On December 27, I set out with adhd and RPSwiney on a caching run that would prove to be a record day and the first half of a record two-day span for The Stoogeteers. This run yielded sixteen finds in two hours (that’s an average of 8 an hour, or one cache every 7.5 minutes, in case you were wondering), all along one stretch of Highway 321. None of them were too hard to find, and many of them used similar techniques which kind of got old after a while but contributed to our caching speed nonetheless. We found every cache we looked for, something I’d never done on a day when I searched for so many. Combine that with some unusually warm weather and you’ve got yourself a good day of caching.
We started our run down 321 at IPTS/I-75 #81 What a Bimbo, a 1.5/1.5 by cj10 of the magnetic variety. We found it without any problems, signed the log, and headed on down the highway towards 501, another 1.5/1.5 by cj10. This was another quick find and was the first of many “lightpole” caches, as we came to call them. With cache number two under our belts, we continued on.
Next up was Barrelin’ South to SweetH20, a 1/1.5 by dozer&thedirtclods that utilized velcro in the hiding of the cache, something I haven’t seen much of myself. Then came LC P&G #1, another hide by dozer&thedirtclods, although this one was rated as a 1/1. Both were easy finds, which was good because, at the time, adhd was attempting to figure out what his Geocaching.com login was so he could sign the logs appropriately. Thus, it was nice to not have to search to long and hard for the caches.
Find number five on the day was probably our favorite. I Got a New Cap at Wal-Mart is a 2/1 by Team Geologynut was definitely the most creative hide we saw that day, and subsequently took us a tad bit longer to find than had the previous four. Turns out, both myself and adhd had been right on the cache site and just hadn’t tried hard enough to uncover the container. RPSwiney gave it a shot, though, and we all admired the technique employed to conceal this one (just think about the title, if you decide to go after this one, and you should have no problems). The admiration could only last so long, though, as we had eleven more caches to hunt.
On the other side of the Wal-Mart parking lot, we reached a geocaching milestone of sorts: first find without leaving the car. That’s right, we experienced drive-thru caching. W-World by Destitute is a 1/1 that lived up to its rating by allowing us to pull right up to it and have adhd roll down the window, retrieve the cache, sign the log, and replace it. This was another “lightpole” cache and will be forever etched in my caching memory for its unrivaled accessibility.
Around The Bushes by check n2 cache was our next find. This 1/1.5 had apparently been replaced the day before due to the removal of the bushes that once hid it. From there we moved on to Cache and Dash #1 by Destitute, a 1/1 “lightpole” that we had to actually get out of the car to grab. Call the King was next, and this 1.5/1.5 by cj10 has all the information you need about its location right there in its name. Next, we found Cache and Dash #2 and Cache and Dash #3 back to back, both by Destitute, both rated 1/1, and both “lightpoles”.
Our twelfth find was Chow Town, a 2/1.5 by Team Geologynut that we saw as we walked up to it. This was our first find of the day that was not a micro so we took the opportunity to leave a golf tee upon which adhd had written our names as a sort of commemorative piece of geoswag for the day. One Degree: Team Geologynut (rjanikula) was next on our list. This 1.5/1.5 by Team Geologynut has an interesting concept behind it that deserves reading on the cache page and was yet another quick find for us. Number fourteen was America’s Favorite by TN Doc, and this 1.5/1 could have been another drive-thru if we’d thought about it a little more.
Here, we turned back to the North and headed back up the highway to grab two more and call it a day. The 15th find of the day for us was IPTS/I-75 #81 East Side, a 1/1.5 by dozer&thedirtclods that took us longer to find than it should have. We got it in the end though, finding it snugly velcroed (if that wasn’t a word, it is now) in its hiding spot. Finally, we arrived at our final cache site for the day. Here, we found One Degree: Team Geologynut (cj10), a 1.5/1.5 by cj10 that used a container we thought to be very clever. It’s amazing what you can do with a magnet and a paint canister.
And thus, we concluded our two-hour run down 321 having found sixteen caches as a beautiful Tennessee afternoon slowly faded into the cool night. We had done well, by our standards at least, and were ready to take on another set of caches the following day. Stay tuned for Part 2.
Halpert
Cache-tastic 