Impressed Into Service

Since I was off work today, there was caching on the menu. Originally, I had planned to meet friends Debbie (Cupdaisy) and Bridget (Suntigres) at 10:15 AM at Costco across town to hunt a bunch of the newer hides in that area; but last night, a slew of new ones were published at geocaching.com, so plans shifted a tad. One of the new ones was in the woods near Lake Townsend, so I headed up that way bright and early, thinking a first-to-find (FTF) might be in the bargain. Intuition also told me that friends Smashemups (Fred) and Skyhawk63 (Tom) were likely to have had the same thing in mind, so I was not surprised to find them already at GZ when I arrived. It took some doing, but we did manage to claim FTF on the hide, right at 9:00 AM.

I headed home just long enough to have some bacon, eggs, and coffee, and then set out to meet Cupdaisy and Suntigres at Costco. Not too far away, though, there was a new cache with a high terrain rating, and Skyhawk and I had decided that going after it would be workable, given our respective plans. So, after snagging a couple of caches near Costco, Cupdaisy, Suntigres, and I met Skyhawk, Punkins19 (Linda) Night-hawk (other Tom) at the newest high-terrain-rated cache, which we figured might require a specific tool of the trade (i.e., a ladder). As it turned out, it did not. All it required was an old dude being impressed into service to climb into the uppermost heights of a spindly tree. They'll tell you I volunteered, but the truth is I was forced against my will to climb up there and sign the log for everyone (which I admit that I did, dubbing us Team Dumb-Ass). They'll tell you I was pleased as a maggot with a smorgasbord of diseased flesh to go up there, but that's all horse-hockey. Truly, really, never would I do such a thing of my own free will. But hey, it was another FTF.

And after that, I tried to run away, but they caught me and made me go caching some more. Jeez, the rigors.

From there, after stopping for another quick FTF, we headed out to our other high-terrain-rated cache, which, based on information from Smashemups, who had visited the site but could not sign the log, we knew we would need one of these specific tools of the trade to retrieve. Happily, Night-hawk carries such a tool around with him wherever he goes—you know, in case of a geocaching emergency or some such. Getting to GZ required a little acrobatic maneuvering on a fallen log over a creek, but Night-hawk, who I guess felt guilty for being party to the extortionate antics at the previous cache, went up the ladder to claim the hide. I was even kind and supportive of this, as I did not tip the ladder while he was up on it. Hey, I would have been within my rights, wouldn't you say?

All done, Cupdaisy, Suntigres, and I parted ways with our tormentors and headed back southward to grab a few other caches—all of far simpler design—and find some lunch. The latter we did at Binh Minh Vietnamese Restaurant on Market Street, which I've always quite enjoyed. Today, it was a shrimp & pork spring roll and fried rice with tofu. Just the thing to satiate what has been a mounting craving for Asian food since watching those episodes of Anthony Bourdain's show when we were in Michigan a couple of weeks back.

Mind those shifty geocachers, or you might end up climbing a tall, spindly tree!

Relaxing with a much-needed post-geocaching Kraken-nog