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Adventures in Geocaching

Four fat people attempting to geocache. Hilarity ensues.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Snakes on a Cache

Ok, technically there were no snakes this week, but I figure if Snakes on a Plane can make millions with just a title (trust me, I've seen it, it has no plot) then maybe I can too. Besides, our readers seem to enjoy us risking being bitten by snakes. Unfortunately, this week we had Ashlynne's sister and her two kids along and Lisa insisted we give the snakes a skip when her kids were with us (the nerve of some people...). So this week should probably be called "Kids in a Minivan" but that just doesn't have the same ring.

We met at Tserof's house to begin our trip. I stayed in my van, figuring Lisa and the kids would go in hers and I would take mine as usual. What I didn't know is that my "friends" had sold me out before I got there, plotting to take Mad Mike's nephew Brian's car. Brian is a sucker, er "muggle" who read our blog and still wanted to come with us. Fool.

Anyway, Brian's car has something my van does not, namely working air conditioning (anyone know a good, cheap, AC mechanic?) so my "friends" decided to take his car instead. Only one problem. Brian's car holds 5, but that becomes 4 (and barely that) when 3 of the people top 350 lbs. Since there were 7 of us not counting the kids, that meant two of us now had to take the kiddie-van.

They all looked at me with pity, and not a little bit of amusement.

"They're your family, Gryph", Fish tells me, hiding a smirk. "I'm pretty sure that means you have to ride with the kiddies." Tserof, who has extensive experience in cars with Ashlynne's crazy New York family, at least had the decency to feel bad about his Brutus role. "I'm sorry, man...", he said solemnly. "Dude. I'm so sorry..."

Yeah, so was Judas...

I should point out here that I bear no real animosity toward any of Ashlynne's family (not most of the time anyway) and I love the kids like they're blood, but I geocache not so much to explore or to find stuff, but to hang out with my friends, ride around, and shoot the breeze. Suddenly, I find myself separated from them and riding as the only man in a car filled with women and children. My testosterone drops by the minute....

As I said, Tserof is the only one who truly knew the fate he had doomed me to, so decided to at least pull the knife out a little bit by offering me one of the walkie talkies we have so I could communicate a bit with the rest of them.

We got into the car and prepared to head for Huntsville, and things got worse.... Lisa puts in a cd, which scares me immediately given Lisa's love of "Big Hat" country bands (remind me sometime to tell you about the trip to Ohio that involved hearing "Honkey Tonk Badonkadonk" 25000 times). The good news is, it wasn't Big Hat Country. The bad news is... it's "Car Songs for Kids."

And there you have the soundtrack for my day friends, as the speakers began to blare about some poor unfortunate whose parents named him John Jacob Jinglehammer Smith or something similar. I make a mental note to add Anacin to the list of things we should bring on a caching run....

On the way to Huntsville, I learned all kinds of things. I learned that D is for Drums (this was followed by a drum solo that sounded like John Bonham if John Bonham had epilepsy...), I learned that Little Bunny Foo Foo is a right bastard if you're a field mouse, I learned that my Bonny lies over the ocean, and that the wheels on the bus go round and round but that no matter how much you beg, the bus will not back up and run you over, ending your misery.

Finally, we reach our first cache, which was "North Parkway Drive-in." Pretty easy cache to find and a nice start to the day. I was never here when the old drive-in was here, so it was interesting to see the remains. I love drive-ins and miss their prominence (although the one in Lewisburg, Tn is still active and a great deal if you're ever in the area). This week was, along with a trip for the kids, a bug hunt as we planned to grab several bugs to move along, since we plan to cache up in Tennessee next week and figured we'd help Bama's bugs along. We found a bug here, attached to a "Number 5", so we grabbed it to move along. The kids were in heaven, seeing a box full of toys that they could pick from. We had a bit of trouble convincing the three year old that he could only have one, as the little klepto kept trying to pocket more stuff when we weren't looking, but we finally got them sorted out and moved on.

Our next cache was Grizzly Gator, so named due to a big wooden bear nearby. The kids liked the bear and they liked the cache (or the toys more accurately). Jonah, the three year old, was still trying to figure it all out, but Noah, the four year old, was becoming a pretty good asset at this point, able to get into spots us fat people can't and find caches.

Next up was Rocky's First Cache. We saw "Land Trust" on the description and got a little scared. Visions of Huntsville mountain danced before us. Fortunately, this was only the parking lot of the land trust office. I won't spoil the hide other than to say that it's a decent hide for a parking lot cache, a lot better than your typical "mag key hider under a lampshade" type of thing. Inside were a number of bugs. Not wanting to hog the entire Huntsville bug collection (we were shooting for one bug per person who had a GC account), we left "5" behind and grabbed a couple of others. Mad Mike, a Mustang enthusiast of some reknown, grabbed the "Mustang Sally" coin for his and I grabbed the "I Found it!" bug, which is attached to a cell phone. I just thought it looked cool. I didn't know until I got home that I would be the first to find it and that it was created due to some real-life events I've recently been reading about over on the Dixie Cachers forum. Very cool. It wants to move as far from Alabama as possible so I'm going to help it along well into Tennessee next week.

Just so you know, if you are an old lady, and you swallow a fly, don't follow it up with a horse... Just saying...

On the ride to our next cache, Springs Time, I decided to share the love, placing the radio Tserof graciously gave me by the speaker and triggering the button so the other car could also learn that you should not put your head in a skunk hole, but should take it out, take it out, remove it...

Not much to tell about Springs Time. Pretty area. Fairly easy find. By this time, Jonah had developed a weird obsession with rubber balls, taking one from every cache we found that had one and even trading some of the toys he had found in other caches for them if there were two. No idea why, but the child had about 8 of them by the end of the day and seemed pretty happy with himself for it. Maybe he plans to become a juggler.

Next up was "To be Treed or not to be Treed". Don't remember much about this one. After that was "Walk to Nowhere." Excellent hide here. Cache is in plain sight but it's made to look like it belongs so it probably would have fooled us a few weeks ago. Maybe we are getting better.

But I doubt it...

We went looking for "One for the Little Guys" since it was billed as being for kids but couldn't find anyplace to park that didn't look like we'd be towed or run over, so we moved on.

Elementary Cache was next, after a good lunch at Beauregards. We weren't expecting an uphill hike and, while it was nothing compared to Monte Sano, I was wishing by the end that I hadn't tested the "all you can eat" policy on Beauregard's chicken wings...

Next up was Charger Blue, on the UAH campus. It's on UAH campus. Nice spot. While we were there, we took Fish and Brian to score "It's Not Easy Being Green", which the rest of us got at the Huntsville Meet and Greet. Only thing of interest to happen here was that I convinced Noah that if he didn't frog-hop all the way from the car to the tree, the cache wouldn't be there. It's fun being the subversive uncle sometimes...

Next up was All American Cache. Nice little hobbit-hole type area. Cool spot to hide a cache. Again, Noah came in handy as he was the only one small enough to climb in and get the thing.

By this time the kids were getting tired and I had begun to go insane (more than normal that is) from the constant barrage of saccharin kid voices singing about how they lost their poor meatball when somebody sneezed. We decided to do one more and call it a day.

Final cache was Girs Went a Courting. Not too hard to find, once we found the spot it was in. As usual with the Zen Bassmasters, we turned around quite a bit to find it.

At the end, we headed back home as I promised to immediately put on some death metal to purge my mind.

100% for the day, even though it was pretty easy stuff. Still impressive for us. I guess it was a successful day. The kids certainly seemed to catch the bug, although I think Fish's long day of caches was too much for them, as this is how they looked shortly after we started home...




Next week, we're back to our traditional death-defying, snake attracting ways, as we visit the Jack Daniels' Distillery to grab some fire station pictures for a bug we have and to do the cache there, and then on to Tim's Ford Lake to place the ones we got this week.

We also plan to hide the second part of our History of Lincoln County series, titled Ice-T. Assuming we pass the review-nazis, I'll have the link for you here soon.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Birthday Cache

This week we had to delay our caching trip for a few hours because Fish's wife rudely insisted that Fish attend his son's birthday party. The nerve of some people...

The son in question is Vorin, who you may remember as the World's Most Fabulous Secret Agent from our post Geocaching Hootenanny. Here's a birthday picture, for those of you who like that kind of thing.



Since we were in Murfreesboro for the party anyway, we decided to just do some caches around the area. Our crew this week is me, Fish, Mad Mike, and Ashlynne. Tserof was absent today, saying something about having to work or something. The nerve of some people... Our soundtrack for today is "Live and Loud" by Cross Canadian Ragweed.

Our first was a multi called 4-H TB Inn. Ashlynne, being an old 4-H vet, was happy about doing a cache that was set out as a 4-H project. The multi seemed to be right in the parking lot of the 4-H building, which was great for the rest of us, having had enough snakes and rocks to do us for a few weeks. Nothing terribly eventful in the first two. Mad Mike found the first one and I found the second. I won't give away the hide other than to say it's a good thing we've been listening to Frodo on all those events as I didn't even know those things weren't screwed in. The third promised to be a "gallon jar". We figured that would be an easy find right outside a parking lot and headed for the spot, only to find... rocks.

We hate rocks. Days of nightmares from Green Mountain come back to us. Still, these rocks seem harmless enough but they certainly don't seem big enough to hide a mayo jar under. We cast about and finally decide to send Fish back to look at the coordinates he put in from the last ones and he literally stumbled over it. Very, very cool camo on this one. Simple, but it sure fooled us. We'd have probably DNF'd it if we hadn't tripped over it. Great example of being able to give urban park and grabs some challenge.

Unfortunately, there were no travel bugs in the travel bug inn, so we dropped off a couple we picked up at the Sheffield event and the one Rick618 dropped in Wabbit Season this week.

Next up was Puckett's Guard. Pretty unremarkable one here. Park and Grab right beside the road. You know when the Zen Bassmasters say it's easy, it's pretty darn easy.

Next was From Tiny Acorns. It promised an old historical house but, as we headed in the direction of it, it looked more like it would promise a mugging. Through the projects we drove, thinking that maybe we didn't want this cache anyway. But we pressed on and found, right in the middle, a little park. On the other side of the park was... you've figured it out if you've been reading this blog for very long... a road to the park that didn't lead you through the ghetto.

We headed for the treeline and found the cache relatively easily. We also found our first injury as Mad Mike somehow managed to ram part of a bush INTO his ear. Not sure how you manage that, but he did. Fortunately, it wasn't too serious and we pressed on.

Next up was Benevolence, which was advertised as a cemetary cache, but seemed to point right to the railroad tracks. We pressed on, wondering if we had the coordinates right or if the cache was listed wrong. Sure enough, we found a little cemetary near the tracks. Or, at least, we found the sign for a cemetary. The whole area was completely grown up and looked like it had been abandoned for years. I did some research just now and found this link that gives the history. Kind of sad.

Next up was "It's a Party!", which was by an old mill. Neat little spot and an easy enough find. Nothing terribly remarkable here except for looking at the old mill area. Go check it out if you like old stuff or history.

Next was Chief Black Fox. Another fairly easy find near the highway. The only remarkable thing here is that we found my first tracker bug, called "An Old Memory." It was a bug attached to an old ram stick. Being a geek, the RAM drew me in. The bug wants to visit historical places, so we're either going to run it by the Berlin Springs cache or we may place it in one of our "History of Lincoln County" caches (more on that in a bit).

Next was Millersville Cemetary. Another park and grab. Very easy find. Again, nothing terribly remarkable here.

Our next cache was "Prosthesis" and it was another great hide. Again, I won't give away the find other than to tell you that everything you need to locate the cache is listed in the title (well, except the coordinates, which are on the website, but you know what I mean). Someone did some work on this one and it showed. Awesome hide and a cache I'd recommend going to do if you get a chance.

Our next was "Amber Waves of Grain." This was another that confused us in the beginning. It promised to be a cemetary cache, but the coordinates seemed to lead right into a cornfield. We pressed on anyway. Sure enough, right in the middle of the cornfield, is a little cemetary. Well kept up too. We commented that the name of the cache should not be "Amber Waves of Grain" but "Children of the Corn" as that's what it looked more like. We joked that all of the gravestones were of people 25 or younger. Cache was an easy enough find.

Our final cache of the day was Tom's Miniature Donkey Church. The name alone was enough to make us want to do it. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be, as the caretaker of the little church there chose that moment to mow. Drats! Foiled by muggles.

But, all in all, a good day. We found all but one and that one wasn't really our fault.

The other news this week is that we've placed the first of our History of Lincoln County series. The first is not terribly historical, but a good jumping off point. The cache listing can be found here. Go check it out if you're in the area and drop us a line about what you think. I'd tell you to stop in for a cup of the really good coffee if the place is open, but according to the listing-Nazis at geocaching.com, that's advertising and an illegal cache, so go to the general area and find the cache, go inside and check out the history book, say hi to the owner (who was fascinated by geocaching when we got permission for the hide). The odors from inside will do the rest.

Until next week...

-Gryph

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Jolly Green Descent into Hell- Part 2

I'm back, with part two of the worst day of geocaching we've had yet. It started off much like normal, getting lost, being hot, eating. But it got much, much worse.

When I left off last night, we were in the land trust parking area with the infamous Frodo, who was telling us to call him if it "gets to be too much for you." As I said last night, this should have been a clue coming from Frodo, but as I also said last night, we're not real bright.

Before we set out, we decided to hit a cache right next to the parking area, one that had been hidden by Frodo himself, Ledges Edges. With Frodo looking on (and probably laughing inside at our incompetence), we looked around and finally found the cache.

Yay! First find of the day! Things are looking up!

Famous last words... In retrospect, I think Frodo may have taken pity on us, leading us to an easy cache so we'd go to our deaths with a feeling of accomplishment.

The next thing that should have been a clue to us is, just as we were leaving, another group pulled up, not to join us in doing the caches, but apparently to join Frodo in seeing us off. A smart group would have seen this for what it was; a wake. Again, we're not very bright, so we pressed on.

The entrance to the trail was across the road so we encountered our first difficulty there. After an entertaining game of "Fat People Frogger" we made it to the entrance of the trail... which was almost straight up. "I've got a bad feeling about this...", I said in a moment of clarity. But then I started up the slope anyway, passing the moment of reason off as indigestion.

We walked for a bit, commenting on the fact that this "mostly downhill" trek sure had a lot of uphill climbing. Finally, we make it to the first cache, "Jolly Green Toothbrush" and it was definitely a good one. Big, custom made cache. Easy to find because it was friggin huge! Really cool cache. As we signed the log, we heard a distinctive rattling noise. Everyone froze immediately except Ashlynne, who couldn't figure out why the rest of us were suddenly doing the Vogue.

As most of you who have read these blogs before know by now, Ashlynne is from New York, a part of the country so frigid that the only cold-blooded reptilian creature able to survive there is Senator Hillary Clinton. So Ashlynne, who ironically is the one of us most afraid of snakes, had no idea that she was listening to the sound of an irritated rattlesnake.

"Rattlesnake...", Mad Mike said, still not moving. "Over there. Damn, he's a big one..."
"How close?", I asked, still frozen.
"About 15 feet away. Peek around the rock and you'll see him. He's a big one."
"No, that's ok," I said, backing slowly away from the area where Mike pointed. "I think hearing the rattlesnake is enough for me. I don't really have to see him."

Everyone else agreed and we gingerly replaced the cache and left the rattler to his business. Now remember, at this point we're still not terribly far from the entrance. So did we go back, taking the rattlesnake's warning as a sign that maybe this isn't for us. No, no we didn't. We pressed on. We were tired already and our big backpack full of water was going away at an alarming rate, but why would that concern us? We're the Zen Bassmasters! We survived Monte Sano with no water at all.

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

By the time we reached the next cache, Jolly Green Wristwatch, we were all beat, even Fish, who is our "outdoorsman". Worse, the Wristwatch was 200ft straight uphill. We sent Ashlynne and Mad Mike up to sign the log and get the picture, while the rest of us tried to keep ourselves from having a heart attack.

At this point, we decided to screw the caches. We didn't care anymore. Not even Fish, who is usually a slave-driver in search of caches. We vowed to hit only caches that were along the trail or near it, no uphill climbing, no digging through briars, just focusing on survival.

And focus we did. We tried to conserve our water but we just got too thirsty and soon we were alarmed to see that we only had about 1 bottle each left. We began to wonder, if a full backpack wasn't enough, could we even bring enough water on a trek like this to have enough? More backpacks equal more weight equal more exertion, equal more thirst. Finally, we decided that the best bet was to fit Fish's Great Dane Barley for saddlebags, figuring if he carries 1/3 of his weight, he'd carry enough to get us through. Course, he'd probably also take out after the rattlesnake and then we'd have to figure how to tote a 120 lb snakebit dog off the mountain...

The biggest problem we had wasn't the elevation, as the trek was mostly down (with some unpleasant ups in between), it was the fact that the trail was mostly made up of rocks. We twisted our ankles like crazy, bruised our feet on the sharp rocks, and were constantly off-balance. It was just wearing us down and soon, all of us looked like Tserof in that picture from the last post (which was not posed, for those who asked. It was completely candid and actually before we got to the worst of it at the end).

We noticed Jolly Green Button was near the trail so we decided (very apathetically I might add) that we'd give it a try. Again, Mad Mike volunteered to scout for it and tell us how the trail was. As he's poking around we hear "Oh shit!" and see Mike backing away from a rock. Yep, another rattler. This one, fortunately, was either dead or asleep. Mike didn't seem interested in finding out, or in finding the button anymore so we moved on.

On the way, we saw a neat rock formation on the trail. Here's a picture...



We discussed what this might be. Fish jokingly started talking about some sort of Indian symbol. I told them I was pretty sure it was Hobbit trail-language for "Abandon Ye All Hope Who Enter Here."

Finally, we decided upon what we think is right. We decided it'd been set up by the folks who did this trail in the morning hours. They knew we were coming and we figure they set this up as the over/under on where we'd die. I'd say we proudly walked past the over/under rock, hopefully depriving some gambling hobbits of their winnings but, honestly, not much was funny by then so we just took a picture to prove we'd passed it and trundled on.

At this point, Tserof remembers that Frodo told us there was a stream somewhere in this area and started lamenting that we hadn't found it yet. We walked on with Tserof talking about the stream being dried up and all he really wanted was a little moisture to put on his head.

Finally, we did find the stream, really a trickle, and we still nearly had to stop Tserof swimming in it. It was kind of sad, but we were all so hot and tired by then that even a bunch of muddy water over our heads felt so nice it was like heaven. We rested there for a while until we thought we could go on.

Near the stream was a cache called RN2B's First that we decided to grab. We like RN2B. We've met her at a couple of events and she "gets" us. No putting caches under briars, no putting caches 300 ft straight down a mountain, no tying caches to rattlesnakes, just good quality caches, hidden within easy walk of the trail, and right where you think they would be.

RN2B, we'd make you an honorary Bassmaster but we like you too much to curse you that way.

We got the cache and Ashlynne decided to place her Jeep Travel Bug in it, figuring if people were willing to hike the mountain to get it, they could (and someone did, Frodo, the next morning).

We hit one more cache, Quarter Mile Granny Gear, on our way down. I'm sorry I'm not my usual descriptive self here but the rest of the hike was kind of a blur. I remember walking, hurting, encouraging Tserof (who looked like death, not even warmed over, just room temperature death), hurting more, being thirsty, and eventually, getting to the bottom.

We looked like crack addicts on free needle day heading for the cooler. Never has water been so worshipped. Never has water tasted so good. In fact, I'm going to try to recap Tserof's little speech as close to word for word as possible, as it very nicely sums up our thoughts on the day.

Warning to my teachers who plan to use this blog for their classes. You might want to leave this part off your lesson plan. We were too tired to censor ourselves.

Here you go, the wisdom of Tserof...

"This shit right here is some good shit. You never know how good water tastes until something like this. I'm telling you. This is the best stuff ever right here. I can't believe I don't drink it more. I love water."

And if that doesn't sum up the Zen Bassmaster philosophy more than anything, I don't know what does.

Next week, we aren't caching but instead are planning to scout out some locations in Lincoln County to place some caches. We did some research using the "History of Lincoln County" book in the local coffee shop and we think we've got some great historical caches to place, we just have to see what types of caches the areas support. If anything "blog worthy" happens, I'll write about it. Otherwise, stay tuned next week as I may pull out a "history of the Zen Bassmasters" column for filler, since we've had lots of questions at the meet and greet events about it.

Stay tuned.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Jolly Green Descent to Hell- August 5, 2006 Part 1

For those of you who have lamented that we'll eventually get better at this geocaching thing, thereby making for less interesting blogging, this week should put you at ease. This week, we headed up to Green Mountain in Huntsville on the recommendation of several area cachers who said we should check out the "Jolly Green" series of caches. If we had doubts that the hobbits and hobbit sympathizers were trying to kill us, this week erased it.

Actually, that's not really fair. While the hobbity types did sing the virtues of the Jolly Green caches, they also told us it was "a bit of a climb" and Frodo even met us at the entrance, drew us a map, and gave us his number to call if we "got to a point where you can't go any more." You'd think that sentence alone, from the person who nearly killed us on Monte Sano mountain, would have given us pause.

You'd think, but you'd be wrong...

Actually, the first thing that should have given us pause was when Fish, our eternal planner, sent us a mapped out list of caches in the area, mounting up into a 2.7 mile trip. 2.7 miles is around what Mad Mike and I do at the gym every night walking. It's more than Tserof's ever done more than a couple of times. But, being idiots, we decided that it was almost all downhill, we'd bring plenty of water, and we'd stop frequently to rest ourselves.

Little did we know...

The day started off as usual for the Zen Bassmasters, with us having to turn around. We planned to park Fish's Jeep at the bottom of the trail and my van at the top so we wouldn't have to hike back up (the only smart thing we did). Unfortunately, this wasn't as simple a plan as it would seem. By now, you should know the routine here but, for any new readers, it went something like this...

"Is that the parking lot?"
"I can't tell... Maybe."
"Should I stop?"
"Don't stop here."
"But isn't that the church?"
"I think it is..."
"But we're going to the top!"
"Without Fish and Tserof?..."
"Yes we're... oh..."

By that time, the church had passed us. No problem, I thought. I'll just turn around. Unfortunately, after the church, there's not a heck of a lot of places to turn around until WAAAY up on the top. It ended up being for the best though as the "top" parking area was not well marked and we'd have missed it if we hadn't seen Frodo's car there.

We hurried afraid he might leave before we got back. No fear. Frodo saw the "low rider minivan" and knew it had to be us. We went back and got Tserof and Fish, then headed back up.

The second thing that should have given us pause was that it was HOT. I mean hot hot hot. Hot to a point where "hot" becomes a four letter word. We commented on it, but being idiots, we didn't say "hey, let's do the 3 mile hike in October..." We said "oh, it'll be cooler once we get in the woods." Besides, we had an entire backpack full of water. What could go wrong?

What indeed...

That's all I can do for today, but I promise more very soon. Next time on Adventures in Geocaching, we have rattlesnakes, dehydration, hobbit gambling, and Tserof looking like this...



See you soon...