The Day Before…

In the morning, we had an appointment. It was not in Samara, but it might have been just as dangerous. I have always felt that the Necropolis at Britannia Manor was the best cache I have ever found. But I had long been hearing rumblings of a cache outside Oklahoma City that could be a competitor. Based on expected Mega-Event visitors, an appointment website was set up for it, and I had booked an appointment. The girls and I arrived on-site and came face-to-face with one of the most daunting challenges we would ever face together (in a geocaching sense, that is). When the time came, we opened the door, pulled the power switch, and entered the Infernal Device!

We were stuck on its first secret for a while, but we were lucky enough to stumble across it. We continued deeper into the bowels, step by step, until we found the ultimate goal: the log itself!

I’m not entirely sure if this is the better cache; I’m still mulling that over. But it is unquestionably on the short list of best caches ever. My only regret is that I could not give it more than one of my stingily hoarded favorite points. Once it was conquered, we played some Geo-Plinko and did a Mystery Cache on the property, which my muggle daughter gets all the credit for solving (she’s a great tree climber and a good puzzle solver, so why she doesn’t want to be an actual cacher is beyond me, but that’s not my decision to make). But we soon had to leave. I had to go to other appointments, one at a costume shop and one at an Event.

A Night at the Noble was a living Adventure Lab series based on the movie Night at the Museum and held at the Sam Noble Museum at the University of Oklahoma. The answers could only be gotten from the once-frozen but soon-living exhibits of the museum.

Of course, that means this happened …

I played the Pharaoh Ahkmenrah. I was thronged by visitors seeking the answer to one of the Labs, seeking to know what it was that I truly craved. I educated those who would seek to know the mind of a pharaoh. I wished not for the desires of mere mortals. I sought not wealth, for gold flowed from my house as the waters of the Nile. I sought not lands, for they stretched from the rising sun above the great delta to the setting sun in far Ethiopia. I sought not subjects, for mine numbered as the stars in the heavens. I sought not power, for the shadow of my outstretched hand darkened the world if I so desired. All I wished for, all I demanded was a simple thing, an ephemeral delight …

All I wanted was pie. Possibly apple or blueberry. Pecan would have been nice. Lemon meringue would have been lovely. But no rhubarb. To even speak that word in my presence would invite the wrath of the Great House of the Land of Wheat and Reeds!

We all played our parts. Jedediah and Octavius bickered. Amelia Earhart talked of her flights. Calamity Jane told stories of a lost love. The Neanderthals … were Neanderthals. We played it up for the crowds for a couple hours and gave them something few cachers had ever experienced. They were happy about it, and we were happy to do something novel for them.

After the Noble Event, we all gathered for dinner and hatched a plot to go get a night cache. I was interested, but the deciding factor for me was that the girls were down for it. Eight of us went out to a nearby lakeside park and took a path into the forest, following FireTacks along the route. I didn’t know about the quarter-mile hike, and I was feeling the weight of the day dragging me down, but I wasn’t going to flag in front of my compatriots, and I was especially not going to falter in front of my little girls. We marched together, armed with our flashlights, until we found the tacks that signaled to turn off the trail. A light bushwhacking began until we found the tacks that signaled we had reached our destination.

We found a cache that only a serial killer could love. OK, we kinda liked it, too. Once we figured out how to open it, we all put our ink on the log—a final victory at the end of a long day. We all made our way out of the forest and back to our vehicles so we could get back to our lodgings for rest. Our days would continue tomorrow at…