Tag Archives: Virginia

Friday Night, First “First To Find”

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Parking area near Tiny Toys – Nachos (GC2V83N)

Geocachers know how good it feels to find a geocache, sign the log and leave the cache as unknown to the larger muggle world as they found it. There may be endorphins involved. Adrenalin definitely seems to play a role.

For me, bagging my first First To Find (FTF)  (being the first to log a geocache after it’s been placed by the cache owner) last night for Tiny Toys – Nachos (GC2CV83N) felt a tiny bit like I imagine an adrenalin shot to the heart might feel.  You know,  like that scene from Pulp Fiction.

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“Well of Decay” and the Civil War’s 150th Anniversary

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Stone House, near GC184C "Well of Decay"

Stone House

I found virtual geocache GC184C, “Well of Decay,” earlier this afternoon.  I had to make an unexpected trip down through Manassas Battlefield Park, a place I’d driven through hundreds and hundreds of times over the last three and a half years.   “Well of Decay” asks you to stop and consider just a bit of the history and sacrifices made made on and around ground zero.

2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War.  As a relatively new geocacher I’ve now found a pastime that compelled me to do something I should have done long ago — appreciate this battlefield for what it is, sacred and hallowed ground.

The Geocacher-Muggle Interface

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Yes, I’m aware there’s not really supposed to be a Geocacher-Muggle Interface.  Stuff happens, though.

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I’m rather inexperienced at geocaching.  As I write this I don’t even have a third of a hundred caches found to my credit.  Even so, I know there are  some basic rules all geocachers are supposed to follow.  Some of these rules are good for the hobby, some of them are good for the planet, and some of them are just plain good, common sense.

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My First Attempted “First To Find (FTF)”

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I tried to get my first FTF this morning.  I tried REALLY hard.   I didn’t do it, but making the attempt was still quite a rush.   I attempted Maggie’s Cache (GC2Q4R6)  which is right across the parking lot and down in the underbrush from Whole Foods in Fair Lakes.

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Muggled From On-High

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The 16th Annual National Capital Boat Show kicks off Friday March 11th at the Dulles Expo Center, so perhaps Thursday night the 10th wasn’t the best time to check out this geocache.  A tractor trailer (presumably loaded with FANTASTIC boat stuff) with driver aboard was parked within yards of GZ  so I never got an un-muggled look. I’ll be back again. 🙂

A Geocaching Moment In Time

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Proof of life at ground zero

Everything’s in motion at ground zero.  Folks are chowing down at nearby eateries and running their weekend errands. Muggles in motion all over the place.

One of the things I love about geocaching is it slows me down and connects me with the world — the immediate environment of the cache I’m seeking at this moment.

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A First Cache to Remember

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GC2NKKD

GC2NKKD

(WARNING: spoilers below.)

Finding GC2NKKD  (My First Cache) was a blast.  The GPS coordinates looked to be right-on — the imagery on my iPhone Geocaching app didn’t have the cache out in the middle of the parking lot — so I figured it had to be on or around a certain power pole or the signposts near the power pole.

I arrived at GZ around 8:15 a.m.   It took me a few minutes to figure out the hide.  What a beautifully done cache, and it’s even more impressive because it was this geocacher’s first placed cache.

As I was driving away it occurred to me that the whole outer construct was the cache.  The CO probably had to show up at GZ in the middle of the night to do this hide.   It really does look like it belongs there until afterward when you realize that nah, that thing doesn’t do anything but hide the cache.

The whole thing is in fact a cache-in-plain-sight.

We’re just so used to seeing all manner of tubing strapped to telephone and power poles.  We have no idea what any of it does, and so all that stuff looks perfectly natural, especially when it’s next to other tubing that actually appears to serve a function.  Ingenious.

That’s the beauty of that cache on one level, using our natural perceptions of things we don’t really understand too deeply to fool us.

On another level the construction and concept of the actual hide within the cache-in-plain-sight is so very well done.

Thanks, DangerPayne, for a fanatastic first cache.