Meet the Fatsos- July 25, 2006

Not your normal post this week because this isn't the Zen Bassmasters' normal cache run. Instead, we got invited, by Frodo of all people, to the Beat the Heat Meet and Greet down in Huntsville. Since this event featured two of the Bassmasters' favorite things, caching and Chinese food, we made plans to attend.

We got there a bit late and noticed that the restaurant parking lot was packed. "You think all these people are here for the event?", I asked. We assumed not and that the food at the Royal Buffet was just good enough to keep a crowd. Well, the food WAS very good (it's a favorite Huntsville stop of our crew) but we were wrong in that the full lot was mostly folks there for the event. I think Frodo said over 30 and you could sure tell it. The poor server looked panicked when we told him we were with the geocaching group and muttered under his breath "they tell us only 20..."

Because of the overfill, we ended up sitting in another section. We were away from the crowd but nearer the buffet. Apparently these Chinese folks know us...

After we got our food, we used our usual method of delegating responsibility (which consists of yelling "not it!" and sending the last guy to yell), we sent Tserof, who lingered too long at the buffet and missed the "not its" altogether to introduce us.

Completely by chance, the first person Tserof walks up to is Frodo himself, who is a lot nicer in person than he is while you're at the bottom of Monte Sano. In fact, he and all of the Fellowship were almost too nice. These were the guys who tried to kill us on our very first cache, so we were wary. After all, those hobbits are a naturally sneaky lot and might be buttering us up, all the easier to lead us to our deaths and serve us up for their elevenses meal.

We went back to our table and I have to say I was quite flattered with then number of people who stopped by to tell us how much they were entertained by the journal. I question their taste, but appreciate their support nonetheless. We even had a couple of people ask if all that stuff actually happened to us. Trust me, it did. I'm not a good enough writer to make up something as bizarre as the stuff we get ourselves into on our own.

The coolest thing that happened was that we were given what is officially the greatest travel bug in the history of bugs. Meet SA Space Bear...



Space Bear originated in South Africa and has been travelling the world visiting as many space-related areas as possible. He already has a visitor's badge from Kennedy and another from Huntsville. Space Rocket gave it to us hoping we could get it to Arnold Engineering. Space Rocket, we're still looking at that but we've also got some other ideas. They may or may not come to fruition and they may take us a few weeks to set up, but if we pull it off, we're hoping to get Space Bear another milestone on his journey. At worst, we'll get him onto the property of Arnold and drop him in a cache there. At best, we're going to be able to send him someplace much cooler. Cross your fingers.

We also got a cool geocoin that someone asked us to drop off in Nashville next time we're up there, as it plans to head to Pennsylvania. We've got ideas for that too, and should be able to manage that easily, as it doesn't require getting security level clearance for a stuffed toy.

I'm sorry for anyone whose name I have forgotten. I suck at names. It was a pleasure to meet you all.

After the meal, we all decided to head over to UAH for a little bit of "night caching". As we've never done a night cache, we were all in. Again, we had a bit of fear as this involved going into darkened woods with hobbits who have already shown us a homicidal streak, but anything for a cache.

Of course, this wouldn't be a tale of the Zen Bassmasters if there wasn't a bobble somewhere down the line. This time it consisted of Ash and I thinking Mike brought the flashlight, Mike thinking Tserof brought the flashlight, and Tserof thinking we brought the flashlight. As night caches involve shining a flashlight off reflectors, this posed a problem.

But, again, this wouldn't be a Bassmaster tale if we didn't press on anyway...

Out we went and, for some reason, the gathered masses wanted us to lead. They all claim to have read the blog, but none have apparently learned from it. You don't let us lead anything. We're the shortest route to a DNF. And we didn't have a flashlight.

Finally, they let the couple of kids in the group lead us. Smart choice. The kids are already WAY more competent than all of us put together.

Problem 2 came when we fat people had trouble keeping up with the youngsters, us being 400 lbs and all. So Mike and I kept falling out of the range of the flashlight. This was compounded by the fact that Tserof, ahead of us, had his GPS screen pointed right at us. It provided no useful light, but the screen was enough to screw up any night vision we might have developed.

Mike and I finally decided that we might as well do things the hard way, as usual, and press on without light. Y'know, briars are sneaky things. They jump out and grab you as you walk past and, if you happen to be blind, they don't even have to bother. I got snared on the legs more times than I could count. Mike managed to impale his face on one. But we made it to the cache! We looked like we'd been through a Taipei Death Match when we got there, but we got there.

Once we got out, all the time watching for hobbit traps (we figure hobbits set traps kind of like Ewoks so we were looking for swinging logs and the sort), the lovely RN2B directs us to one of her caches nearby. She promises it's easy. Apparently she doesn't read the blog either.

But with her guidance and a little luck (where was that stuff on Monte Sano?) we located it and logged our second cache of the night.

By then it was getting late and we had to mosey on back to Tennessee so we said our goodbyes, hoped to see folks again, and even made tentative plans to go attempt to conquer Monte Sano again, with the Fellowship in tow! Yep. We're suicidal...

Next up for the Bassmasters is the Shoal's Meet and Greet on Saturday. Thanks to Cyrusel and everyone who has asked us to come and posted message about looking forward to meeting the Zen Bassmasters in person. We'll be there. Just look for the herd of stampeding water buffalo. That'll be us.

Until then...