I got off work and, as I am wont to do, I headed out to get a cache for the day. My first attempt was a bust, but forgivable. I just couldn’t find that D3/T5 in that tree. As we all know, it happens.
The second attempt fared no better. I’m pretty sure it was hidden under a small footbridge. Unfortunately, finding it was complicated by two things: (a) it’s in the middle of a disc golf course, and muggles were getting their sport on all over the place, and (b) with all the rains of the last couple of weeks, the creek was running pretty fast beneath it, and I wasn’t attired for getting in the water.
The third attempt similarly went down in flames. It brought me to a local library. I initially thought it might be a book cache inside, but it wasn’t. It would have been too convenient because the building was still open. I figured out that it must have been attached to a bench outside the front door. Unfortunately, that bench was occupied by an unhoused person, all his bags beneath, charging his phone. I may occasionally be bold, but there’s no way I’m going searching underneath near all of a person’s worldly possessions.
But the fourth one? I hit a park near the library. Construction prevented me from driving pretty much right up to the cache, but a circuitous walk to a secret side path led to a small copse of trees, and in the center, lying on the ground, far from the madding crowd, was a water-filled plastic container. But the log was dry, so I signed it and claimed victory.
GAAAH! One for four for the day! What’s up with that? Is there any more annoying feeling than having a string of DNFs? We all know it happens, but jeez! It’s weird because part of it was the luck of the day, but part of it is indicative of a different problem I’ve begun to have. I have found a lot of caches in Travis County. Over half the caches in the county, in fact. I haven’t found every D1.5/T1.5, but I have claimed most, if not all, of the low-hanging fruit in the area. I already pop over to neighboring counties from time to time just because, but recently I’ve been needing to do it more than wanting to. Of course, I recognize that there’s an easy solution to the problem: end my streak. And yet, I don’t do that. I said that I was going to stop when I hit four years, and yet now I’m coming up on five, and I’m still going. Maybe when I hit five years I’ll actually stop. But I guess I’ve said that once before, haven’t I?
Geocaching While Black 