Cache Report: Welcoming Spring

I got home from class around 4:00 pm. We'd been tromping along the river collecting plant samples in the balmy 65 F weather and sunshine. This has been a long, cold winter, so I needed more outdoor time.A few words with Mo and we were in agreement. A quick dinner was made and served, then we bid the kids adieu so we could go play in the woods near our house.

Trip Report

We chose the nearby sports complex. There is a patch of undeveloped land behind it that host a small ponderosa forest and a selection of hiking trails. It's less than 10 minutes from the house, so an easy target when the sun will be setting in a couple of hours.

Cache #1: We headed straight past the soccer fields and straight to the gate that lead to the trees. This was the closest cache to us, so away we went. Everyone else wanted a bit of sunshine, so muggle dodging was a must. We pretended to be searching out early spring wildflowers while we surveyed the area for this cache. We found it -- a micro in a tree.

Cache #2: Our next stop was further out and off the beaten track, so we didn't have to be quite as stealthy. This actually ended up being an accidental find. Mo picked up a chunk of wood to illustrate what type of formation she thought the hint was referring to. Low and behold, there was a small tube shoved into a hole in the wood!

Cache #3: We mapped out the next cache on the loop trail heading out of the area. This was another well camouflaged micro -- a film canister in a stump. Some kids, and not the type you would trust, seemed interested in what we were doing. So, I took out my phone and began photographing wildflowers while blathering on about plant cycles. Their eyes glazed over and they wandered back towards the playing fields, giving us a chance to make the find.

Cache #4: The last cache before we emerged from the woods was also off the main trail, which was a lovely change from the stealth required at the previous one. At first it looked like a needle in a haystack find, until we spotted the bark awkwardly stacked against the base of a tree. Score!

Wrap-Up

Urban caching will likely never be a favorite because the stealth gets tiresome. The first real day of warm sunny spring weather was also likely not the best time for an expedition, since it drew out all muggles in a 20 miles radius! We had to bypass several caches simply because they were in areas of the trail with too much activity. Still, we had a lovely time, made four finds, and most important, got to enjoy a sunny afternoon in the woods!