It Started With Some Puzzles - 11/26/2011

Saturday didn't look like it would be a good day for caching because of rain, but when my buddy jbgreer asked if I was interested, I immediately put together a list of caches to hunt.

We met up as usual for a nice breakfast and discussion of the day's plans. I picked out a couple of puzzle caches to start with - ones that we had both solved months ago. Depending on how much time we had, I selected a few in Shelby Farms to finish out the morning. The first two caches turned out to be in different locations in the same park. Since these were puzzle caches, I'll leave it to the curious reader to deduce which park that might be. After finding suitable parking, we flipped a coin and decided to go after Phillip Duffy Tolerates A Crazy Transient adopted by Tinksdad ( GC19QK3) first. The hike started out easy and before too long, we were fighting our way through some interesting terrain that included some brush and thorny vines. The hide spot was perfect and didn't take long to find once we were in the area. We were surprised to find two cache containers in the same spot, both with logbooks. We signed the one that everyone else signed and packed everything back up.

[ An early test of coordination ]

[ The fields are beautiful this time of year. ]

Next up was Say What? by mndvs737 (GC1RJ9). It was in an area more likely to be damp, so we were very fortunate not to run into much water on the route we chose. It wasn't until we got to the cache itself, that the ground was damp. The container, however, was a nice, dry ammo can. After signing the log, we made our way back to where we parked with little difficulty.

[ A break from bushwhacking ]

With two good puzzle caches off of our list, we decided to drive to Shelby Farms to pick up a few easier caches to end the morning. Shelby Farms has a lot of activity going on around this time of the years with their Starry Nights exhibit and a Thanksgiving Day 4 mile race. We decided to park near the Woodland Discovery Center to start our hunt.

First on the list was Water and Electricity Don't Mix! by BrunoFam3 (GC2ZNV1). This area could at times be very popular with park visitors, but this morning, we swooped in and jbgreer made the find quickly. After we both had signed the log, a gust of wind came up and jbgreer got a little exercise chasing down the log.

Next was Yeti's Path by thefamilybush (GC2WWQ2). I had done this one during the heat of the summer, but thought it would be a fun one for jbgreer to find. The trails in this area are really nice, and I hadn't known about them until I hunted the caches in the area.



He found the cache quickly enough, and I kept an eye out for people while he signed the log. The area is popular with bikers.

The next two caches we wanted to hunt were I'd rather be fishing! by Balls2thefloorgeocacher ( GC37YEN) and Quit Horsing Around by ProudMother06 (GC37YEM). Both caches were near a lake and the first spot (near a pier) had two people standing around so we decided to get the other one (GC37YEM) first. As we were walking towards the area, we saw a man in front of us wearing camo clothes. When he stopped at the area we wanted to search, jbgreer started to ask him if he was a geocacher. I recognized at that point that we had run into jaybirder. We decided to search together and after some effort, found the cache.

[ jbgreer and jaybirder ]

We decided to hunt (GC37YEN) together and by the time we got to the pier, we people had left. It was a pretty good hide with lots of potential spots, but eventually I spotted it. We all signed the log and were lucky that wind the wind that we didn't lose anything in the water.

At this point, we parted ways with jaybirder to hunt a few more caches. On the way back to the truck, we stopped at a pavilion to get rid of some trash and found a log smoldering in a concrete firepit. It could have easily gotten more serious, but fortunately, someone had left a water bottle nearby with enough left in it to put out the log.

[ a little tough to see the top end of the log is still burning ]

We headed to the east end of the park to hunt Kidz Kache by polikkronos (GC2MENF). I had hunted this one before without reading the note that said it was moved away from the place described in the hint. Since I had later realized where it was moved to, it was an easy find today. It was in a cool container that was covered with small ants. Nice!

After leaving Shelby Farms, we picked up two more caches to end the day. Lapizero
by thefamilybush (GC2VAFX) was a good find marred only by the fact I lost (or realized I lost) my reading glasses. I've lost a total of four pairs of reading glasses over the years, but had had this pair for a while. Oh, well.

The final cache we found was Sotobosque by thefamilybush (GC2VWDD). It was in an interesting area complete with honey locust thorns. I got poked reaching in a hole for the cache. I signed the log and left a little blood mark on the page. All-in-all, it was a pretty good morning with 8 caches found and no DNFs.