One Guess Less

I saw in my online "memories" post that pops up daily that, on this day in 2012, I found the geocache called "The Curse of Samarra Morgan" (GC1QF2B), which, in the photo at left, you can see me about to dive after it. It was located not far out of Chapel Hill, NC (and there was a lovely little graveyard nearby, which might have been handy should the worst happen at the cache site). Then it occurred to me that I've been geocaching for sixteen years this month; I found my first cache ("Groundhog Lane," now long-archived) on January 12, 2008. I'm still hard at it on a regular basis—pretty much the same geo-addict I've been ever since Day One—although I can't get out after them as much as when we lived in North Carolina, simply because there are far fewer caches in this part of Virginia to hunt. That's kind of a bummer, but since I've placed a large number around here, I visit many of them frequently to keep them well-maintained for other hunters.

 

This morning, on my regular daily walk, I decided to head down to the former site of one of my old geocaches, along the Smith River a couple of miles from my house. Sadly, the host of that cache, called "One Guess," is no longer tenable for a geocache (and that area is not as readily accessible as it used to be should one be driving in from some other area). The cache was up in a big sycamore, and to say that tree has seen better days is an understatement. I've always enjoyed hunting more "extreme" geocaches, and I've hidden a good many that can challenge highly experienced cachers. There were once very few caches to which I could say "no," but I will admit that, nowadays, I'm not quite as physically able to handle certain terrain types—such as culverts and storm drains and such into which I'd have to crawl. Crawling and my knees and hips no longer get along very well.

Mind you, I can still climb some trees. I love me some trees. And another cache in the same vein as "The Curse of Samara Morgan"? Bring it on!

Left: The site of "One Guess," on the day I placed it in February 2012; photo by Ms. B. Right: The same tree, photo taken this morning (from the opposite angle). Notice that one whole trunk has gone missing, which was where the cache originally lurked. One Guess less...

View of the Smith River from the old cache site