After a 14-month hiatus, I did some geocaching again yesterday and today. Before leaving Georgia I downloaded the 50 caches closest to Lackand and transferred them to my GPSr and my Palm Pilot. Overpacking notwithstanding, I had enough room to bring along a little swag as well.
Saturday was a pretty dreary day, but as I pulled out on the road I'm sure the announcer said it would be a sunny afternoon. The sun never came, but it was still a good day.
The first cache was very close to the base at a 9/11 memorial put together by a church. If the picture comes out I'll upload it once I get home. It was a nice enough memorial with an easy-to-find cache right behind it. The disappointing thing was that the people who built the memorial just threw their trash right behind it! There was half a plaque where they'd either mis-spelled the name or maybe the sponsor backed out at the last minute; it was easy to see that it was the same style and material as the memorial. They must have thought that people would walk behind the memorial because there's a walk with newly-planted trees there.
Anyway, from there I moved on to another cache near the closed-down Levi factory. It was easy enough to find but required some walking through the dirt which was rapidly becoming mud. I was glad to be doing it in the daytime as there appeared to be some sort of homeless camp nearby.
My only DNF (did not find) of the day came when I went looking for a cache hidden right by an on-ramp. It took me 3 times to realize that there was a parking lot just before the on-ramp, and each of those times I had to drive a mile or two before there was a turn-around. The second time I chose a different exit which of course did not have a return to the highway. I had to drive another few miles before finding my way back. By the time I was finally in the parking lot and able to look around, it had started to rain. I got tired of walking around poking through all the trash there so I gave up on it.
I did 3 more caches after that, giving me a 5 for 6 record for the day. Not too shabby for my return to caching. The most time-consuming and challenging part was finding the right roads to take me where the GPSr was pointing.
Today was a much nicer day, but I didn't get started until late because I had to make my last shopping trip before the surgery. By the time I got ready to cache it was already nearing 1, so I grabbed some lunch and then got moving. I found 3 of 4 caches, with the only DNF being one where I knew I was in the correct spot but couldn't find the cache. The owner wound up de-activating it tonight because I was the 2nd DNF this week, but sometimes that happens where 2 can't find it and the next one does. After my last cache, the next 3 were in a place where the owners recommended 4WD and lots of off-road driving. I live by the TDY motto "it's a rental," but I didn't feel like getting stuck in my Neon so I headed back. 8 caches in 2 days--not too bad! I have to go to at least one cache in Georgia because I picked up a travel bug that needs to go there. I hope to take MJ as he grows up.
