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| I am either holding a very small geocache or welcoming you to the Island of the Burning Damned. One is as likely as the other. |
Once again, Robgso (a.k.a. Old Rob, a.k.a. Bloody Rob) and Ms. Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie) joined up with me as Team No Dead Weight on this scorching hot May Sunday to hunt some geocaches, this time in Cary, NC, over near Raleigh. We had expected to spend a little while finding some quick park-and-grab hides and then hitting a nearby greenway to get in a nice hike. As is wont to happen on caching trips, things didn't work out precisely as we'd planned.
We did find a handful of neat hides, cleverly camouflaged and nicely placed. Then we discovered a parking garage.
I've had plenty of experience with parking garage hides. You tend to go up and down and up and down, trying to find the precise spot a tricksy hider might place a cache. This is a private garage, so we couldn't drive into it. Thus, we parked outside and hoofed it up to the highest level. We hunted and hunted, and even with some intel from a previous finder, we couldn't come up with it. Alas. But then we had to leave. We had entered the garage from the front of the building, then gone up several flights of stairs. We figured we'd go back out the same way.
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| Have you seen this man? |
Somewhere on our descent, Natalie and I realized we'd lost Rob. What the hell, Old Rob? Okay, so we'll meet him at the car. We didn't recall how many flights of stairs we'd gone up, so we went down to level 0 and out the door. Nope, this is not it. Go down to level SUB-0. Nope, this is not it either. So back up to level 1. Sign reads "NOT AN EXIT." WTF? Go up to level 2. Okay, an exit, Weird fucking garage, man. Out we go and make our way to the car.
Where's Rob? Oh, dear, there's no Rob. We pull up to the front entrance, and about then Natalie's phone rings. It's Rob. "Where are we? We are sitting outside the front entrance waiting for you. Where are you? You don't know? Oh dear."
Rob promises he'll figure out his predicament and join us shortly. About ten minutes pass.
Me: "We should never let Rob try to navigate on his own."
Natalie: "We didn't do such a good job of navigating ourselves."
Me: "But we are here."
After a while, I place a long-distance call to Rob. "Hey Rob, have you discovered Fayetteville?"
Rob: "Well, I'm outside the building."
Me: "Whereabouts?"
Rob: "I don't know."
Me: "Do we need to call in a Search & Rescue Team?"
Rob: "I don't know."
Me: "Wait. I see you."
Rob: "Okay. Where?"
Me: "Where you are."
Rob: "Now I see you."
He did see us, and even got back in the car with us. Brave Rob.
After this adventure, we needed to find lunch, which we did at The Big Easy Oven & Tap. Gator bites, bayou shrimp, smoked brisket... good vittles and good beers, yes. Then we had a good many more caches to go after and somehow keep up with Rob. We did all this and more, and avenged one of those direful DNFs (Did Not Find logs) from a previous outing. Even got in a few entertaining physical challenges along the way. So yeah, it was all good.
Oh, crap. I think we've lost Rob again.
Rob? Hello?
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| There was a geocache inside the enclosed portion of a guardrail post. Rather than stick our hands in there willy-nilly, we used our phone cameras/flashes to examine the interior. I don't know what the hell I'm seeing, but I'm glad I didn't reach on in there to find out. |