She wanted to finish the dam at Lake Murray near Irmo, SC.
If you Munzee, you know what these power trails are like. Walk and scan, walk and scan. It is time consuming, it is quite a walk and it's fun!
We started this particular cluster earlier this year, just before what I like to call the Great Undeployment of '13, which I know is a sore subject for some folk but it does play a part in this story. So be patient.
I started in Munzee when it first came around. I didn't think much of it at first. It tool a while to grow on me. I was still heavily involved in another geo hobby and was reluctant to change. Things and people get old and after a decade of the other hobby I decided that I would change. I still do the other hobby but if I continue in it as heavy as I was, I wouldn't have any joy left for it. So here I am.
One Sunday, when the kids went with my parents after church, we were in Camden,SC to get the weeks groceries and have lunch. She was playing one of those mindless games like Candy Crush or some such, one of the ones that keeps me awake at night due to the glow from her iPad on the other side of the bed and I was grabbing a few Munzees in between stops. She asked what I was doing and I grabbed her phone and installed the app. In a few minutes she was hooked. (See this post.) And so we found a hobby in common that we could enjoy together again.We aren't really ones who Munzee for points. The only competition is between us and our friend Wally. I have never really worried about points in any of these games. I just want to get out and enjoy myself.
Which brings my back around to the point of this story. The dam at Lake Murray was a thick cluster. Some of the Munzees were four in one place. There weren't many that were there alone and I was dreading hearing that buzz of "archived" all day long. I really tried to find somewhere else that we could go and something else we could do for the day, but she only asked for this one thing, to finish that cluster. How can you say no to a gal on her birthday?
I could just imagine how long it was going to take for us to make it down the damn. And I could also imagine how frustrated I was going to be about halfway through. I hate when things like this happen and it dampens my enthusiasm for whatever game I'm playing. I only ran one power trail while I was deep in geocaching. It was 108 caches on New Years Day of 2012. I swore to never do it again because halfway through I had a "I just want to get this over with" mentality. I had fun with my friend that was with me, always did no matter what. But it was mind numbing to hit cache after cache. I was prepared for Saturday to be like that.
I was wrong.
I want to take a moment to praise the Munzers in that area. Either a very dedicated Munzer or a large group of them have gone through and removed at least 80% of the archived Munzees on that dam. No trash. It's a pleasant cluster full of active Munzees. This made me smile. I've seen archived power trails with moldy pieces of log left on their own in film canisters all over the east coast. I am very pleased to be associated with folks who take a certain pride in the game so as not to put a bad public face to it. It's refreshing, even more so because I found this in my home state. If I could afford it I would send most everyone that has a Munzee on that dam a diamond or a mystery just to say good job.
This is why I play these games. It gets me out and active. It lets me see the world. I get to see the history of the area, I get to meet other players. Occasionally, I get to tell people about whatever game I am playing. We had a gent download the app in front of us on the dam Saturday so that he and his boys could start playing.
We have our problems occasionally. Undeployed limits, clusters that don't follow the few rules we have to the letter, etc. But in the end this is all about fun and getting out there.
And this is why I play.
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