Happy New Year Everyone!!!
The holidays delayed our hiking pleasure greatly and I was ready to go again when disaster struck. Since we are all on here virtually you all don't know that my husband loves technology. He really does. If he could afford it the house would be floor to ceiling with tech gear. Well, for Christmas his loving, well meaning parents got him a GPS. So right away I was sure he was going to crash paying attention to the unit. Well, he signed us up for Geocaching. You have got to be kidding me? Geocaching? A gal has her limits.
Loving wife that I am though, I went. It was so COOL. I don't like finding the actual caches - really I couldn't care less about this part - BUT I love going to these places that I wouldn't normally pay any attention to, learning more about them and SEEING them. As a side note - it is a good thing that I don't care about finding the caches, because really I suck at it. I have not found a single one to date.
The first place we went was the cemetary - right in the town we live in. We went to this mounument and answered the questions, not realizing that they were answers to stage 2. I go to put in the coords and ask "It says ABC" and Eric tells me that means 123. Just in case you haven't realized how incredibly stupid this was, I will continue. The next one says DEF, so we put in 456. Now several people would have realized their mistake and put in the answers to questions A, B, C, D, E and F. We however we down the road at coords xx.123 and xx.456, which was a residence before we realized our mistake. So we go back and Eric finds the cache. Just to let all of you learn from more of our mistakes, if your cache is the size and shape of a pill bottle, they generally open by pressing down and to the left. ;)
The second location was a pond we pass all the freakin' time and never stopped at. I was sure that the cache was in this landscaping and looked there the entire visit only to have Eric come over and find it in the same tree I was sure I had looked in so thoroughly that it could not possibly be there.
The third location was between 2 businesses. A kindly truck to pity on us befuddled first time geocachers and told us where it was. We may still be there right now if he hadn't.
The fourth location was in the town park (nothing out in our neck of the woods could rightfully be called a city, as a matter of fact this particular town is actual an incorporation if you care about such things). Eric hunted for the cache, which naturally he found. He is really tuned into this kind of thing. I however hunted for a bathroom. 4 bathrooms in the park, all of them closed for winter. That is just cruel to someone who really needs a bathroom. There signs should read "All bathrooms closed for winter".
Okay, so the in-town caches have been found, so off we head to Monkey Mountain. Now we have been carefully avoiding hiking in this park since the only real trail there is multi-use, which tend to be really torn up and because the park has an athletic complex and is packed with people every nice weekend. Well, it was cold, there was still ice everywhere so we had the park all to ourselves. There are 5 caches hidden inside this park. We head for the first one. And after we bushwhack through what turned out to be a comparatively light thorny area we arrive at what we will call a creek. It's not that I am particularly girly, usually I don't mind getting dirty or wet. This just was not a day to get wet and cold if you didn't absolutely have to. So we walk upstream a bit and it isn't looking any better. The "creek" isn't deep, just the banks are muddy and they have that fresh bit of steepness that a long flooding season causes. You could probably jump to the other side and be okay, but if you miss, you are hitting the water then you are muddy and wet and it is 31 degrees.
So we head across the park to a different cache, find a farmers crossing (still on park property), cross a creek go through more thorns. Loads of thorns out here. I thought I had my way clear (btw- we dont clear anything when we bushwhack - we just walk through carefully) and a long branch of thorns snag, um, let's call it mid pants, where the seams come together.. So I stop and there is a small hole. I am really unreasonably attached to my hiking pants so I am a little upset and then my husband says "And we never did buy a tent repair kit" I know you are all wondering, yes he is still living, walking, and talking just fine. But that is only because looks can't kill and I believe in Karma.
We arrive at the coordinates and read the clue. To start wrapping this up - Eric hunts, I eat a Clif bar (which was awesome - my first one). Eric decides that it is on the other side of the creek. Makes his way down the steep bank jumps across and goes up the other side, coming back he slips twice falling into the mud (see Karma). Cusses for a while because his camera is on his chest and has gotten muddy. Cleans it and tries for another spot on the opposite bank where he FINDS IT! He was like a kid at christmas. So excited.
