One night while we were out exploring Point Washington, we drove into a clearing and saw this.
A real pet cemetery out here in the woods.
With a fresh grave as well.
We got out to look and the Youngest Island Boy freaked out. He was terrified of being near any kind of cemetery, in the middle of the woods, and especially at night.
We walked around the woods a little to see if there were more graves but he was getting worse by the minute so we gave up, got back in the truck and drove on home.
But on the way the Island King started talking about what a great place that would be to put a night geocache.
We agreed we didn't want to put it near the cemetery since these are someone's pets and we don't want to disrespect the place they buried them but we also agreed that starting a cache hunt at a pet cemetery sounds like the beginnings of a scary night cache adventure.
So we went back the next day to take a look at the area.
The cemetery is on the edge of a small beautiful stand of pine trees.
During the day sunlight streams through the pines making it a very serene and peaceful spot.
But at night it's dark and scary looking.
Even with a good light you can't see very far in front of you and the trees and palmettos throw off great shadows.
This would be an excellent spot for a night cache. A scary night cache.
Pet Cemetery.
We were inspired and went to work.
The Island King's grandmother owned a huge Doberman Pincer named Demon so we decided to create a grave out in the woods, call it Demon's grave and hide the cache there.
The first afternoon we went out and picked just the right spot for the actual cache and then poked our way through the woods, picking out the trail we want people to follow.
The pine stand isn't that big so we created a twisting, turning, winding path to the cache location and then marked the trail with orange reflectors.
We came up with our plan and a few days later we loaded the truck with everything but the kitchen sink and off to Pt Washington we went.
We pulled into the Forest and went to work.
The Island King came up with an idea for a trip wire that sends this head flying down out of the tree when you pick up the cache.
We put a green ball in a mesh bag and then put it inside of the head so there would be something to secure the head to.
Then it was time for the hard part.
The Island King had to rig the head way up in a tree and then attach it to the ammo can.
The ammo can is tied to a line that has a clip on the end. Hidden in a palmetto bush several feet behind the grave is a PVC pipe which has a clip attached.
When the can is moved it pulls the clip and the head falls out of the sky.
He finished rigging the head and it was time to create the grave.
He carved the word Demon into an old board we had at the house with his chainsaw and attached it to a pine log we'd brought from home.
We covered the ground with substrate and pieces of broken shells to make it look like a real grave.
Then we sat down to burn the candles.
It got dark and it was kind of eerie sitting there in front of the grave - even though it isn't a grave.
We wanted it to look like someone came there and held some sort of ritual but this is a State Forest so we didn't want to leave candles half burnt.
So we sat down and the Island King burned them all the way down and then pulled the wicks out.
You can't see it but there is a big jug of water on the other side of him. I'm pretty sure the Special Use pass we had to get from the Forestry Division to place the cache would be revoked if we started a forest fire.
Earlier, we'd put some rib bones on the grave but it didn't take long to realize that they weren't clean enough and we were being swarmed by ants.
The bones had to go.
I added a final touch by getting one of those "snakes in a can" canisters, covering it with duct tape, writing Cache Log on the outside and putting it in the cache.
If the head dropping doesn't scare them, the snake popping out of the can will for sure.
Once the candles were burned and the cache was set we were ready to go.
Our next stop was TGIFridays where we came up with the Demon story.
A few days later I found some actual dog bones in the woods. Very sad but the sick part of my brain kicked in and I knew they'd be great on the Demon grave.
So I put them there.
We listed the cache on the geocaching website and have gotten some hysterical emails from people who've found the cache.
And we've been called "twisted" several times.
Which means our hard work paid off.Labels: Done
