and started climbing. I knew that the cache would be in the woods at the top of the hill. Very rarely are caches hidden near graves, it is both out of respect for the deceased and to keep the cemetery owners happy.
My GPS took me within 25 feet or so but I didn’t see anything that might be a hiding spot. I looked at the woods and picked a few possibilities, places I would hide a cache. Trees with openings in their trunks or with large crotches which might hide something, large rocks or stumps, I was looking for anywhere a cache could be hid. I wasn’t sure what it was I was looking for. It could be a small container hidden in a tree or a larger one hidden behind a stump. This is when my “geosense” kicks in. I checked a couple spots all the while aiming towards a large, distinctive looking tree. At the base of the tree was a stone nestled nicely between a couple roots. I pulled at it and it lifted up easily. Beneath it was a round plastic container. Success!
I pulled it out of its pocket in the dirt and opened it up. Inside was a note saying that the final cache was at N 40° XX.XXX W 079° XX.XXX,(I don’t want to tell anyone where it is, no spoilers here!) a spot less than a tenth of a mile away. I walked over to this one.
There were numerous trees and fallen logs covering the ground, lots of spots to look. The GPS was bouncing around a bit, one minute I’d be 25 feet away and then I’d be 50 feet away. I walked back and forth watching the arrow on the GPS, trying to average where it was pointing most often. While I did this I also was looking for possible spots where a cache might be hidden. I knew the final was a regular sized container. Some of the caches hidden are in “micro” containers, some as small as a pencil eraser. Thank heavens this wasn’t one of them!
I narrowed the search down to a 20 by 20 foot area and in that area was a large log. I walked down the length of it heading towards the roots and there is where I saw it. A rock and some leaves were hiding it but a portion of the container could be seen through a crack in the wood. With a good feeling I signed the log and then re-hid it in its spot to wait for the next geocacher.
I had spent about an hour looking for it, walking around in the woods and climbing the hill. My pants were a bit wet around my ankles and I could feel a bit of dampness around my toes but I felt good. I had done some exercise on a dismal looking day and had found what I was looking for. Win-win!
Driving home I felt something on my cheek and looking in the mirror I saw…a tick. Bummer, this is the fifth one I’ve taken off me in the last five days. For the rest of the ride home I could feel them crawling ALL OVER ME! Back home I was happy to find that there was only one of them, so the day was still good!
To learn more about geocaching go to Geocaching.com , it’s free and a lot of fun if you like to figure out puzzles. There are many levels of difficulties, from extremely easy to extremely tough, you pick the type you want to search for. There are geocaches all over the world and also one in space on the International Space Station. That cache might be a bit tough to find! Besides that one, there are over 3 million geocaches out there waiting to be found. It’s fun, give it a try! Take a break from the pandemic and go outside and breathe in some fresh air!
