How to DNF an Entire Frickin' River- 7/29/06

This past Saturday was an unusual caching day for the Zen Bassmasters. It was the Summer Shoals Meet and Greet, our second meet in a week. Apparently, idiocy has its own form of celebrity as we had several people say they liked our blog and asking us to come. It's about a 80 minute drive from Fayetteville (in perfect conditions, more on that later) but the Zen Bassmasters believe in keeping their friends close and evil scheming hobbits closer, so we figured we'd better go and make sure Frodo behaved and didn't lead any unsuspecting newbies into the depths of Mordor. The soundtrack for this week is Tom Petty's new album "Highway Companion", featuring the Zen Bassmasters new theme song "Turn This Car Around." More on that later too.

We set out at about 11 am, figuring two hours should be plenty of time to get there. You'd think we would learn eventually, but we never do. The trip down was mostly uneventful (if hot. the AC's out in my van). The kicker came when we got near Sheffield. There was some discussion about one of two ways to get to Sheffield. Ashlynne was being told to go different directions, sometimes at the same time. Poor confused girl. Added to that was our need to find a grocery store as we hadn't bought any food to bring to the event beyond Ash's deviled eggs. With three of the four of us being on the Atkins diet, we weren't sure there's be enough food that we could eat. Surely, we thought, there's a Kroger or something in Sheffield.

Actually, there's not, as we discovered. We did see a Foodland, on the other side of the road, across traffic and a median. Finally, we decided we'd just roll the dice on there being enough food and just press on, as we were just barely going to be on time.

Then we hit Sheffield proper...

When I say "Sheffield proper", you have to understand that no one lives in Sheffield. No one. The entire town is empty, or at least the part we saw was. It looked like the set from one of those post-apocolyptic movies.

The other thing you need to know about Sheffield is that the roads make no sense. 3 or 4 roads converge together and none seem to lead anywhere. Roads turn into 1 way streets without warning, double back on themselves, and confuse. We ran up on this big water tower looking thing with a roundabout going around it. This became a familiar sight as we somehow managed to circle this thing at least 5 times. All roads led to this tower. I've been watching Stephen King's Nightmares and Dreamscapes the last couple of weeks and this was beginning to look like an episode straight from it. Either that or Groundhog Day.

How, you may ask, do we not find a park, in a small town, that we have coordinates to in a GPS? Because we're the Zen Bassmasters and that's how we roll...

First problem was, the GPS kept insisting that the park was out in the middle of the river. Second problem was that we could SEE the river, but could never find a road to take us to where we needed to go. Around and around we went. Oh look, the tower thing... Let's try this one way street leading AWAY from the tower, which somehow... still leads us back to the tower. No, I'm not sure how that's possible, but it happened.

In the end, it took us an hour to find the park. Yes, you read that right. We almost DNF'd an event. I'm pretty sure that's a first...

But we found it, finally, after locating the only functional business in Sheffield and asking directions.

So we did get to the event, bringing the rain with us unfortunately, and also unfortunately missing the brief appearance of Cyrusel, our blog's only fan. But there were lots of other people there, some we'd met, some we'd not, and fortunately, enough Atkins-friendly food to eat. Good thing we brought drinks along with us (having finally learned our lesson in Adequate Hydration 101.)

I suck bad with names so I'm not even going to try to put down everyone we talked to because I'd certainly forget someone. Frodo was there, eating as any good hobbit would be, and likely plotting the untimely demise of the Zen Bassmasters. Rick618 and RN2B from the event last Tuesday were there, and several others from the Dixie Cachers board.

Lots of nice comments about the blog. All are appreciated. We'll keep doing stupid stuff for your amusement as long as you'll keep reading about it.

We also got into a discussion with some folks about making a custom geocoin, as we're in serious discussion now with a couple of coin makers for the first ZB coin. Saw a lot of neat coins and travelbugs and dropped off a couple of our own. If you run across Ashlynne's Home Sweet Home coin, do us the favor of moving it northward. Why she took it 75 miles south of our home when its goal is to make it to New York, I don't know. Actually, having driven with Ashlynne providing directions in the past, I can understand it...

After the event, the Bassmasters, Frodo, Icewoman, WheresDiB, Will2003, and Tasia went on a run of micros around the Sheffield area. Had some luck too. I don't know if that's just because their skill outpaced our ineptitude or if Fish is just our bad luck in the group, since he didn't show this week. I can't remember all the cache names offhand so I'm not going to list them individually. They were urban micros so even Team Zen Bassmasters couldn't screw them up too badly.

Yes, Team Zen Bassmasters, or TZB. We needed one name to sign the micro logs and that was Tasia's suggestion. "You've read our blog?", I asked her. "Yes," she assured me. "So you know taking on the ZB name, even for a day, is a sure ticket to DNF heaven?" I asked. They seemed ok with that so on we pressed. Hopefully our awful luck didn't hurt them on their cache runs toward home.

After a few caches, the groups split up, since some of us were going northward and some south. Tasia was nice enough to invite us down to Birmingham to cache that area and we plan to eventually take her up on the offer.

All in all, a good day. Good food, good people, a lot of cool coins and bugs, and some good caching. Thanks to everyone who made a bunch of stupid newbies feel like family.

Next week, Huntsville and the Jolly Green series. Wish us luck... I heard the word "mountain."

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...

Geocaching Hootenanny: 7/22/06

This week is a different week for us as our geocaching trip is also a celebration of Ashlynne getting a new job. So we've got some extra people along this week. Our usual crew of me, Ashlynne, Tserof, Mad Mike, and Fish are along, but we've also got Fish's wife Khri, his 3-year old son Vorin, and our friend Doc. Our soundtrack for this week is a mix of my blues collection in honor of Doc coming along.

Because we had all of the new people along, we decided to do some low-impact caches in the Lewisburg area to get our new folks' feet wet, and end the day with a cook-out at Berlin Springs park, which we found on a cache run a few weeks ago.

Our first cache was called "Rocks" and it was aptly named as the GPS pointed us to a big pile of rocks on the side of the road. We were a bit apprehensive, having just last week spent 15 minutes trying to find the one dark rock in a huge pile of rocks. Needless to say, the 3 year old LOVED the big rocks. The rest of us... not so much. As Mad Mike pointed out "until last week I hadn't climbed a rock pile since I was 10 and now I've done it twice."

The cache was listed as a large cache so you'd think it'd be easy to find. But you'd be wrong. Once again, we turned over rock after rock and once again we found nothing. The three year old, who is in a pirate kick recently, was unhappy that his "treasure hunt" has produced no treasure. Finally, we logged it as a DNF and moved on.

Next up is a cache called The Bumpiest Bridge in the Land and boy did it live up to the claim. Fish, in his giant Jeep, drove across it easily. We, in my Plymouth Voyager minivan, did not. This has been a recurring problem in our geocaching trips. My minivan is more suited for hauling children to soccer games than to off-roading so the ground clearance is not so good. Add to that the fact that there were 4 people in the van who went near or over 400lbs and another who goes over 200 and the van looked like one of those low-rider cars you see cruising around the mall on Saturday night. All I needed was some bumpy music and a sideways hat and I'd be set. On top of that, Ashlynne was driving.

It's a testament to how much my daily 50 mile commute to work has put me off driving that I let Ashlynne drive my van on these trips. It's not that Ash is a bad driver... Ok, it really IS that Ash is a bad driver. She's from New York and, having ridden with several members of her family, I'm pretty sure they all drive that way. In our weeks of geocaching, we've left little bitty pieces of my transmission in 12 counties now over 2 states.

Anyway, I start to freak out as Ash heads toward the bridge and I can hear my mechanic smiling all the way in Fayetteville. But this bridge is bad enough that even Ash decides maybe the mini isn't up for it and parks on the other side. Once again the 3 year old jumps out of Fish's Jeep excited about a great treasure hunt. Once again, he's destined to be disappointed as this week's episode of Zen Bassmaster Geocaching is being brought to you by the letters D, N, and F. We kind of expected this one going in as the last two logs were DNF but it was on the way so we thought we'd give it a go. Sure enough, no dice on the find. Little Vorin was not amused. We tried to explain to him that pirates had to dig through a lot of places before finding treasure but he wasn't buying it. You'd think having two doses of Zen Bassmasters genetics from his mom and dad would make him accustomed to failure straight from the womb but apparently not.

Trying to avert a micro-pirate mutiny, we quickly loaded back up into the car and moved on to our next cache, Yanahli Gatekeeper. This one's description promised what looked to be a park and grab, and had been found earlier this month so we hoped this would finally be where Vorin got to claim his "treasure."

It wasn't looking great when we first got there. The road was only a road in the academic sense that cars might once have traveled it successfully. Again, Fish's Godzillajeep had no problems but my poor van was demanding combat pay. We get parked and got out. The GPS pointed in a bunch of trees but there didn't seem to be any cache around. Finally we cast about for a little bit and Fish located something that looked likely. It was kind of a lunchpail looking container. We sent Vorin in to retrieve it, hoping that this really was the cache and not the weeks-old remains of someone's picnic. Vorin brought it out of the hiding place and we all held our breath, waiting for the odor of rotten tuna fish sandwiches. Fortunately, it was the cache and loaded with 3-year old appropriate toys. Vorin looked like he'd been given the keys to his own Toys-R-Us store.

We settled down to the serious task of choosing a prize. Vorin looked through the cache and decided he wanted all of it. "Oh great", I thought. "That should put me in good standing with the trade Nazis who have chastised me over some of our previous trades being $.04 less than what we left or something." Fortunately, we convinced Vorin that he had to leave all but one item so future pirates would have treasure to dig up too. He seemed ok with that, being a socialist pirate and believing in fair distribution of booty among the classes, and picked out a squirt gun as his prize.

While we were replacing the cache and getting our gear ready for the next one, we sent Ashlynne on alone in the van to turn around (as the road was too narrow to turn here). Just as she gets out of sight, Fish pulls up the cache in the GPS and sees that it's off in the direction we just sent Ashlynne to go turn around. Figures. We decide since it's only .3 miles away, we'll just walk it. As we're walking along, we meet Ashlynne coming back and tell her the "good news." She wasn't amused and trundled off back down the other way to find yet another place to turn around. We walked on and Ash caught up to us just as we got to the cache, called "Short but Stout, a Tribute to the Bridge Builder." Let me just say WOW. This is the reason I geocache. Actually, my description will never do this justice so let me post a picture.



The picture doesn't really even do it justice as you really had to be there and see the whole thing. Beautiful old stone bridge built who knows when by someone with a ton of skill. We can't even begin to speculate on how long this must have taken with the technology they had at the time but it's a tribute to what the old guys could do.

After seeing the bridge, the cache was an afterthought to everyone but our budding pirate Captain Vorin the Small. We quickly found the cache and got Vorin his loot, then stood around for a while longer looking at the really cool bridge. Did I mention it was cool? It was cool. If I had to pick a time that I saw the "geocaching addiction" light go on in Doc's eyes, it's here. Doc, our resident historian and knower-of-all-things (but in an Einstein way, not a Cliff Clavin way) was tickled to death.

Our next cache was Under Pressure. The description had a nice long piece about the Tennessee Natural Gas pipeline. This one was promised as a park and grab and it lived up to every bit of its name as Khri had found the cache before the rest of us had gotten out of the car. Once again, Vorin took his pick of the treasure, this time choosing a pair of sunglasses that looked like they came from the Liberace collection, causing his father, who has visions of the little guy becoming something like a diesel mechanic or backhoe driver or something similarly manly, to groan.

Vorin then decided to play with the glasses and the gun at the same time. Let me tell you, he looked like Elton John had been tagged to play James Bond. All he needed was a license to accessorize.

Actually, let me show you as this was just too fun to not show a picture of, and I know it will drive Fish crazy...



We loaded up and headed for the next cache, called "Who Tilled the Soil With Mules and Plows", which was a cemetary cache. Yay. I love cemetary caches. As we pulled up to the church, which was quite beautiful by the way, we noticed a truck with a mower on it parked down by the road. We looked around and didn't see the mower so we went in hoping to grab the cache and get out before the muggle noticed us. No dice. The clue said "under one of the boxwood trees by the gate." Tserof, who gave himself the name Dr. Dendrology a few weeks back if you remember, pointed to this gigantic oak in the middle of the cemetary and proclaimed that a boxwood. We were pretty sure he was wrong since it looked like a huge oak and was smack in the middle of the cemetary but he's Dr. Dendrology so we headed that way, reading some of the old markers on the way. Just as we had officially decided to change Tserof's title to "Dr. Dingbat" and move to what we were pretty sure actually were the boxwoods located right beside the gate, the muggle decided to come over and see what we were up to. Having GPS units and digging under a tree, we decided that telling him we were looking for our dead relatives probably wouldn't fly, so we were honest. We explained geocaching to him and told him how much we loved his church and the old cemetary. We piled it on about learning a little history. He made some comment about how far technology has come, gave us the name of an old guy down the street who "knows everything about this place" and left. I don't think we made a geocaching convert, but I don't think he'll report the cache and remove it either. He seemed ok with us being there. Nevertheless, we signed the log and headed out just in case.

Next up was Fording the Duck, which had a long history lesson in the description telling about the area's significance during the civil war. We had a bit of trouble with this one as we couldn't seem to get the two GPS units to point the same way. Tserof's kept insisting the cache was in the middle of the street and Mad Mike's kept saying it was off in the trees. Finally, Tserof spots it right near the road and we sign the log. Just a micro here so no treasure for Vorin. It's all good though, as he was still enjoying his squirt gun and sunglasses, comparing swatches with the other secret agents and shopping for track lighting.

Next up was Happy Duck River Trails. The description for this one told in great detail where it was. Easy find, right? Ah, silly reader, remember. We're the Zen Bassmasters. We can make any easy find difficult. To our credit, the coordinates were WAY off on this one. I mean WAY off. Off by a few hundred yards. Still, it told where the cache was in the description and, once someone finally bothered to go check that spot and damn the GPS, it was there. Figures...

Next up is Last of the Mojitos. This one had been logged as a DNF a few times recently but we were already there so we decided to give it a go. Beautiful area. Worth the trip for the view alone. How beautiful?



I was content to just sit and look at the water, in true Zen Bassmaster fashion, but being the group's recorder of misdeeds, I figured I better come along. Good thing I did as this turned into a doozy...

We walked along until we got to where the cache was supposed to be. Couldn't find it. We started trying to read things into the "tiki" bit and started looking in and around trees that looked vaguely tiki-ish. Course, the only one of us who knew what a tiki looked like was Khri, who had seen one watching Scooby Doo with Vorin. So we were looking for trees that looked like characters from bad Hanna Barbera cartoons.

As we're looking around, Khri looks over the side of the ledge and sees something that looks likely. "Surely not", we thought, as the climb down to it was going to be a hell of a lot more than the 2.5 terrain advertised. Of course, we have experience with this but Frodo was in no way involved in this one. Nevertheless Fish sees it and also agrees it looks a bit like a cache box. Most of us refuse to climb down the rocks to get it, not wanting a broken neck for our our troubles. Fish and Khri decide to leave Vorin with us and go down for it. I begin to have visions of both of them breaking their skulls and my inheriting a kid. We even took a picture of them climbing down, so we'd have something to give the police when they came. "No really, officer. They went down there voluntarily!"



That's Fish and Khri climbing down as Mike looks on from up top, probably thinking "What a bunch of doofuses." As they climb down, we begin to speculate on what terrain climb that is. Some said 4. I insisted it was a 5. "It can't be a 5," Fish said. "Because it doesn't require special equipment." I pointed out that serious mental illness could be considered a needed special equipment for the cache and Fish had to agree.

They go to the bottom and headed for the "cache" only to discover that the cache they had just climbed down for was actually an oil can... Yep. It's the Bassmaster way.

Fish and Khri managed to climb up without breaking their necks and we looked around a bit more for the cache but didn't find it. By now we were all tired and decided to head out for Berlin Springs and food.

We drove to Berlin Springs and discovered that apparently there was a candidates forum going on at the park (we speculated that possibly the candidates stood on the rock there in the park and made speeches) and there were officially about 100 too many muggles around to cache or cook out in there today.

So we headed for the local chinese restaurant for dinner and celebration of Ash's new job.

Yep. Our easy week of P&G caches netted us barely over 50% of the caches. Yep. It's the Bassmaster way...

Next week we'll be going to a meet and greet with our old nemesis Frodo and his group in Huntsville on Tuesday. I'm still a bit afraid he'll try to push us down a terrain 5 mountain, all the time screaming "It's a 2.5!!!" or "My precious" or something, but I never turn down an opportunity at Chinese food. Also, all of us but Fish will be at the big Meet and Greet in Sheffield on Saturday. If you're there, come by and say hello. I always like to meet people who read the journal. We won't be hard to locate. Just look for the people who look like a herd of water buffalo.

Roll with the Caches, Part 2

Ok, I'm back. Deadwood was great last night, as was Entourage, but it's back down to business now. Here's the second part of our adventures for the week.

Our next cache was one called Checking Station, which was a pretty good name for it since it was right behind the Hunter's Checking Station. We were greeted with another of the signs telling us that we WILL enjoy ourselves in the nature area. Again, Mad Mike and I made with the Guantanamo jokes, much to the displeasure of Fish, who, politically, is slightly to the right of Hitler. We headed into the woods to look for the cache, which had the clue "Be sure to log your find." The guys began to complain about the useless clue but I had an idea. "Hey, wasn't that the clue a few weeks ago at Watchtower? Is it the same guy?" Sure enough it was. So as the rest of the gang wandered around, I headed for a likely looking log and, sure enough, it was there. See, kids, it pays to remember your history. Inside the cache, we found quite possibly the coolest prize in the history of caches. Contained inside was something the older of us in the group had heard of, but never seen in person. Contained inside was a child of the 80's version of the Holy Grail.

Inside was K-Tel's "Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute." If you grew up in the 1980's, you smiled when you read that. Admit it, you did. Zamfir might be the "Master of the Pan Flute" but he's also the "Master of the Crappy Late Night Commercial" as K-Tel ran millions of commercials for Zamfir, always accompanied by that awful, drowsy, sappy flute music. Tserof and Ashlynne, younger than the rest of us, had never heard of Zamfir. Mad Mike explained it best. "He got overtaken by Kenny G in the 90's for the 'music to put you to sleep' crowd."

We didn't take the Zamfir tape, partially because we had nothing to leave and partially because it just didn't seem right. If we took it, what Grail would errant knights search for in their caching quests? What pleasures would we be denying future cachers if we kept Zamfir for ourselves? What potential insomniac cachers are searching valiantly for their cure, already having become immune to the ministrations of Yanni, all for naught as we took their only cure? It just didn't seem right.

Reluctantly leaving Zamfir, we moved on to the next cache, Boat Ramp. Once again, the naming was right on as there was a boat ramp about 30 yards from the cache. The water looked tempting in the near 100 degree weather and Tserof seemed ready to dive in, but I suddenly remembered that my dad had stopped taking me fishing at Wood's Reservoir as a child because the government had issued a warning about eating the catfish due to the contamination in the water. Not wanting to see Tserof grow an extra set of toes, I quickly steered him away from the water and toward the cache. This one was listed as a mini but was more like a micro, a small paintball tube with nothing more than a log inside. I guess it's just as well. After Zamfir, any prizes would have been a letdown.

Next up was Prairie Plains Crossing. **Warning. This one contains some spoilers for the cache's location. If you plan to hit this cache and want to be surprised, don't read on. I usually try to avoid giving away cache locations but in this case, the only way to illustrate the sheer idiocy of our team is to give away the general location of the cache. You've been warned**
We parked the minivan beside the road in but Fish decided his oh so manly 4X4 could handle the rough road in. Fish was, unfortunately, wrong as he discovered wheel-deep in a mudhole that his 4WD was not currently functional. Hilarity ensued as we watched Fish attempt to get his (now) 2WD Jeep out of the mud. Needless to say, Fish decided once he got out of the mud that maybe we'd just hike in from there. And hike we did. Over brambles and under. Through dense foliage and around to... the bridge about 50 yards from our cars. We're now under the bridge, surrounded by brush, and searching like crazy for the cache in a pile of rocks, a pile of brush, and a pile of weeds. Finally, Mad Mike climbs up onto the bridge and looks around the area surrounding the bridge. Sure enough, right on the bridge, easily accessible from the road, 50 yards from the car, is the cache. We take a moment to ponder the fact that we've just spent about 45 minutes scratching ourselves up, nearly needing a tow truck for Fish's Jeep, climbing up slopes, fighting mosquitos, and overturning rocks for what should have been a park and grab. Yes, we ARE the Zen Bassmasters. Doing it the hard way... because we can!" On the way back to the car (and beyond, since walking to the car took all of 30 seconds) I said "Did the GPS go screwy?", wondering why it didn't point right to the bridge. "Oh no," Fish tells me, "It did point toward the bridge. We just didn't think it could be that easy..." *sigh* Yes, we are all morons. Myself included. As a great man (Obi Wan Kenobi) once said, "Who's the bigger idiot? The fool, or the fool who follows him?"

Our final cache is "East of Nowhere." By now we're pretty tired, especially Ash and I, who have been outside pretty much constantly since 5 am. Driving to the cache, which promised difficulty in even finding roads to get there, Tserof notices the cache is about a .5 mile hike in, the last 300 yards of which promise to be "impenetrable brambles". Great. By now, my legs are jelly and I'm seeing spots (did I mention the van's AC doesn't work?). I'm not sure I'm up for a mile of walking, especially not through "impenetrable brambles" which brings up visions of last week's caches, the scars of which we all still bear (literally. Fish's legs still look like he had gotten a pedicure from Jason Vorhees). But, since Fish and Mad Mike were gung ho to try it and since I am the group's scribe, I figured what the hell. Besides, I figure a mile of walking at the end of the day in near 100 degree heat will make for some interesting fodder for the blog. Yes, Gentle Readers, I suffer so you don't have to. I ask only that you remember this on my birthday. I take Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, and will even return them to you in 4 to 6 months when I've finished with them.

Anyhow, we lucked out as most of the half mile was on a well-used ATV trail. The needed "mule team" to get in that was advertised in the description was not needed at all. It winded us a little but you have to remember, we're all 400lbs. Getting out of bed in the morning winds us. On we trek, dodging the ATVs speeding past, until Fish tells us we need to divert off the path. "Great", we think. "Here comes the 200 yards of impassable brambles." Well, the path was littered with brambles but anyone who rated them "impassable" needs to visit a random Frodo cache to learn the true meaning of pain. Onward we pressed, only slightly bloodier for the trip until we came to where the cache was supposed to be... right onto a road. Yes, once again we'd traveled through weeds, logs, and briars, only to come out on a nice flat road... You see a pattern here? We look around and see a beer can stuck onto the branch of a tree. Aha! A clue. The five of us, all budding Sherlocks, look around the area where the can is, to no avail. At this time, the GPS' have both had some time to talk to more sats and are now agreeing that the cache is in the middle of a field of corn on the other side of the road. Surely not, we think. Finally, Fish re-checks the coordinates we've entered against the PDA and, sure enough, we've entered them wrong. We re-input the right coordinates and the GPS' dutifully point us in the right direction... about 200 yards back the way we came. Yes, we did trample through 200 yards of bramble for nothing... for the second time today. "Boldly Going Where No One Saw Any Need to Go Before." It's the ZB way...

Back we go through the brambles and bush and the GPS units lead us right to the cache, which is about 20 feet off the trail. Did I mention we're idiots? We're idiots. And the worst part is, during all this, all I can think is "At least I've got something interesting for the blog."

As we walked back out Mad Mike and I engaged in our favorite game, baiting Fish with political discussions. Ash held back and played the role of coach, attempting to get Tserof to the car without dying.

Fortunately, everyone made it to the car alive and we moved toward home, tired but satisfied with our day's accomplishments.

In fact, speaking of accomplishment, this is the first ZB trip with a 100% find rate! Yay for us.

Tune in next week when, hopefully, we can continue our streak. Next week we have some friends with us, some of which have some varying states of disability, as well as Fish's 3 year-old and non-caching wife, my cousin. So we're doing all terrain 1 and 2 caches, culminating with a cookout at Berlin Springs park (which we discovered a few weeks ago while doing caches) to celebrate Ash's getting a new job.

Until next week, I leave you with a tribute to our patron saint...

Roll With the Caches- July 15, 2006- Part 1

Another week, another set of caches. This week, Ash and I had a yard sale in the morning hours so, after a long morning of sitting outside in the heat begging people to give us pennies for our crap, we were already sweaty and ready to cache. Our usual crew met up with Fish in Estill Springs for some caching around Woods Reservoir. Today's a big day as Mad Mike became the second Zen Bassmaster to get a GPS unit and this will be her virgin run. We actually looked kind of funny walking around today as two GPS units and a PDA made us look like Away Teams from an episode of Star Trek. All we needed was someone with pointy ears and a guy with a red shirt who dies. The soundtrack for this week is Fleetwood Mac: Vintage Years Live.

We had planned to do our first cache in Estill Springs Park but there was some sort of event going on which included a $5 charge for parking. The presence of large numbers of muggles combined with our overall cheap-ness (remember, I'm the guy who won't pay for premium access) made us decide to give it a skip for the day.

Next up was a cache called Walk the Walk. Right off we encountered problems. Mike's GPS, which had been almost completely in sync with Tserof's on the drive up, suddenly decided that the cache was on the other side of the highway, about a quarter mile from where Tserof's was pointing. We quickly checked the coordinates to be sure that both had the same ones (and the right ones, crosschecked against the PDA) and they did. Tserof suggested a reboot, remembering that seemed to help his when it was doing similar things a few weeks back. Mike reboots and his GPS still insists the cache is on the other side of the highway. We consult the paperwork again and decide that we'll go with Tserof's GPS reading. We head down the trail to where Tserof's GPS led us and found the cache in pretty easy fashion.

Cache 2 was called Sun Drop. It was a park and grab right off a road near a convenience store. Ash found this one and, I have to say, it's one of the best camo jobs I've seen so far. I won't go into more details so as not to spoil anyone's find but suffice it to say it went well beyond the normal grey paint or duct tape approach. If you're in the area, go check it out. It's an easy grab, but the good hide made it a challenge. Nice for us large folk, especially those of us who have been outside yard sale-ing since 5 am.

Next up is The Dam Elk River Cache which, ironically, is right by a dam. Turning on to the road, we were faced with two signs. One said "No Through Traffic Permitted" and promised it was enforced by the Air Force (as this was around Arnold AFB). The second one said "Through Traffic Permitted." We pondered this for a moment and decided that we were willing to risk MPs in search of a cache. Onward we went. As soon as we got out of the car, we knew something was odd. "Who farted?", I asked, looking directly at Mad Mike. Mike, who is world reknowned for his impressively odorous flatulence, insisted it wasn't him. We both looked at Tserof. "Wasn't me!", he insists. Fish? Nope. Fish is pretty far ahead. We finally decide it's Ash, who I sleep next to nightly and can testify can fart with the best of us. Not her either. We walk on and notice the smell walks with us. Finally, Fish identifies it. "Sulpher", he tells us. Apparently, the entire area had farted. Not overpowering, but not pleasant either. We decide to quickly grab the cache and move on to less smelly areas.

The cache was in a pile of rocks. The clue was "near the dark rock." Problem is, there were LOTS of dark rocks. So we, in typical ZB fashion, decided the solution was to look under all of them. Sure enough, this worked (after about 10 minutes) and Tserof located the cache. Admittedly, the rock it was under was considerably darker than most of the ones around it, but still. It was kind of like finding a needle in a crack house. Lots of needles, but if you need a specific one, not so good. But we found it, and that's all that matters.

Next up is one called Water's Edge. Honestly, I can't remember much about this one. Ash and I have been sitting here talking about it for several minute but neither of us remembers much so nothing terribly funny must have happened. Also, it's premium only so I can't look at it to jog my memory (although Ash can and it didn't help). I'm getting too old for this. Maybe I should take a notebook to sketch down notes during the hunt. Anyway, we found it. The only thing I remember was that it had a set of suspenders in it which we almost took to give to a friend who has a persistent problem with showing far more of his butt than any of us wants to see (and he isn't even a plumber) but didn't because we didn't have anything to leave and I've already been lectured once this week about taking swag and not leaving items of "equal or greater value." More on that later. The only other thing of note that happened here was that Fish nearly backed over a sign which read something to the effect of "We have provided this nature area for your enjoyment. If you litter, we'll take the right away from you." That's not exactly right but it's close. We had fun with it because it was written in that no-nonsense military style that seemed to insist that you WILL have a good time and promising dire consequences if you don't. Mad Mike and I made numerous jokes about being sent to Guantanamo for frowning in the nature area.

Ok, it's almost 8 and Deadwood is about to come on so consider this part 1 of a two part episode while I go watch Deadwood. I'll post the second half of our adventure later tonight or tomorrow.

Until then, happy caching!

Custom Geocoins

That's the beginning of an image we plan to use for our Zen Bassmasters Custom Geocoin. We've been looking at prices online and, so far, it's been pretty darn expensive, not to mention the fact that we'd then have 100 geocoins.

So my questions, gentle readers, are these.

1. Does anyone recommend any specific companies for custom geocoins. We're looking for good value, good workmanship, and trackability through geocaching.com

2. Do you recommend any certain type of geocoin over another?

3. If we tried to sell some of our extras, what is the market like for custom coins? What's the general going rate for them and what sites are out there to either sell them through or find out information about selling them?

Every Cache Has Its Thorns- 7/8/06

Sorry to everyone for the delay in posting new material. We didn't cache last week because several of us went to a Trailer Park Troubadours concert. Tserof didn't go so the GPS didn't go so we didn't get to cache around Nashville. We did cache this past Saturday but I came down with a nasty cold and had to stay home from work on Monday. I could have blogged but blogging and Nyquil don't really mix. It says so on the bottle.

**Cheap Plug**
If you get a chance to see the Trailer Park Troubadours in your area, go see them. Excellent music, good stage show, and a bunch of great guys. Go see them.

But read my blog first.

Anyway, on this day, we had a beer run to make, having to pick up a bunch of microbrews from the folks at Middle Ages Brewing Company in Syracuse. Ash's mom had just gone up there and, since we'd gotten addicted to the beer when a friend came down earlier in the year and, since you can't get Syracuse microbrews in Tennessee, we sent her with a list. Ash's mom was in Smyrna so we sent Fish off to geocaching.com to scout caches in the Smyrna area.

At this point, I should explain Fish to you. Most caching groups probably have one person like Fish. Fish is our obsessive/compulsive geocacher, often planning out caching trips two, three, four weeks in advance. He's a good guy to have around as we don't have to do any of the work, just show up where he tells us and cache.

This week, Fish finds a group of caches on a trail at Percy Priest lake. He e-mails us with his list all mapped out and gleefully tells us that it's a 5 mile round trip hike and there's two caches that are 3 terrain. We all take a minute to see if it sinks in for him...

It didn't.

Finally, I e-mail him and nicely (because Fish gets very defensive about his cache planning and because he's married to my cousin, who I'm afraid of) try to explain the physics of a bunch of fat people, only one of whom has ever managed to walk 5 miles straight at the gym on the flat, air conditioned track, trying to trek through 5 miles of woods, navigating terrain 3, the mention of which still gives Tserof flashbacks of Frodo and sometimes causes him to lie down in the fetal position mumbling "make the bad hobbit go away..."

Finally, Fish sees the error of his ways (or at least doesn't relish having to carry us) and re-makes his cache list to give us only a 2 mile round trip and a couple of terrain 3 caches. We gave Tserof his medicine to stop the shakes and made plans.

The group this week consisted of me, Ash, Mad Mike, Fish, Tserof, and Jalera. The soundtrack for this week was Todd Snider's "Near Truths and Hotel Rooms" and Jason Ringenberg's "Empire Builders."

We arrived at Percy Priest lake and our first cache, "Welcome to East Fork Recreation Area", was right at the entrance. This would have been good except there was no place to pull off and no place to park so I ended up sitting in the middle of the road, watching for cops or park security, while Fish and Mad Mike grabbed the cache and signed the book. We didn't linger long enough to read the log or peruse the toys as I was seriously paranoid about just standing in the middle of the road. Easy find but not a great hide, in my opinion. It just begs for muggle trouble. Nevertheless, it's a find and we were off to a good start.

We park near the loading ramp at the lake and take off down the trail. Our next cache was "Geocache Protection Program" and was hidden by our good friend Monkeybrad. The clue was "near the stump by the half-double helix." "Isn't that a single helix?", Tserof asks. Probably so, but Monkeybrad's my bud and I trust him. Unfortunately, we had some trouble finding a stump and everyone was everywhere. No stump was left unturned (except by Ash, whose fear of snakes had gripped her again) and we almost gave up. Finally Tserof, the closest thing to a science major we have in the group, locates a likely "single-helix" and Fish quickly locates the cache. No stump though. I don't know if there was a stump that is no more or if the stump was a figment of Monkeybrad's imagination but either way, it's another find and we're two for two for the day.

Next up is "Rainy Day Cache", hidden by JoeGPS. Unfortunately, for some reason, Joe decided to make this cache viewable by premium members only so I can't give you any more of the details, since Tserof has the premium account. We travelled along the path and ran into what Fish told us was a nest of some sort. "A nest? Like a hornet nest?", I asked, showing off my great fear of small stinging insects. "No," Fish replied. "Larger." Larger? What the hell larger lives in Percy Priest lake? We soon decided it was badgers. Large, scary badgers.

I should mention here that our group of friends has a long-running joke involving anything related to badgers. I'm not even sure if it started because Ash and Jalera both had D&D characters slaughtered by badgers once or if we just thought the name was funny. Badger... It is kinda humorous...

Anyway, Fish didn't want to disturb whatever kind of badgers or large bunnies with big nasty teeth were in the nests so we backtracked. "I think we can go right up the trail and double back to it easily." Famous last words. You'd think we'd learn.

We doubled back and, despite our best efforts, couldn't find an easy way to the cache. Finally, we decided that the best way was the Zen Bassmaster way, which involves running headlong into the woods, crashing into trees, destroying vines, and smashing through enough thorns so we look like a participant in the Japanese King of the Deathmatch wrestling tournament on the other side.

Sure enough, this got us there. Good cache and a good hide, right next to an old fence. Sure enough, there was a little bitty umbrella, hence the name. There was also a Space Shuttle Columbia coin that I took and replaced with one of Ash's seemingly endless supply of Disney Character pencils. Another find for us! Maybe we'll actually go perfect today!

Then came Notorious. Again, this one is available to premiums only so no information other than to give a big "toss off" shout to JoGPS, the worst thing since Frodo who, despite being a bastard, at least lets poor people look at his caches.

The clue for this cache (which I can't access) gave us the idea that the cache was around a big fallen tree we found near the coordinates. Something about being covered with bark and that we might be sitting on it. Something like that. Again, the Nyquil makes it all fuzzy.

Anyhow, we beat on the big hollow fallen tree to scare off snakes. We looked around the tree, poked Fish's handy maglite inside the tree, no dice. We looked around the pile of bark beside the tree. Nothing. We looked up in the trees. Nothing. Ash kept insisting we "roll" the giant log so she could look under it. Not being interested in a hernia and remembering Ash's previous attempts to murder me on the trail, I declined and we decided to give this one a skip. If it's under the log, it can stay there. Otherwise, this one may have been moved.

The next one was called "In DA WOOD, Original", which is useful since there are about 5 caches named some variation of "In the woods" because, ya know, they're in the woods. A little creativity here folks. Another JoGPS so another I can't tell you about. We were walking around trying to home in on this one (the GPS had decided the cover was too much for it) when I decided I needed to take a leak. I found a likely tree and began to take care of business as Fish walked into a clearing to get a better read. As I was finishing up my "commune with nature" , I hear Fish exclaim behind me, "oh shit. I think Gryph's pissing on the cache!"

Sure enough, the GPS was pointing right to the spot where I was shaking off. We begin to cautiously cast about for the cache and, fortunately for us, the actual cache was hidden on the other side of the tree from my puddle of pee. Anyone can find a cache and sign a log. Finding a cache and marking it with your scent though... That's hardcore!

Next up is Walk in Da Woods. Another JoGPS so another string of expletives that I'm trying not to say here because I have a teacher who reads this and is talking about using it for some of her classes when they talk about latitude and longitude so, much like Calamity Jane in Deadwood, I'm fining myself by the curse. Kids, don't swear like I do. I'm a bad, bad man.

I don't actually remember much about this one, besides the fact that we found it. Since I can't look at the clue (or even log it as a find), I can't jog my memory. I remember we found it and I remember doing quite a bit of walking in da woods, but not much else. Sorry. Again, Nyquil... (kids, don't take Nyquil, it's bad, m'kay?)

Walking along the trail to the next cache, Jalera somehow manages to whack herself in the knee with her own walking stick. I'm not sure how this is possible, but she managed it. I suggested that perhaps she was rehearsing her new one woman play, called "The Nancy Kerrigan Story."

Bamboo Forest is next. Good hide even if it was by JoGPS, who is quickly surpassing Frodo on my hate list. It definitely lived up to its name as there was a ton of bamboo between us and the cache. Good hiding place too. I won't give it away other than to say it was certainly "locked" in place. We found a neckstrap that looked like it fit Tserof's GPS and took it, leaving yet another of Ash's pencils behind. If you like Disney crap, you should really hit these caches.

Our next cache was "Walk in the Woods". By now, Tserof, having the least stamina of our daily walking group, was starting to get tired and Jalera, who doesn't walk at all if she can help it, had taken to not leaving the trail anytime we did caches. So we decided this would be our last cache and we'd head for the car after (Fish, unlike my lovely wife, actually kept a track to the car on all along. Good man).

Unfortunately, I don't need to look at the website to jog my memory on this one. It was 300 ft of pure hell in the form of briar bushes. Fish, in the lead and wearing shorts, got the worst of it, but we all got our share. After 300 feet of climbing, the GPS pointed to yet another tangle of brambles. At this point even Fish, our insane cacher with the 5 mile hike, was ready to give this up. And for good reason. He looked like he'd had his legs shaved by OJ Simpson. I had a thorn shoved half an inch into my finger that I was trying to pry out (which still hurts like, er, heck too when I type. I bleed for you, gentle readers), Mad Mike and Ashlynne's hands both looked about as bad as mine, and Tserof looked like the Living Dead.

Back through the brambles we went, encountering yet another group of cuts, scrapes, and thorns. Ow.

Finally back to the car, to head for the house and enjoy some of the good beer we bought (kids, remember not to drink before 21!). First though, someone had dropped off a geocoin from Britain in our Wabbit Season cache so we headed over to it to look at it. Cool coin and it got taken that very night so we just got to see it (and just missed the people who picked it up, apparently).

That's all for this week. Next week, we head toward Winchester after a day long yard sale for Ash and I, who seriously need to get rid of some crap. Anyone need a daybed or a non-functional computer? If so, come see us.