There is a playground nearby so be discrete. Please re-hide as well as possible as this is a high teen muggle area. This cache was hidden as part of a class exercise at one of the nearby schools. I have added a thorn attribute after several comments from cachers. |
7/9/2008 by Kabuthunk
Today was an excellent day to geocache. It was sunny, warm (almost too warm, but not quite), and it was the day after I had upgraded my geocaching bag! Of COURSE I've gotta give it a test after the modifications... see how well they hold out .
In either case, after a ridiculously long-feeling 8 hours at work, I hopped into the car and turned on ye olde GPS (and by 'ye olde', I mean 'about two years' ). Checking around, I noticed that not one, but TWO geocaches were just a little South of work (on Chevrier, close to the Pembina side), so I figured these would be an excellent place to get some geocaching started. To boot, it was called 'Acadia Forest'... which had great potential in my mind. Forest caches are always good, and I had no clue what an 'Acadia' was (until when I neared the cache), but it's a cool sounding word . In a few short minutes, I got nearer to the turnoff... at which point I accidentally pulled into the wrong turn lane. Waiting for traffic to clear (with thankfully noone pulling in behind me to force me to turn), I slipped onto the road and into the correct lane.
Once on the main road leading up to the cache, I proceeded to excel at 'looking at numbers' by parking about 400 meters away from the cache. Re-checking the GPS, I realized I was an idiot, and moved my car once again.
Finally within 50 meters of the cache, I began my trek. Thankfully, there were very few pedestrians wandering about. There were two teens on the swing set nearby, but they don't appear to have paid attention to me. Quite possibly because of the combination that they were talking, I was moving quietly, and the tree/bush/leaf cover was quite dense. Circling around a bit before zeroing in on the coordinates, I eventually found the area. It was only seconds after I had stopped before I spotted the cache. Nice hiding spot! I had probably come within 2 feet of it about 10 seconds earlier! Cracking it open (not like y'know... with a hammer... not that I have one on me anyway), I quickly poked around the contents. Unfortunately, since the mosquitoes seem to have taken a great interest in me since I stopped moving, I didn't have time to look too closely. Unfortunately, I didn't spot the geocoin offhand, otherwise I would have moved it onwards. I vaguely remember seeing something gnome-looking, but I can't be certain. I likely thought it was a toy or something and skipped past it.
Quickly tossing a chainmail ball into the container, I closed it up and re-hid it better than before. I think some wind/rain may have made it a bit more visible before. Mission accomplished! I didn't even have to worry about the teens on the swingset seeing me exit the bushy area, since they had taken off several minutes earlier. With noone in sight, I headed out. Thanks for the interesting cache . It had forest, it had trails, and I got fresh air, the smell of the outdoors, and even a nice, long span of silence! If there could possibly be a more ideal time in which to kick back and geocache, I haven't seen it yet. A drop in the level of mosquitoes might have been nice, but otherwise... twas indeed an excellent day for a cache .
Took: Nothing
Left: Logbook entry and chainmail ball
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