Attending a mega event in Rome meant seeing groups of geocachers
everywhere and as we were driving along we see a couple climbing up a
hill on the side of the road. Next to where they were climbing
appeared to be a cave so we turned around and went back to help find
the cache and explore the cave.
After we pulled off the road, the Librarian checked her phone and
discovered that there was indeed a cache there named Isolation.
It turns out that it wasn't a cave but an isolation cell belonging
to the jail on the other side of the fence and that many years ago
this bunker was used as an isolation cell for disruptive inmates.
The idea of spending even 5 minutes in there gave me the creeps.
The cache instructions told us that the cache was not hidden
inside the cell so we joined the other couple, climbed up the hill
and started poking around.
After we'd looked for a few minutes the woman who was there
originally pulled the cache page up on her phone to see if there were
any clues to help us find it.
Instead she saw that the cache had been archived sometime in the
previous five minutes.
I've never had that happen. One minute it was there and the next
it was gone.
We climbed down off the hill just in time to see the prison guard
walking towards us.
UuuhOhhh
The couple started walking down the hill to talk to him and as
they were walking the woman looked over her shoulder and yelled “Save
yourselves!”
We weren't sure what was going to happen so we did. We jumped in
the car and the Librarian peeled out of there, blew past the guard
and we never looked back.
After we made our getaway we pulled the cache page up again and
read that whichever jail official approved a geocache originally was
no longer employed there and that no geocache would ever be approved
along the jail perimeter.
It's too bad we didn't pay attention to this sign.
I really hope the folks who were talking to the guard talked their
way out of trouble.Labels: Done
