Monday, October 20, 2008

Our first Event of Terror!!

Saz and I planned a busy day for ourselves on Saturday. We had a workshop we were going to where we would meet some fellow cachers for the first time. We were both pretty nervous about it. We both made excuse after excuse as to why we weren't going to go even though we knew we were going to.
We decided to start the day with a cache we have looked for 4 times already. This one was a 4 difficulty so we didn't feel to stupid not finding it but let me tell you we were getting very frustrated. We pulled up with high hopes. We stood there for a second and looked around the same area we had looked at so many times before. We even walked up a hill to see if we could get a different view. Nothing. I had brought a little mirror and started looking in holes. In one I saw something but moved on for some stupid reason. A little later I decided to go back to where I had seen something. I fiddled around with all kinds of things and nothing. UGH. Then I pulled out this little screw that didn't look like you should be able to pull it out and PLUNK there fell the cache at my feet. Saz and I looked at each other with big eyes and then got a big old grin on our faces. Then I had a moment of panic. How in the hell am I going to put it back. Saz of course came to the rescue and figured it out. We walked away feeling like queens. Now we didn't have to ask for clues at the workshop!!
Our next stop was Child of the Flame Station. That's right!! One of our caches we hid had a baby! Someone who found our cache wanted something in it and the only thing they had was a little camoed container. So they took it and hid it. Sniff I am so proud of our little child lol. Anyway, we followed this pretty trail that had a cute little creek running by it. We got to the location and started looking. Saz was on one side of the creek and I was on the other when I hear "Did you find it yet?" in a man's voice. We said no and introduced ourselves to a fellow cacher named Fogheads and his friend Fran. We got to meet a cacher in the wild!!! A real live cacher whose name we have seen on logs and whose caches we have found. We were actually thrilled. They were super nice people. He found it first and then let us hunt for it. After I found it he pointed out poison oak to us. We hadn't seen it without leaves so we would have ended up grabbing it at some point. Thank God for The Fogheads!!
He also let us know about a archived cache in a old stump that Saz found with no problem!! Go Saz!! Then we parted ways and we headed back to the car. As we got in here comes Foghead telling us to come over here. He had found a letter box cache. We looked at the stamps and signed our names. We then found out we were actually going to the same workshop later. We said our goodbyes and left for the next cache.
This one was closer to home. In fact I had seen it pop up right when it was activated and had Saz lived closer to me I would have made her go with me to get it. It would have been our first FTF hunt. But she doesn't. YET!!! Saz is moving closer to me! I cannot tell you how freaking happy I was as we drove to her new apartment to put the down payment on it. I swear it is less then 10 minutes from me. WATCH OUT CACHES!!!
The cache we drove to was actually between our houses. As we drove up we saw a man in a worker's vest and a hard hat. We snickered a bit because it was totally obvious to us that he was looking for the cache. What are the odds of seeing two people in one day at two seperate caches. But he left before we got to it. After a little searching around we finally found it. We giggled at the fact that we did since it was a little bit harder then normal. We hopped in the car and drove to the bank for that downpayment and as we drove back by that cache we just found there were three people looking for it. I had to honk the horn because I am bratty that way lol.
Now it was time for the workshop! This was our first event. It was a workshop to teach us how to build sneaky caches. We drove up and noticed that there was no parking. That is when we started to get a little nervous. Then we saw the house. OMG we almost had a fit. There were tons and tons and tons of freaking people standing all over that yard. We drove by still looking for a parking space and looked at each other in horror. I guess neither one of us is into crowds. We gave ourselves a pep talk as we got out of the car and headed towards the big group. As we walked up I told Saz that she was doing the talking. Now... normally I can't shut up and Saz doesn't do a lot of talking. That totally works for us. However when I told her I wasn't talking she didn't take me serious until about 20 feet from the event when she asked me a question and I said nothing. She gave me a look that would have peeled off my skin. I laughed and told her not to worry...sort of. Why? Because as soon as we got in that group of people I turned shy and quiet. Abnormal for me but that is exactly what happened.
We took the sodas we brought to the backyard and started to try to mingle. We kept sneaking peeks at everyones name tags. Oh didn't I mention that we had to wear name tags? It was kind of nice to put faces to names we have only seen on logs or caches we hunt for. Saz ended up buying me a really cool flashlight that has this long antenna like thing with a magnet on the end. She got herself one too. We also got a few little cache containers and a few garbage bag things. After about a hour we decided to sneak the heck out of there. I couldn't handle not talking and Saz probably didn't no how to handle me not talking lol.
Then we were off for the next cache. They had set up a few caches around the area for people to find during the event. We went to the closest one and it took us way to long to find. And of course while we were searching a cacher and his daughter walked by to go to the store. Lucky for us we found it super fast after that. Off for the next hidden one for the event.
We parked the car and started looking around this electrical box. So we searched and searched and looked and finally found it. We signed the log and got in the car to go. As we pulled away a group of about 15 people from the event come around the corner. We were so damn happy that we found that before getting busted by all these people who have like 5,000 or 7,000 finds. We would have been mortified. We did wave to The Fogheads in that group as we drove away.
We then headed back to a cache that had been muggled the last time we looked for it. Although we knew this time it was there. Can I tell you what an easy find that was LMAO!! After we found it we walked across the park to get another one in the area only to have a group of hoodlum teenagers sitting exactly where we needed to go. So we left that one for later.
We then headed to another area of the park that we needed to drive to. This one we searched high and low for. We couldn't find that one to save our lives. Turns out it was not there. *mental note to self: read farther down then one log to see what's up
Another cache we went to we ended up in a neighborhood that had a fence. Of course it was on the other side of the fence so we had to drive around the street and pull into a store. Once there we had to shhhhhh break into a giant fence only to figure out it was on the other side. We decided it was in the bushes and started to hunt. Nope.. then we decided it was on the fence and even though it was it still took us way to long to find that darn thing!
Our next cache led us to a beautiful rose garden. It was that beginning of twilight time so everything was so darn beautiful. We walked up to this old closed down building. Not a run down building but a building you almost would expect them to open the doors wide open and invite you in. We searched for a bit and then found it. It was a wonderful peaceful place.
The next one was a little different. We walked into a large grove of trees and had to search through there. Harder then it sounds. We LOVED the container though. It was a bell pepper made of ceramic I think. But it was totally clever and it gave us a laugh.
We thought we could squeeze one more in before dark. But when we got there it was almost full dark. And we were blocked by a stupid fence. That didn't stop Super Saz though. She actually got down on her belly and shimmied under and through a fence with her new super flashlight. She gave it a great effort but searching in the dark with a flashlight just didn't work this time. We have to wait two weeks until we can go again. I am looking forward to it.
Look for pictures tomorrow!

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