Not too long ago my Dad and I were out
geocaching on the Reservation. We followed the coordinates to the
cache we wanted to find, parked the truck and then off we went,
looking for the cache.
It didn't take long to spot it.
But... How do we sign the log?
We talked for a minute about standing
on top of his truck but Dad knows me well and tries not to encourage
some of my “brighter” ideas so we decided to pass on this one and
move along.
The cache stayed on my mind though and
a week or so later I sent a message to a caching friend,
ShalimarGeoSearchers, and suggested we go grab the cache.
“We can back the truck up to the
tree, put a ladder on top of the truck and then send the Oldest
Island Boy up to grab the can” I told her.
She thought it was a great idea and we
decided to plan an adventure.
The next day I see a picture on FB of
other caching friends grabbing a different tree cache and the picture
was exactly what I'd been thinking about for our plan.
Because that doesn't look dangerous at
all, right?
So I called SGS and we made a plan to
drive up to the woods on Sunday and grab the cache. We also decided
that the more people we invited the more fun it would be and by
Saturday night we had a good number of folks lined up, ready to go
with us.
Sunday rolled around, the Island King
put the ladder in the truck and we were off. The Oldest Island Boy
backed out on me and even though I'm scared of heights I decided that
I would climb the ladder.
I'm going to get this cache – no
matter what!
We met our friends near the cache and
after examining the situation, they decided the ladder - even on top of the
truck - still wouldn't be tall enough.
What are we gonna do? There are 13 of
us and we want to sign that log.
The cache owner lives nearby and always
takes pleasure in my misadventures so he showed up to watch the
circus.
Great. Not only have I gathered a group
of people out here with my bright idea but now TeamParadise is here
to laugh watch – and I have no idea how to get to the cache without
having people stand on top of the ladder with other people standing
on their shoulders.
She suggested we shoot the cable
holding the can
And she suggested we chop down the tree
But, before any drastic measures were
taken another caching friend, DropHunter, drove up with his handy
dandy tree climber.
Yes! That will do it. Except there
isn't enough Valium on the planet to get ME to climb a tree with that
thing.
Luckily, we had a monkey in our group
and he was really excited about using the tree climber.
They attached the climber to the tree,
a short lesson on how it works was given and then up the tree our monkey
went.
The can is wired to the tree so he sent
the log down in a pitcher tied to a rope for all of us to sign and
then hauled it back up the tree, secured the ammo can and then made
his way down.
Woohoo!
With that success under our belt we
decided to head for the tree we'd seen the picture of. We got this
one and felt confident that we could get the other one as well.
I apologized to TeamParadise for not
getting stuck, falling off a ladder or sinking the Island King's
truck but he just laughed and told me that the day wasn't over yet.
DropHunter is the owner of the second
cache we were after so he decided to follow us over and watch while
we grabbed it.
We caravaned to the next spot,
expecting to find the same thing but we looked and looked and no one
could see an ammo can in the trees.
DropHunter stood back, watching and
laughing while we all scanned the tree tops. A few minutes later
someone said “There it is” and we were all shocked at what we
found.
This cache is a tiny bison tube tied to
a rope and hanging from the top of a thin pine tree.
The tree is too small for the tree
climber but DropHunter tells us he climbed the big tree next to the
little one, lassoed it with a rope, pulled it over to him and
attached the cache.
Even our monkey looked a little
skeptical about pulling that off but luckily the ladder we brought
was tall enough so the Island King made the climb.
The Island King isn't as much of a
caching nut as the rest of us and about halfway up the tree I heard
him say “You people are crazy!”
He might be right.
We signed the log, grabbed a few more
caches and were off to eat dinner.
Most of the group headed home at that
point but ShalimarGeoSearchers, Searchers L&J and the Island King
and I went to a local restaurant for dinner and margaritas.
It was a wonderful day spent with
friends climbing trees and wandering the woods.
The biggest surprise was that I didn't
get stuck, sunk or injured AND we found the caches we were after.
Of course, no one let me lead the
caravan which helped. No one has much faith in my directional
abilities – which just proves this is a smart group of people.
We really did have fun and I'm sending
out a huge thank you to TeamParadise and DropHunter for placing (and
helping us grab) these fun caches.
Labels: Done
