Friday, August 1, 2008

Our First Hides!! part one

After lots of careful planning we were ready to plant some caches. How exciting! I couldn't wait to get one out there so I could watch the seeker's logs. I'll tell you about the hide. Hello will tell you about the "logs". :|

We've been shopping for and planning out our Lost themed caches almost since we started geocaching. We wanted to rack up some experience first so we would have fun and exciting finds for our fellow cachers to enjoy. We finally had all we needed, chose two good spots and got two boxes ready to go, each packed with a travel bug (sending John Locke on his Walkabout was first), an unactivated geocoin for the first to find, lots of cute little toys and games and colorful trinkets. We couldn't wait for the weekend so we ran out after work to hide them.

The first one we placed in a cemetary that Hello visits almost daily for her afternoon walk. We each went back and forth about whether it was okay to plant one there or not, but not for long. It's a really big place, full of huge old trees, beautiful statuary sprinkled throughout, memorials for all faiths, a memorial for the victims of 9-11. You might not expect it to be so, but it really is a nice place to spend some time. Very peaceful, pretty, and park like. There is an older section that is seldom visited. The grave markers from that time period can be ornately carved or serenely simple. I looked them all over, but what's really special about this part of the cemetary is a huge old old tree with a huge hole in it. A really big hole, so big you could climb through it and sit inside that tree if you wanted to. That's where we planned to leave our hide and, after dismissing any misgivings we decided to go ahead with it. We both really like finding ammo cans and we have those ready for our Lost "hatches", but that didn't suit this hide, too heavy, so we packed a tupperware with goodies instead and hung it inside the tree. We also got the coordinates of a spot with a spectacular view and those of the 9-11 memorial to add to our hide announcement and we were very excited about it. Any cachers who weren't turned off by a cemetary hide would enjoy visiting this one.

Then we had a gross Jamba juice. It was advertised as an orange delight, or something similar, but tasted like bananas, which neither of us like. Yucky.

The next hatch was going on a hiking trail we went hunting on a couple of weeks ago. At the time, we both remarked how pretty the area was and how nice the trail was to walk on, so we wanted to plant a hide there. It turns out there are only a few caches here and plenty of room, and there was a micro already hidden near the entrance. When we were here before, we weren't up to hunting micros yet. We've gotten a few now, so we were going to find that little sucker on our way out. We entered the trail lugging our ammo can hatch, hoped the muggles wouldn't call in the bomb squad due to the can, picked a trail and walked off to find the perfect spot. After hauling ourselves up a very steep path, we found the perfect spot just off the path. There were muggles offroading on the other side of the trail but they weren't paying us any attention. So we planted the can, stuffed with Desmond's travel bug (he's searching for Penny), an unactivated geocoin for the first to find, lots of toys, games, colorful trinkets, and pennies. This is another type of hide that I really enjoy, being in little wild spots just steps from civilization. So we left the park very pleased with the placement. We spent maybe half a minute looking for the micro before Hello just walked up and plucked it out of a hinge on the fence. Sometimes I could kick her. Just kidding!

Then we headed back to Hello's house to activate the caches and settled into impatient waiting. We didn't have to wait long. The cemetary cache was approved that night, but the hatch on the trail needs to be moved. It's too close to the micro, so we'll go move it this evening and hope it's approved for the weekend cachers.

And that is the tale of our first hide.

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