Finds And Misdemeanors

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Cache Nine Thousand was coming up for me. Though I didn’t have special plans for it, I didn’t want to make it some random LPC or something, either. After a little bit of thought, I remembered the perfect cache. A nearby Virtual was recently placed (and by “recently,” I mean within the last year) at the main building and central tower of the University of Texas. I was almost FTF when it dropped, but I decided to save it for a rainy day when I didn’t want to go far from home or needed something easy. As I looked at my map today, I realized it would be perfect. It has a personal connection, being both my alma mater and central to my city’s development. It’s an interesting location, and—more importantly—the fall semester hasn’t quite kicked off, so it wouldn’t be crawling with students, and I could beat the rush. I jumped in my car and headed downtown.

I drove around the appropriate part of campus, looking for a parking spot. Though many things had changed, some things never change. Between Dobie and PCL, parking near the South Mall has always been problematic. If I was more of a scofflaw, I would have parked in a no-parking zone between charter buses. Instead, I made a different choice. A line of food trucks was across the street, obscuring most of a small pay lot. I pulled into the pay lot behind them and stopped. I popped across the street up the Mall, walking paths I once walked, passing older Virtuals I had long since claimed, to find that the plaza in front of the building had been barricaded off, most likely because of a recent graduation ceremony at the end of the summer semester. Since the Virtual I came for was on the other side of those barricades, this presented a problem. I walked around the edges in hopes of finding another way there, but I guess UT security is good at placing barricades to keep people out. Or were they? This time, I went full scofflaw and just walked through a gap in the iron standees. What was the worst that could happen? Someone might send me back outside the barricades? Once I had passed, it was nothing to approach the grand double doors, read the appropriate plaque for the appropriate information, and then send off my answer. At the end, I took a selfie in front of the tower to prove that I had, in fact, been there.

Yesterday, I found my nine thousandth cache. And all I had to do was become a criminal mastermind to accomplish it!