Every year I try to go big on caching the first day of the year. I have gone after 5/5's, I have done a small series of caches that a new cacher put out, I've been underground, etc. Yesterday I did a true numbers run.
I met up with Geoholic28 in Spartanburg, SC and started out from the mall there. We've been caching together and have been friends for about six years. As it is, he can't decide on staying in one place for to long and so here recently, we've not been able to meet up to much. Yesterday just happened to work out. We planned for a week to go after the EPAG series in NC which started out with ninety nine caches and then went on to be one hundred and ten caches. This was doable, seemed simple and so we set off.
I would like to say that caching has meant a lot to me throughout the past nine or ten years. And I can make the usual statement of "if it hadn't been for geocaching I would never have...". Yeah I would never have found myself in so many places full of history, wonder, fun, and this experience has been fulfilling. I am sure that it will continue to be.
Every cache has it's merits, some aren't what you want them to be. Don't do them. 'Nuff said on that point.
Our cache run yesterday consisted fully of P&G's. Eight hours of guard rails and signs, one after another after another after another...you get the picture? No? Here's one.
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| Geoholic28 |
It's on these runs that we catch up. But we have to pack it all into a couple of hours and I miss those days pre-kids when we could just jump in the car and go with no plan whatsoever. To this hobby some of us are old cachers.
Do you remember caching pre-Nuvi? Do you remember when there was no map on your GPS? Just an arrow and a dot? Have you ever printed out a notebook of cache pages and kept it in your car just in case?
New cachers just don't know what it was like in the old days. I could rant about that but that's not why I am here. I know, I am wandering again.
I don't care how you cache. I cache for a million reasons and there may be nine hundred thousand nine hundred and ninety nine that you don't agree with. I don't care. Caching is what you make of it.
I used yesterday to hone my caching skills. We got to the point of dropping at speed with the GPS to dead on the caches. We got faster, added a few new extraction tricks to the cache brain, had fun, and I realized something. I probably wouldn't enjoy the ET Highway. It's just not my particular cup of tea. It's not the experience that I want.
Now if the guys told me to load up and be ready, would I go? Probably. It's them. And I am part of that crew. We ride together. And it's fun.
At the end of the day yesterday there was a feeling of accomplishment. We did that run and made it ours, all one hundred and ten in eight hours. But I just don't get the satisfaction that I would have from finding one underground cache. The adventure just isn't there in this. I just got to hang out with my buddy and make some numbers.
A few more pics from the road...
The last one doesn't do the site justice. I did not have my tripod with me. This was in Lockhart, SC a little old mill town that sadly doesn't have the mill anymore. These are the trees along the canal all done up for Christmas. I never expected to see this last night and had to stop and enjoy it. This little town is so rough looking in daylight and the contrast between night and day was not wasted on me.
I guess that what I am trying to say is that in the end yesterday was a full day. I enjoyed it because I got off the leash and I was able to wander and just go. That's what I needed, and I needed time with a friend, so all in all not a bad day.
Freekacher
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