ELUSIVE
Black Friday. Most people go shopping, I went geocaching, as far away from the maddening din as possible.
We meant it as a family trip. I had been putting a bug in their ear all week, the same bug that had been put in mine. I had a certain destination in mind.
There was a geocache a few weeks ago that came out close to my house, and I saw the notification right away, which meant I had a good chance at the "First to Find", FTF. Our FTF competition is fierce around here. Caches don't usually make it an hour without geocachers descending upon it.
Anyway I was robbed on this FTF. I looked and looked at the place that matched the clue, and had to give up after 30 minutes. As I was getting in the car to leave, a biker came up and hung around suspiciously close to GZ. I kept my eye on him as I began to drove away, and I saw he was hanging out in the general area a bit, an unlikely place to spend time. I circled back around and tried to catch him. I wanted to ask him if he was the cache hider, but when I got near him, he was too far way to stop without screaming at him. What would I even say?
Anyway I left a note on the cache page talking about this, and the next day, after two other cachers stopped and FOUND the cache, I got a message from the hider. That was him, and when I saw him, he was placing the cache. Usually they are supposed to be in place before they are published, but this guy waited for the notice before going out to put it out.
Okay, so I was robbed of my FTF, so this time, he gave me a heads up about a new cache of his. He was going to let me get the FTF before he published it, to make up for my loss. I needed to get out there before the end of the holiday weekend. Plus, I have been dying to go caching, with the weather during the workweek just beautiful, and I feeling stifled locked away.
So I mention, and I hint, and I plan, and I scheme. I want to all four go out on an expedition and have a picnic lunch and spend time together. We agree on a time and a day, and then it is the time to leave, and suddenly my husband backs out. Oh, he doesn't really want to leave the house, he doesn't want to go anywhere. Suddenly then the oldest son would rather go play with friends. Suddenly my plans were all unraveling.
I made adjustments. The little one got strapped in his carseat and the oldest dog got to come instead. We headed off to Tomball.
First stop was a micro hidden in a very tricky location near a bridge in a man-made pond. This fellow local cacher Raven has been placing a series of caches called "Crossing Over" out at interesting and pretty bridges in the area. On the cache page for this one, #15, it says you might have to use acrobatic techniques for retrieval. Let me tell you, doing this while trying to watch the kid and the dog raised the difficulty level to about a four!
Then we went to find a large "park and grab" cache behind a movie theatre. A "PNG", for non-cachers, is a cache that is supposed to be less than 200 feet from the car. This one was trouble. First I thought I could park in the abandoned parking lot behind the theater, but the gates were locked, so I had to double back around on the highway and come back, and then I looked and looked and felt silly for not being able to find something so simple. I was about to leave when I decided to call a friend for a hint, who had found it last month. She told me where it was supposed to be, but I was looking there and it was, most definitely, not there. Rats!
After this, we headed to a nature preserve for a short hike into the forest to find a nice big cache I could leave some travel bugs at. This was the most fun of our day. The dog went swimming in the pond (yuck, I was thrilled about this, since he was riding in my car!) and we checked out the wooden overlook that stood out above the water.
It was time, now, to head into Tomball and go look for this one I had a notice for. It was at the old railroad depot, where now a big red caboose stands on display. Christmas lights wrap around the light poles, and a big Christmas tree surrounded by gifts decorates the lawn. My little one loved this one and looked all around, and so did I. Try finding a little black nano ( a cache the size of a button), when coords have you all over the place, from the base of the train, which is all black, to the black benches and fences. I bumped my head a few times and inspected every nook and cranny to no avail. The dog just laid down near a bench with a look on his face of pure irritation. "Let me watch you try to find a nano, this is great fun", his sarcastic eyes seemed to say.
Well, I had to give up on that elusive sucker. Then, as we drove around the antique stores (as I was trying to figure out where a multi-cache final was), the little one spilled Sprite in his eyes and we had to make a quick stop at the parking lot for the stores. He wanted out, so we all got out and walked around - me, my little one with granola crumbs on his shirt and a snotty nose, and the dog, with his ragged coat that may have seen better days. What a contrast we made to the old, well-to-do ladies with their fancy purses and business casual clothes! We left the dog tied in the shade of the fancy garden area and went into a locally famous restaurant for lunch, but the white tabelcothes and shimmering table service freaked my little one out, so we made an exit quickly after being seated.
Instead we walked across the street to a dive mexican cafe, where we watched Rascal lying in a cool tile terrace as we ate soup and beans. We were the only customers in this dark and cool place, where there are three menu choices that change every three days. The charro beans were more like a soup than anything, and the little one wanted to have it all to himself, but couldn't finish it all. We walked outside with the styrofoam bowl in our hands, and I wanted to give Rascal the rest. Little K insisted he be the one to do the honors, so I let him lower the bowl to Rascal's waiting nose...and then he turned it over and dumped it, instead, on the ground. Rascal's fine aristocratic mouth licked beans off the ground instead of lapping the dark meaty broth from a bowl, and I felt sad for him, one more thing to add to his list of laments about his lot in life. Rascal, so happy and joyous in youth, has made an art form out of pouting in his later years, demonstrating his great sadness with being replaced by two kids, and then supplanted by a younger and stronger dog. I don't need a pet pyschic to tell me how he feels, and yet I am powerless to change it.
Later, I went back out to find that nano again, alone, during a solo caching expedition, only to come up at a loss again. Finally the cache owner sent me a very specific hint, and if I get a chance, I will try one more time before the weekend is over.
I just might want to stick, though, to what I am able to actually find.