Fears, Defibrillators, and Wankpuffins

Suntigres faces her fear. The lurking horror
behind the camera, perhaps?

For the old man and Suntigres (a.k.a. Bridget), the geocaching trail led us to numerous destinations in and around Raleigh on this gorgeous February Saturday. She needed to pick up several items from her son, who lives over that way; the Hibernian Irish Pub in downtown Raleigh was beckoning her like gold at the end of the rainbow; and the caching bug was biting with nasty great pointed teeth, so she ordered me along to navigate any unruly or otherwise challenging terrain we might chance to encounter. In the end, terrain challenges proved minor and relatively rare, but we did turn up several unique and exceedingly well-done hides. We started with a couple of caches in a series called "Face Your Fears," and face them we did, though we did not, in at least one particularly frustrating case, succeed in finding the frightening little bugger. We solved a couple of brain-challenging puzzles, discovered a comically macabre diorama underneath a lamp post skirt, and lost our marbles at a couple of expertly crafted cache containers courtesy of Motrin Man (a.k.a. Fred) and Blinky7 (a.k.a. Cindy). In one instance, what appeared to be a standard lamp post hide proved to be a bit of a shocker, damn near requiring a defibrillator at the end of it all. It wasn't a monster haul today — I think I logged 18 total — but after several difficult weeks, it was damn nice to get outdoors and get my moniker on a few new logs. Not to mention some kick-ass chicken wings at Hibernian.

A good day.

And on a completely unrelated note, I saw today, in reference to Donald Trump, the word "wankpuffin." A fine word this, a good woody-sounding word, not at all tinny. I quite like it.

Best light-pole cache I've ever found.

Old man needs defibrillator after being shocked by sneaky, springy, snaky thing.