Hiding With The Dead

Cemetery caches are ubiquitous. I’m guessing 95 percent of cachers have found at least one. That’s not a number methodically ascertained by statistical sampling, so (as the kids say) don’t @ me, bro. My point here (and I do have one) is that it’s unsurprising that I’d go for a newly published cemetery cache. If I had gone for it when it first dropped, I could have gotten the FTF, but I don’t do cemeteries at night. Yesterday, I went ahead and grabbed it. The FTF was gone, claimed by a local FTF hound, but a cache is a cache is a cache. The interesting thing, however, is that it’s a new entry in one of the largest and longest-ranging series in the state, the Texas Spirit Quest. Texas has no monopoly on Spirit Quest caches; I have gotten others in Louisiana, Colorado, and Washington. But as far as I can tell, Texas has the most placed by the same person. (Colorado has more cemeteries, but they’re not all the same cacher as far as I can tell.) Yesterday, I got the 195th cache in the Texas series, my 40th personally. Tomorrow, I will probably get the other one that dropped as well, Number 196. I have already been to both cemeteries to find caches previously placed in them by other cachers, but it won’t be the first time I’ve returned to the site of a previous hide for a new one.

Some cachers make a caching career out of being hiders. Sometimes their caches are themed, like the Texas Spirit Quest. Sometimes they’re larger experiences, such as power trails and Geoarts. Sometimes they’re just normal hides around an area so there are more for others to find. I have no doubt you can think of a cacher or two that fits each of those examples no matter where you are based. And even though they all exist on the spectrum between helpful and annoying, they’re the real heroes out there. If people don’t hide, there’s nothing for anyone to find. The rest of us would have little to do. So thanks, Purukivel and all the rest of you. This one’s for you.