A local cacher has put out what he calls the Gaserup Series and we decided to go find them.
We decided to leave the kids at home and go grab the 3 Gaserup caches in Niceville so we left about 7pm and headed across the Bay.
We were able to drive straight to the 1st Gaserup cache which is hidden at an Exxon on Hwy 20 just west of the high school.
We pulled in and from the GPS and the cache clue we can tell immediately it’s going to be near the bathroom which is an outdoor building across the parking lot from the small store.
As we pull in there is a man standing in front of the men’s bathroom door so we pull across the parking lot to wait but he doesn’t seem to be going to move.
A homeless guy? Except he has a cloth and a spray bottle of something in his hands so maybe he works there and is cleaning the bathrooms.
The female cashier comes out of the store and goes into the women’s bathroom.
Obviously there's a lot of traffic around the bathroom at this time so we decided to go look for the Gaserup #2 and Gaserup #3 caches and then come back.
After finding the other two caches we were feeling confident as we pulled back into the Exon station.
And the same female cashier is coming out of the bathroom again.
She goes back inside and the Island King gets out to look next to the bathroom while I wait in the car so we don’t draw too much attention.
There was a hill right behind the building and after a few minutes I see his light moving around up the hill in the woods.
This is taking too long.
Them a white car pulls up and this young guy props the store door open with his foot and I think "Oh No he’s going to rob the store."
But then the cashier hands him money through the door and he hands her a folded up bag.
Crap there’s an actual drug deal happening 25 feet from me and the Island King is climbing up a hill in the dark behind the bathroom.
I turn my head to look for him and the man who had been in front of the bathroom when we were here before just appeared from behind the building.
I mean he just APPEARED right in front of the car and scared the tar out of me.
I couldn’t think of how to let the Island King know there might be trouble so I cranked my car thinking he would hear it and come quickly and we could just get out of there.
What I didn’t think about is that when I crank my car my headlights come on so suddenly this man is right in the light from my headlights and he freezes and looks at me.
I am absolutely having a heart attack by now.
Over the man’s shoulder I see the Island King crouched behind a bush on the hill watching the guy.
The man unfreezes and walks on over to the store. The guy in the white car is still holding the door open and the cashier is still there and they all start talking.
Meanwhile the Island King knows our mission is completely blown so he comes down and gets in the car.
I couldn’t get out of that parking lot fast enough! I kept driving looking for somewhere well lit that I could park and have a nervous breakdown.
Luckily there is a grocery store just down the road so I pulled in there and parked.
The Island King said he saw the guy walking down the back of the building and he was trying to decide if the guy had seen him when suddenly I cranked the car and lit the whole area up with my headlights.
He didn’t know about the drug deal happening on the other side of my car but we had both commented on the cashier going to the bathroom twice in half an hour when we pulled in.
We decided that the man behind the building must have something to do with the drug thing. We also decided that we were absolutely NOT going back to that cache at night.
That one will have to be done during the day for sure. The other thing we decided is that we need some sort of communication device so I can warn him if someone is coming without cranking my car and lighting up the whole place.
I don’t think we’ll get to do as much night caching as I had hoped. You look a lot more suspicious at night and I can see where it wouldn’t be long before the cops end up telling us to go home and stop distracting them from the criminals they're after.Labels: Staying
