Styles

Does one ever truly leave Waco? In other than the literal sense, I mean? I’m not sure because I don’t seem to have gotten out of its orbit. Several days ago, I decided that, since I was in Waco again, I might as well find a cache up there. I pulled up the map, chose my target, and headed over to the Waco-McLennan County Library to get it. I didn’t find it. I should have because it was only a D2/T1 that had been found a couple of weeks before, but it escaped me. It also didn’t help that muggles kept coming up and parking nearby, and I didn’t want to look too suspicious. It was the lady who had to check the doors to verify the library was closed on a national holiday that cemented my decision to break off and try a different cache. I went over to a nearby cache at a donut shop, billed as an LPC not under a skirt. I saw no obvious container from my position, but muggles—two guys hanging out and talking on the curb and two cars parked directly under the post—made me quickly reconsider going for it. No matter because there was a third one up the road. It, another LPC not under a skirt, completely eluded me. I had a chance to give it a good search, despite being across the street from a muggle-infested skate park. Based on previous logs and photos, I was 98.97 percent sure (significant digits are a thing, folks) that it was a magnetic strip painted the same brown color as the pole. I looked and touched and searched, but no joy. After twenty minutes, and at least a few odd looks from across the street, I decided to call it. Do I suck at geocaching? Some days I do. I consulted the map again and then headed back toward the center of town to take another shot.

I found myself near a walking trail on the bank of the Brazos, at the foot of a hundred-year-old plinth dedicated to the Bard and the three hundredth anniversary of his death.  The hint merely read “underneath.”  Underneath the water basin on the front?  It wasn’t there.  Underneath rocks or a similar feature?  I saw nothing like that.  I sure hoped it wasn’t underneath all the brush and bamboo piled up beside it that I had neither the interest nor the ability to move at that moment.  I gave it a few minutes and then aborted the search.  Filled with a sense of disappointment, I opted to cherchez la easy and claim a bridge-based Virtual and panther-based Adventure Lab across the street from Will. 

I had an hour and a half to think about it on the drive home.  I rarely have that much trouble finding simple caches.  Occasionally, I just can’t find one to save my life, but usually they are quickly trodden beneath my sandaled feet.  But not finding four in a row?  I doubted they were all muggled, so I began to wonder if I had been a victim of hiding style.  It wouldn’t be the first time that I had gone to an area, and, because of the habits of the local hiders, I was unable to find something because I wasn’t used to their regional peccadilloes.  There’s at least one prolific hider here who has certain hiding tendencies, to the point that we refer to them by his name.  Has Waco developed a style that I have been heretofore unacquainted with?  This raises the question (though it does not beg, for you rhetoric/debate sticklers out there): should I get acquainted with it?  I normally only grab ones in Waco when I’m passing through (though I have a good handful in McLennan County, thanks to a power trail that dips into it), but do I need to spend more time there?  Technically, I don’t have to.  I’ve got one for the Texas County Challenge, and I don’t want to cache the town out in case I pass through and need one on the way to somewhere else.  On the other hand, do I want the mysteries of Waco to elude me?  Signs point to no…