On December 29, two Stoogeteers (Werner and Halpert) headed out for the final caching run of 2008, our first year in the sport. It would turn out to be the third consecutive day of double digit finds for us, and at the end of the day we found ourselves only twelve shy of of 200th find. Even better, the weather wasn’t too bad either.
We started things off with a nice easy find to get us rolling. Sleep well my friend is a 1/1.5 by Tennessee Traveler behind a hotel whose name I can’t remember in Cool Springs. We couldn’t begin our search right away, though, as we had to wait for a muggle smoking out back to vacate the area. What better time to get some gas, right? After filling up, we returned, checked a lightpole out of habit, and then found the cache in a location much more fitting for its camo tape.
Next, we headed across the street to Star Light, Star Bright which is located at a Starbucks (go figure). This 1/1.5 by CelticsDude111 (a name we see a lot around these parts) was another quick find for us, and the muggles in the drive-thru gave us a chance to use the GPSr-as-a-cellphone disguise. I’m not sure how effective it was, though. From there, we headed south down Carothers Parkway to find Parking lot maze, a 2/1.5 by Tennessee Traveler hidden way in the back of some labyrinthine parking lots, as its name would suggest. Once again, habit told us to head for the lightpole, and once again habit failed us. Undeterred, we continued our search and found the camo coffee jar amongst the brush and rubbish.
For our fourth cache we revisited one that Werner had posted a DNF on the day before, Bocce Ball in Cool Springs. The 2/1.5 seemed simple enough at first glance, but in reality took us way too long to find. However, this wasn’t as big an inconvenience as it usually is since there were bocce balls and courts to mess around with. Thus, we kept ourselves entertained and took some photos while we were temporarily stumped. This brief intermission proved to be helpful and we eventually found the little guy for find number four.
Next up was XTERRA on a QUEST for CUBE, a 1.5/1.5 by Tennessee Traveler. We spent more time finding a good place to park than we did actually looking for and finding the cache. Number six was way to much steel, ain’t it cool by JoGPS. We saw this 1.5/1.5 as we were walking up to it, but only after we’d dodged the muggle walking down the trail in front of us.
Found it
Our seventh find for the day was the one that looks best on the stat sheet. Hi Ho Silver is a 5/4 by CoasterKid back up in the woods near Liberty Park. The terrain rating was dead on. The steep climb combined with the thick brush and thorns followed by the forest made the search challenging but fun. Once we got up into the woods and got within 30 feet of the cache according to the GPSmap 60CSx, it didn’t take us long to find the container. It did take us a few minutes to figure out how to open it though. We persevered, got it open, and then got back down to the Mini without drawing too much attention to ourselves. Doesn’t it feel good to get a 5-star?
Next up was another of CoasterKid’s hides. Today is Brought to You by the Letter “F”, a 3/1.5, didn’t take too long to find, giving us ample time to take more useless pictures of ourselves. Just up the road, we found Guarding the Lion, a 1.5/1.5 by CelticsDude111 whose location you can probably guess by thinking about the title for a minute. Our last find of the day was Hair of the Dog, a 1.5/1.5 by Team Burke that had us stumped for a couple minutes. From there, we ended the day with two DNFs: Welcome to the Monkey House by MonkeyBrad and the bane of our geocaching existence that is Granny’s Grass Cache by Southpaw. We’d decided to give Granny’s Grass Cache another run after CelticsDude111 posted a find on it while we were elsewhere in the area. Unfortunately, we were once again unsuccessful. Not a good way to end the day, but at least it wasn’t a bad day all around. With daylight fading, we packed up and headed home quite proud of our modest 10-find-day.
Halpert
Click here to view photos from the day on Flickr.
