All Weather Cachers Take on the Fall Fling 2008

Sure the weather was a whole lot nicer early in the week. The mid eighties and sun gave way to upper fifties and rain but did that dampen the spirit of our finest North Carolina geocachers? Oh I say, "nay".

The Third Annual Fall Fling was held at Falls Lake State Park which is about 15 miles due north of Raleigh, NC. It is a very scenic park filled with trails, trees, wild critters and Falls Lake. The lake is completely different in appearance than from 12 months ago. Last year at this time Falls Lake was more like Falls two streams. You could walk in many spots from one island to the next. Now with a larger amount of rainfall and a tropical storm or two the lake is at capacity and in all it's splendor. Speaking of rainfall I personally wondered if the Fling was even going to happen this year. As I said before the week was picture perfect North Carlina weather with sun and the temps in the 80s. On Friday everything changed, the temps dropped and the rain came down in sheets. I drive past Falls Lake on my way home and I had a hard time seeing the road. I thought of stopping by but thought better of it based on what I was seeing. Once in my nice dry homestead I checked out our NCGO forums to see what was going on. I did not find much about the event except for an entry that someone else stopped by as well and the bonfire was in full swing. The tent camping cachers were having a blast even though the rain was turning out to be a bit "challenging". With that I headed to bed feeling fully geeked for Saturdays activities.

I awoke to thankfully no rain and found my long pointy stick to wake up Daughter Geoness from her slumbers. You have to be careful with pre-teens as they awaken, they bite. It only took a couple good prods to finally get her moving and also the promise of some breakfast helped. We packed the cachemobile and headed north to the event coordinates. It took me about 45 minutes to weave the winding roads to FF Central. I was a few minutes early for registration and already I could see Horsegeeks and Billwolf1 getting the grills ready. They were in charge of the food for the day and because of that I knew we were in for some serious eats. Personally I have a huge weak spot for Horsegeek's Shrimp 'n Grits but that is another story. As Daughter Geoness and I walked up to the park community center I was greeted by some of the cachers who survived last nights deluge. To my surprise only one tent camper had to sleep in the car but everyone else stayed dry and toasty as best they could. If the spirits were dampended you sure could not tell by the friendly smiles on all the early risers.

Anytime you come early to an event you are there to help setup. No one likes setup but when you get enough people together it is a lot less stressful. So chores like sign hanging, table placement, kitchen detail including the unloading of a ton of food and libations the morning started moving along. The weather was not terrible outside. There was some wind which was blowing inland off of the lake, a bit chilly. The sun was trying to peak from behind the clouds and actually did make some headway by the afternoon. I asked Daughter Geoness to do camera duty whilst I found out what mini events that would be going on today. There of course was the Carolina Cache 'N Dash where teams found well hidden caches that contained different interesting and sometimes scary tasks to complete to gain points. I don't want to get into details but lets just say there were more moons out than the one in the sky -=shudder=-. Then came the Geo-Olympics at the Beach, Daughter Geoness had fun as did a gaggle of other young cachers. I was helping setup the tshirt pickup spot and I could hear them laughing from here. I think one of the biggest kicks for the kids was the Ammo Box Painting. I wish I can find out who donated the boxes but there were a ton of them. The look on the little tykes faces was priceless and I have to be honest I wouldn't have minded picking up a half dozen myself, but I digress. Finishing the kids activities was of course the pinata; kids, candy, paper mache and a big stick, good times.

So what did Daughter Geoness and I do while all of this fun, friendship and well, fun going on? Glad you asked, we worked. I thought the other officers of the NCGO are always busting their butts doing things for our enjoyment, why not give them a break? I didn't even have to ask Miss Geoness, she was helping in the kitchen before I even knew it. She loves to help anyways and when you throw in Horsegeeks and Billwolf1 who she considers as extended grandpas you couldn't drag her away. For me, I had a blast handing out the t-shirts, geocoins and other NCGO stuff. "Isn't that kinda boring?", you might think. Not at all, I was able to meet just about everyone who attended the event one at a time. I had more fun swapping stories, saying hi to familiar faces and greeting others for the first time. To me something like that is worth the full price of admission. It is so easy for everyone to separate and go their own ways. My table was one of the focal points in the event and everyone eventually came over to say hi. I loved it.

For some the best part of a North Carolina Geocaching Event is the potential hunt, others is the fellowship, for this HeadHardHat it's the food. Horsegeeks, Billwolf1, Mrs. Billwolf, Geoness and a host of other people too numerous to mention. Worked all day for something known as Kenny and Celeste's Excellent Meal. Basically take a huge pile of NUM and multiply it by 100. I'm not kidding, good ole southern cooking is alive and well and I could not be more happy or was that hungry? I had to laugh because as the day wore on the smells from the kitchen were overwhelming. Every once and a while Horsegeeks would sneak out a plate of tasty tid bits to wet my appetite. Can we say BBQ? Truly nummy. Then at the designated time the feast began and everyone came a running. There was food everywhere including southern BBQ pork, Horsegeeks famous baked beans, homemade macaroni and cheese, sliced fruit, hamburgers, hot dogs and desserts by the truckload. There was more but I am getting hungry just typing this... be right back...

As the day started to push towards evening and everyone had more than enough to eat. It was time for the day's silent auction and awards ceremony to begin. This year we had about fifty items to bid on and the exchange was heated as usual. One person would put a bit on item 39 and then mosey over to something else of interest. Which gave the next auctioneer a chance to out bit on your item. When the time was up the auction ends and you pays your monies. It's all in good fun and everyone loves the challenge of getting the items they really want.

The final awards went to all the contestants from each of the main events. The most creative that I had seen was the gold painted ammo box medallions awarded to the Geo-Olympics winners. They were real ammo boxes painted gold with red, white and blue ribbons. All the rage in geocaching circles everywhere.

To sum up, I really look forward to every event I am privileged to attend. The people are outstanding and we all have such a good time sharing our experiences, stories and friendships. I bumped into several people who introduced themselves as being first time comers. They sometimes ask "what do we do?". I usually reply for them to relax and to know that they are welcome and they are among friends. You can see the realization in their faces of just that, they are with people who know how to have fun and before you know it the new comers are talking, laughing and having a great time right along side the rest of us. How special it is to be a part of the geocaching community.

Enjoy Our Fall Fling 2008 Slideshow

To View The Entire Album Go Here
http://picasaweb.google.com/headhardhat/NCGOFallFling2008

Spending Quality Time in Cary, NC

What a great day daughter Geoness and I had on Saturday. We fully intended to blow our current number of finds record off the map. Our intentions were straight forward, get as many as we can and the sky was the limit. Go - Go - Go nothing was going to slow us down.

The plan for the day was sure simple enough. I created my cache raid list for the day with an over zealous one hundred possible caches to choose from. We would start about 9:00 am and go until sunset. Even started off with a nice breakfast then packed a picnic style lunch so we didn't have to stop anywhere to eat. Finished off with some munchies and a cooler full of water. Ready - Set - Go! Voom...

I had a feeling by our very first cache that it would set the over all pace for the day. We started by doing some hiking on the available greenways in southeast Cary, NC. We parked near Johnson Lake Park and was just going to hit one or two nearby caches then move on. It was so scenic and the weather was perfect for taking a long stroll. There were people everywhere and you can tell that this was one of the first times after a long hot summer that people could come out into the pine scented air and really enjoy it. Geoness went nuts with the camera and very quickly the fervor of finding the most caches possible quickly turned into "would you look at that" and "stand over there so I can take a picture". Did I mention the weather was perfect out? We mozied to our first cache which happened to be an ammo box under a log. With the trees being rather thick I found myself quickly playing the ever popular follow the bouncing arrow game. Walking off the path and bushwhacking towards what I thought would be a logical place for the cache I hear in the distance, "Found It".

"Doh!", I squeak from under my breath. "Your kidding right?", I hear giggles so this can't be good.

"Nope, I have it in my hands", my daughter says with that nanner-nanner pre-teen tone.

Sure enough there was the ammo box just asking to be investigated. We made quick work of signing the log and checking for any worth while treasures then the green painted cache was put back in it's hiding spot and we were back on the trails.

Before I could ask if Miss Geoness wanted to go back to the car she asks me if there were any other caches we could find. Because I was going by the Cache Raid list I had not done much research on nearby caches but it was worth a little walking to the next one. I mean how much time could another cache take or another and another... before we knew it we ended up picking up a few more before we actually did stop.

**Note - because there are so many caches there we will be going back to Johnson Lake Park real soon, would love to see it in the fall.

Eventually we made it to the car and continued on to our next cache on the list. I didn't realize it at the time but we ended up on the north side of Johnson Lake. We found a spot in a nearby parking lot and took a shortcut to the greenway in hopes of finding a couple of Horsegeeks caches. The view at this end of the park was no less spectacular with the lush greenery and shining water through the trees. We walked for about a quarter of a mile and came up to a very nice boardwalk that went over a more swampy like terrain. We had found our next cache location and after seeing the ground cover I told Geoness to hang back a bit and let me find this one. She agreed and I started up a small hill in the direction of the cache. I was instantly startled when I realized that I had walked right smack into an Orb Spider web. There is not too many things that will get your blood pumping more than looking eye to eye with such a large spider. Fortunately I had hit the lower part of the web first and the beautifully yellow, white and black colored beastie made it up to a large leaf. A bit shaken I continued my journey towards the suspected cache site. My suspicions were confirmed as I gazed down at the medium sized lock 'n lock box. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I realized what I would need to do next. You see the cache was placed inside a hole that two twin trees had made between them. The hole was about a foot deep and another foot wide. Perfect spot for a snake den. Leave it to me to go on the one hike in a wooded area without my trusty backpack. This would have been a perfect time to use my grabber tool which was, say it with me now, in said back pack. Instead I did the next best thing and prodded the hole with my walking stick and after being mostly sure nothing was in there I held my breath and reached.

My head instantly wandered to the visions of a fellow cacher who recently was bit by a copperhead. This of course caused me to miss the cache at first grab and actually took a couple of heart pounding tries before I managed to get the prize. Much to my relief I brought the cache back down the hill to my daughter who commented how much I was sweating. I smiled and said that it must be getting hot out and we can stop for a liquid refreshment break soon. After signing the log for this thrill filled cache I was happy to put it back for the next finder and move on.

The rest of the day consisted of several other green way hikes. I think we must have walked about five miles overall. There were several series that were fun including a lot of bison tube hunts. By the time it was getting dark we both were pretty bushed and we ended up with 18 finds for the day. Not the biggest amount when it comes to the numbers game but when it comes to the amount of quality time that the two of us shared it was priceless.

TimMcGrawlookalike and HeadHardHat Meet Face To Face, Finally!

Okay all you conspiracy theory people out there. Better sharpen your pencils because I finally was able to meet up with TimMcGrawlookalike today.

Conspiracy you say? Yes we've heard the stifled whispers in the hallways, the finger pointing from the other side of the room and those off hour phone calls when fellow cachers ask, "What gives?". Okay maybe not the finger pointing so much but I was recently asked if TimMcGrawlookalike and I had an ongoing plan to gain the most FTFs by feeding off each other's new caches. I can say with great certainty that we do not and it just seems that way. You see up in the Oxford, NC area there are not a whole lot of regulars. Much to TMGL's and my amazement once either one of us put out a cache it tends to just sit there for a day or three. When we finally go to work we will pick them up but for the most part they are not picked up as quickly as other areas. The pattern is usually the same, he would put a cache and I would go find it. Then I would put out a cache then he would be the FTF.
This has happened so often that people apparently noticed. That’s okay I love FTFs and will gladly race for whoever places caches along my way to work and back.

What gets me pumped though is when someone else puts out a new cache, then it really gets interesting. There are four regulars in the Oxford area when it comes to Geocaching. There is TMGL and I who get up really early for work so that seems to give us a slight advantage. Then comes Ringer2410 an Oxford native and a creative hider in his own right. Last but not even close to least is mobettamerf. Now I am pretty sure that mobettamerf sleeps with an early warning system under her pillow when a new cache gets published. Because there are times she will go out in the middle of the night to get a FTF. TimMcGrawlookalike is in law enforcement so he has all sorts of cool gadgets like night vision goggles and stuff. I would swear he has a bat cave nearby but I am still looking into that. On that rare occasion the planets are all in a line a real race happens.

There have been times we all have missed each other by minutes. Not hours mind you but minutes. There is nothing like a look on a FTF hunter when they see you waving goodbye in the rear view mirror and they just missed the prize. Muhahahaha, sorry I digress. This happened today as a matter of fact, I put out a new cache yesterday called Lunch Bucket #1: Butner Snacker. It published and both TMGL and mobettamerf went for it first thing. I won’t say who beat who but she must have been book’n from home. Apparently the other unfortunate cacher missed it by 45 minutes! Man I love this sport, hobby, obsession… That’s how it goes in the world of caching.

Well that was a long way to go for the main reason I wrote this article today. After emailing for such a long time I really wanted to meet up with TMCL since we never actually met face to face before. Unfortunately we did not have a lot of lunch time to spare so we decided to meet at one of my favorite Oxford hides, Playing on the Train Tracks #6. There we took a little stroll to see if it was still in good shape or not. While trying to avoid the tall weeds and falling off of a railroad bridge we were able to talk about a host of other caching adventures and ideas. We confirmed POTT #6 was ok and it was put back in its happy hiding spot. After completing our hike there was just enough time to trade some of our geocoins. TMCL liked one of my pathtag Sherpa coins and I went for a Horsegeeks personal coin and a Coinfest Event Coin from last year. Very cool.

Pressed for time we had to end our conversation but I don’t think it will be too long before we see each other again on the caching trail. TimMcGrawlookalike really gives the impression of being a top notch guy and I hope we can do some caching together sometime soon instead of going for that elusive FTF. Not that there is any fun it that!