After the two-hour long sixteen-cache run the day before, we were definitely ready to geet back out and try to replicate our success on Sunday. So, after church and lunch, we loaded up another handful of hides to the GPSmap 60CSx and headed out. The day would end up falling five short of the mark we set on Saturday, but it’s ahrd to be too disappointed with eleven finds, especially after we found number eleven.
The day began at Snow White, a 1.5/2 by PLM hidden in Lenoir City Park. Any cache that uses a toilet in the woods to help hide it will leave a lasting impression, and this one was no exception. With the log signed, we moved on to Overlooked, a 1.5/1.5 by Destitute that was a nice easy find to keep our perfect streak rolling. From there we set our sights on Penguin Prop, which was a nice little magnetic 1.5/2 by Bubbles (the Penguin) attached to a giant rusty propeller down by the lake. The log was of the tiny variety and was not going to come out without some extra help. Luckily, the Swiss Card Lite I’d received on Christmas had the right tool for the job: tweasers. We extracted the log, signed it, and then rehid the semi-camoflauged container to complete our third find of the day.
After crossing the dam, we trekked out into the woods in search of The Tellico Parkway Series – Lock N Load (hidden by Team Geologynut, rated 2/2). The ground had taken on a marshy quality due to recent rains and adhd was better equipped than RPSwiney and myself since he had worn waterproof shoes. There didn’t seem to be any ideal or direct route to the cache, so we let adhd have the 60CSx while we looked for alternative and less moist routes. adhd reached the cache site first, and after jumping a creek and weaving through some trees I was able to join him at the hide. The real challenge then was getting back to the car while keeping my shoes as dry as possible.
Cache number five was That Dam Cache – Revisited, a 1/1.5 by Destitute hidden back in the woods just off of a road that had been turned into a paved walkway between Fort Loudon Dam and Tellico Dam. After that, we began our search for Gone to The Dogs Series-Swamp Music. Rated as a 2/3 by owner geopitbull, this was our first Mystery Cache after a run of 21 Traditionals. Once we got through the brush and the trees, we found this one down by a little swamp while listening to some guys stuble up the steepest way back to the road after they’d been fishing. Inside the cache we found a little geobug that adhd plans to take up to Madison, Wisconsin after the holidays.
Number seven on the day was Team Geologynut-CJ10’s 1000th cache find, a 1.5/1.5 by dozer&thedirtclods. This was a pretty average cache that we overthought before eventually finding it. What wasn’t average was this warning sign posted by the lake as we walked up to the cache: 
After not eating the catfish, we found our second Mystery Cache of the day: The State Quarter Series – Audemus jura nostra. This 2/1.5 by Team Geologynut has a nice little idea behind it that makes me want to find the others in this series. Next, we found another in the State Quarter Series by Team Geologynut. The State Quarter Series – Industry is a 1.5/1.5 that we were able to find without attracting too much attention (I think) from the tennis players nearby. Our next find, number ten for the day, was LC Park Point and Cache which is yet another 1.5/1.5 by Team Geologynut. After logging this one, we turned around and headed back to get one more cache, one that we had passed up minutes earlier due to some people hanging around the cache site.
We returned to the coordinates of “Park” and Cache, a 3/1 by Destitute, to find the people still there. As we drove by, we thought it looked like they were vacating the area so we parked a litle ways down the road and got out of the car. As we walked up to the cache site, we thought we saw them replacing a cache and then noticed that some of them had GPSr units. Could it be? Had I finally met some other cachers on the hunt? The closer we got, the more apparent it became that the answer was a yes.
Turns out we’d run into two teams/families of cachers: ClanKeap and k2shelton. They had indeed just found the cache we sought and a few of them stayed behind to chat with us while others went after the one we’d just found. We poked around where we thought the cache would be, setting our sights on a wooden sign after a quick check of another on a metal post yielded no quick results. Our search was in vain, though, and our new friends offered us a little help. Apparently, we were on the wrong sign (this is where you should stop reading if you don’t want the cache to be SPOILED)
THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH WILL UTTERLY RUIN THE CACHE FOR YOU
I walked over to the sign on the metal post and gave it another look. I absentmindedly put my hand on a bolt, which prompted our new friends to let us know that I had my hand on the cache. We got it off the sign, unscrewed the normally fixed head, and found ourselves staring at the logsheet. These are the caches you hunt for, the creative ones, the ones that take a little thought and a little time, the ones that make you feel good when you find them. In a state of admiration and pride, we signed the log and chatted with our fellow cachers for a little longer before heading back to the car and wrapping things up for the day. We’d found all 27 of the caches we’d looked for over the weekend and ended things on a good note with one of the most creative hides I’ve ever seen, and if that’s not a good run then I don’t know what is.
Halpert
Cache-tastic 