ET Power!

If you're a geocacher, you know about the ET highway caches out yonder in the high desert. Over a thousand caches, roughly every tenth of a mile for a hundred miles, along Nevada 375—the "Extraterrestrial Highway," near Area 51. There was a geocaching event in Rachel, NV, tonight, which included caching and costuming, but most of us on this side of the country couldn't manage to get out there. So a few local cachers put together a little power trail of caches along Highway 311 (all with some variation of "ET" in their titles), and hosted their own event in High Point. I got together with my friend Bridget "Suntigres" Langley this evening, as we figured it would be fun to undertake that power trail, and went to work along the highway between Liberty and High Point. We didn't make it to the event, alas, which I know would have been enjoyable, but we did pick up 50 caches, including some that aren't actually a part of the ET series, in about three hours' time. I must say, though I certainly don't mind getting a slew of caches in relatively short order, I don't do much in the way of numbers runs like a lot of cachers I know. I generally prefer a more relaxed pace and going after a variety of different types of hides. Getting out on the trail or on the water is certainly my preference, but there's definitely something to be said for the adrenaline rush of finding one quick cache after another—especially when the hider changes it up from time to time and gives you a little something different to hunt. I suppose I could take exception to the big old black widow I found lurking under one of the containers, but that's just one of the inherent hazards of the sport. I extricated the container without mishap, signed the log, and bid the venomous little fucker a bloody happy evening.

One of that bunch tonight made for my 3,600th geocache find. Child's play for a lot of the local high-powered players, but for me, it represents a fair amount of personal history—a goodly number of satisfying, memorable trips into the field. Becoming acquainted with a large number of local cachers, who are by and large some of the finest folks I've ever met, has been one of the many perks of getting involved in this game. It really is the best activity I've involved myself in since I became an adult-type person.

Stopping for Taco Bell at the end of it all wasn't exactly a shabby thing, either.