A Puzzling Gift

On Sunday, I attended an event hosted by some cachers visiting from New Hampshire. How could I not? They held it down the street from my home! Being the terrible correspondent I am, I neglected to get photos of the festivities, but there was conversation and laughter in the chill under a lunchtime sun. I made a point of letting them know about the Necropolis (I will let no one who comes here to cache miss that if I can help it). Trackables were discovered and exchanged. Most importantly, our host gave us a GPX file he was given by another cacher local to him with solutions to over five hundred puzzle Mystery caches from Austin to Fort Worth!

Among my friends, I’m considered pretty good at solving puzzles. I would even say that, compared to a regular muggle, I’m excellent at it. And then I started caching. When I began working puzzles on caches, I had a little success on the low Difficulty ones. And then I started getting to the mid-level ones. More of them stumped me than I like to admit. The high Difficulty ones? Fuhgeddaboudit. Yet these caches get found! There are puzzle solvers around here who must be mental deviants because ordinary puzzle solvers, much less standard muggles, don’t think that way. Further, there are a few puzzle makers around here who have to be certifiably insane to make the creations they do. I am not too proud to admit that, even with all the tools and tricks available to the modern geocacher, I can’t fathom some of these puzzles. I’ve even sometimes had explanations of puzzles, and they sounded like Greek to me. Actually, that’s not true. I took Greek in college, and these puzzles sounded nothing like Greek! So, to have that file with all those solutions handed to me on a silver platter that way? Could I possibly be more delighted? Is there a better way to earn my undying devotion (for the rest of the day)? I say thee nay!

Some people may say that it’s not fair to claim the cache without solving the puzzle myself. Some would say that it’s unearned. You know what? I will smile and nod at their words while putting my ink on the paper. Signing the log means victory! Suck it, grognards!