Caching My Way Back Home- Part 1

No reason for that title this week, other than Rush's "Finding My Way" has been running through my skull for some reason, so there you have both the title and the soundtrack for this week.

This week, we're caching around Huntsville, culminating in the Adios Dog Days event. Tserof is out this week so it's just me, Fish, Mad Mike, and Ashlynne. No children. No newbies. Just the core.

Our first cache this week is Dragon's Breath. We parked under the bridge, noted the homeless population off to the side, and also noted that the coordinates seemed suspiciously close to the railroad tracks. It was listed as a pretty high difficulty so we figured something fishy must be up. We looked around a culvert nearby, and had no luck. We were still a bit suspicious of the proximity to the railroad tracks, so we rebooted the GPSr and it continued to point the same place. Took us another half hour or so to find it but it was worth the effort. I won't say anymore than that to keep from spoiling the cache other than to say it involved a rubber chicken and any cache that involves a rubber chicken is ok with me.

Our second cache is Huntsville Arch, by our old friend and noted hobbit sympathizer Rick618. This one's on the walkway that goes over University Drive to UAH. I've never been here before and it was pretty neat standing on top and watching the traffic zoom underneath. This is another tough difficulty cache and it earned every point of it. Only one who associates with the ultimate evil, hobbits, could ever devise such a mean and evil cache. We looked high and low, climbed up and down the walkway. Ashlynne even looked under the walkway. Finally, I read the clue again, remembered that Rick would probably want his cache to be accessible to the short, hairy-footed set, and looked downward. That did it and we found thecache. Very cool hide.

Next up is another of Rick's caches, Remember Dred Scott. This one's in an old slave cemetary that I didn't even know existed in Huntsville. I always like it when we learn something new with a cache. Good hide on this one too. It nearly eluded us.

Next up was the one I was most looking forward to as I'd heard a lot of good things about it. Thornton Research Park. As usual, we ended up having to turn around, although Fish insisted on calling it a "semi-circular course correction", a theme which would continue throughout a day filled with them.

Thornton Research Park didn't disappoint. Again, I can't really say much here other than to say that it combined my two least favorite types of caches, micros and guardrail caches, but did something so unique with them that it was much more than the usual cliche. Great cache. Took us a while to find this one but it was well worth it. We've definitely got to bring Tserof and the others back to do this one, as it's not one to be missed. If you haven't done it, go do it. Right now, I'll wait.... Done it? Good. Moving on.

Next up was Trading Pez, which appears to have been overtaken by construction. The road leading in was closed and the land around it was posted. We decided not to go beyond the posted sign and so had to DNF this one.

Next up was "Off the Beaten Path." This one took a couple of "semi-circular course corrections" to get to and then, in true Zen Bassmaster fashion, we parked and walked across a grown up vacant lot only to find the cache right next to a nice busy road. Typical. I dropped the geocoin I got at last week's MTGC event here.

Next up was P.O. which was, appropriately, near the post office. Little walk from there but an easy enough find. Not much to say here other than Ashlynne and I took the proximity of the post office to drop off some bills we forgot to mail this morning. I'm sure the electric company will appreciate the side trip, or at least hopefully Easy Reader will (bonus points for anyone who gets the reference).

Next up is Overnight in Rocket City. Yet another set of "semi-circular course corrections" to get to this one. On the way in, Ashlynne spots a little waterfall garden outside and comments on the nice water. Fish, looking the other direction at the sprinkler system, is unimpressed. Finally, on the way out, we show him what Ashlynne was talking about. Picked up a bug here to move northward next week. About the only notable thing here is that we had to make a walking semi-circular course correction on this one as we trailblazed our way down and then discovered that we'd passed the cache right up. Typical.

Our last cache before the event was Chew Chew Cache. A bit of an uphill walk on this one. Not good when Gryphon has an empty stomach. We trudged up the hill and found the cache pretty easily (actually, Fish had it out before I managed to come huffing and puffing up. Between the hunger and the headache I'd been having all day, I wasn't moving too quickly.

From there, we headed for the event, which I will write up later as it's late and I'm tired. Tune in later this week for the exciting adventures of the Zen Bassmasters mucking about with hobbity types, encountering the legendary chupacabra, and working out a health care plan with honorary Bassmaster RN2B.

See you then.