On our anniversary the Island King asked me what I wanted to
do and he wasn’t surprised by my answer.
No, I didn’t want flowers and a romantic dinner, I wanted to
go night caching in the woods.
I don’t think that’s the standard anniversary request but it’s
what I love to do and since he loves it too he was happy to oblige.
Out onto Eglin Reservation we went, searching for several
caches hidden in the woods. Only one of them was an “official” night cache but
there is a different element to tromping through the woods at night so it’s
just as fun to cache at night as it is during the day.
To get to the first cache I read that we would need 4x4 and
would have to cross a creek.
Not a problem.
We drove through some soft sand and big mud puddles and after
one particularly nasty puddle we decided that must have been the creek everyone
talked about in the cache logs.
At least that’s what we thought until we came to the bottom
of a soft sand road and saw this.
This is a real creek.
And the “road” leading back up the other side is really
steep and really soft.
Hmm.
The Island King is always accusing me of intentionally
trying to destroy his truck so I figured he would want to turn around and find
another way to get to the cache.
To my surprise he grinned and said “We’re going to need a
running start”
Woohooo!
He backed up the hill we’d just come down, we put on our
seatbelts and off we went.
I have to admit that I’m like a kid when it comes to
4wheeling in the woods and I loved it.
We made it to the top of the hill and then poof – all
satellite signals on my GPS were gone, which happens occasionally when the
military is testing something.
It causes a bit of a problem because finding a geocache
without any kind of GPS signal is impossible.
We did find an abandoned tower out in the middle of nowhere
though.
I love that these woods are filled with all kinds of things
to find and explore.
Out of the truck I went, headed for the platform on top of
the tower.
Just as I reached the first level I remembered that I’m
scared of heights and stairs make me dizzy.
I hate it when that happens.
I obviously wasn’t going any higher but I thought I could
handle being on the first level for a minute – especially since I was still a
little dizzy from coming up the stairs.
There was a little room on that level and the Island King
opened the door and then slammed it shut.
“Lots of roaches” he says.
I wouldn’t say I’m scared of roaches but I do NOT like them
so that ended my trip up the tower and I was back on the ground in record time.
He went on up to the top and then said “You should see how
far off you can see from up here.”
“Awesome. Take a picture and then tell me all about it when
you get back down to the ground.”
Unfortunately, the camera just doesn’t see what the eye does
at night.
We’ll have to come back another day for a picture I can see.
Which is good because next time, I want to drive through the
creek and up the hill.