Current at 11/6/2011 (Online waypoint URL) You have already found this cache! Master Index    Nearest Caches Lighting Crashes by Sean and Widget (2/1.5) (Archived) N49° 52.402  W97° 14.827 (WGS84) UTM  14U   E 625950  N 5526025 Use waypoint: GC1DFHE Size: Small    Hidden on 6/22/2008 In Manitoba, Canada Difficulty:     Terrain:                           Another cache in the Assiniboine Park area thought to be a nice place for a cache. Small Container with log book and pencil also small trading items.

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5/2/2009 by Kabuthunk
Now THIS cache has an interesting story behind it. Well... I'm sure the whole lightning aspect of it probably ALSO has an interesting story to it for all I know, but I'm moreso referring to the story of my attempt to find it.

I started heading over to this cache from "Octopus Entopus" nearby. However, I decided to take a bit of a looping path towards here, since right inbetween the two were a pile of kids tossing a football around. Generally high-school or maybe early-university students, getting some kind of football game without visible ends of the field or anything. I dunno... I'm a computer nerd... I don't see what's so fun about all that, but likewise, I doubt they'd see the fun of geocaching . Anyway, not wanting to walk through the middle of their game (or even generally just around the outskirts of it, to avoid drawing attention to myself), I curved to the South and then back up towards the cache. All in all, nice and quiet and noone to disturb me. Well, one or two bikers went by, but that's nothing.

Once I had reached the safety of the bushes (albeit it was more just a large conglomeration of sticks, since there weren't any leaves or even buds on any of the branches that I could see yet), I quickly worked my way to the coordinates. Before having visited this cache, I had pondered what the name of the cache meant. Pretty much the first thing that came to mind was exactly what it truly meant, it seems . It only took me a few seconds to locate the cache actually. In fact, I located it initially from above, and then went to retrieve it from below. I decided to sit back against the tree and generally enjoy the outdoors while taking my time in signing the logbook. I also swapped out the geocoin for a Backpacker Bear TB... figured it might get some better scenery here than in the St. James area .

As I was sitting there, about 20 feet a way a man, woman, and child had walked up. They were standing there, staying about 20 feet away, just kinda laughing and chatting back and forth. Didn't bother me at all, but it was hindering my replacing of the cache container. While they were chatting, I managed to covertly slip the cache back in place, and cover it with a layer of natural camouflage.

At this point, JUST as I had finished doing that, they were walking up EXACTLY to the coordinates, and the father said "And here it is".

I mentally slapped my head. Geocachers! They were waiting for me to leave, and I was waiting for THEM to leave. I seem to have startled them when I stepped forward and asked "Geocaching?"

The father was confused, not sure what I said. I repeated "Out geocaching today?" The father replied "Umm, no. We were just going to see the tree that was hit by lightning."

I mentally slapped my head AGAIN .

Then the wife speaks up, "I've heard about geocaching... I was reading about it a few weeks ago. It sounds pretty interesting." Aha! So we have bystanders who not only know about it, but think it's interesting. So I tell them about geocaching in general, and they were very surprised to learn that there was one actually AT this location. The father was more surprised when I told them there were hundreds, if not over 1000 in the city alone. So I showed them the cache (they seemed innocent and curious), and explained how it worked. The wife apparently has friends that also do Letterboxing, but not geocaching.

With any luck, we might have a few new geocachers on the way .

So with a friendly goodbye, I wandered off towards the car. Hopefully since I told them all about geocaching, they will set up an account and log this one themselves .

Took: Geocoin
Left: Logbook, Backpacker Bear travelbug, and chainmail ball

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