It was only a few weeks ago when we stumbled upon out first geocache. I believe that made us “geomuggles.”
Out of curiosity, we purposely hunted for another. From there, we have discovered geocaching caches camouflaged as coral, trees, logs and even a spider.
I cannot tell you who said it. But it was soon said. “I know! Let’s make our own geocache!”
With great excitement, my daughter and I obtained a waterproof ammo box. An expert camouflage ninja showed us how to camo our geocache just right.
We thought out each bit of cache swag carefully.
Finally, the big day came. Despite the rain… AND TEMPERATURES IN THE THIRTIES… we donned our cold weather layers, our hiking boots, packed our food and started our 45 minute drive to Lone Star Lakes in Suffolk.
We had to find the perfect spot. Looking at our GPS, we discovered an area of forest that had somehow remained geocache free. With camera and geocache in hand, we marched in.
It did not take long to realize why this space was available. I will show you pictures within the next week or two. I will just leave it at this for now: Doll heads, dead deer and ancient trash. More to follow.
Disappointed, we marched back out of the woods and took a break for lunch and reflection. Where could we put it? By then our feet were soaked, we were freezing and completely exhausted from cold weather hiking.
Then the idea came. “I know where we can put it!” We quickly piled in to the car. I started the engine, pointed my car towards our destination and slowly began to drive.
That is when I heard it.
And felt it.
CRRRRUUUNNNNCHHHH… silence… CRRRRUUUNNNNCHHHH. Stop. SILENCE. PANIC.
“What did we drive over? WHAT DID WE JUST DRIVE OVER?!”
“OH!” “MOM!” “THE GEOCACHE!”
Doors flew open. People ran. Then we stopped short. In front of this:
I ran over the geocache. I-RAN-OVER-THE-GEOCACHE!
I had no idea it was there! I didn’t see it! I DIDN’T KNOW!
But I ran over it. With the front tire AND the back. Geocache Fail. Epic Geocache Fail.
It was at that moment that I began to laugh. And laugh. And wheeze. And laugh. And snort. And wheeze some more. As I told my daughter later, “If you don’t laugh at life, it will laugh at you.”
Seeing my daughter was about to break down, I made a split decision. “We are going to hide it ANYWAY. I will put it in a huge ziplock bag, we will hide it, log it and return later with a new ammo box. Until then, finders will enjoy the first hand written page of the log.”
In the blink of an eye, we had gone from having a totally cool camo geocache to having the most hideous, glaringly un-camoed geocache ever created.
This weekend, things will change. This weekend, we will be planting a duck. A duck geocache, that is. And she will be the coolest geocache camo job ever. My daughter has already named her LoneStar.
Lonestar will never know the feel of my minivan’s tires. Instead, she will remain in the woods guarding our geocache duck nest, greeting visitors and enjoying the great outdoors. Besides, I can’t get my minivan through the woods. Lucky LoneStar!
