Four attempts.
Yesterday, it took me four attempts to find a cache.
I decided to go down to South Austin to find my daily cache, to a subdivision I hadn’t been to for a few years. A lot of building had happened since I had last been in the area, but I was neither surprised nor unaffected. The city, like most cities, has been expanding for as long as I can remember. There are locations that in my youth I considered the edges of town that I now often fly right by to see friends or grab caches. I remembered when these were only fields of grass. But that didn’t matter. I had a job to do.
My first cache attempt was, in hindsight, a bit ill-conceived. I went to a shopping center to make a quick grab from what I assumed would be a lamppost. I’m 98 percent sure that was the hide, but on Sunday afternoons, restaurants and families go together like proverbial white on proverbial rice. I pulled into the lot and inched toward an LPC and a large group of people dressed in their Sunday finest (or a reasonable equivalent thereof) congregating around their cars and ground zero. Twenty people of various ages talked and laughed and, in the case of the youngest, chased each other around. Being a parent, I immediately questioned the wisdom of letting children run around a parking lot, but beyond my concern for the little ones, I was miffed that my LPC was so occupied. I decided to park and linger for a little while, hoping they would soon disperse. They didn’t. So I took a few more minutes to choose another cache and then put the happy family behind me.
My second attempt was just as successful. On the far end of the neighborhood, I found an area that had some obvious preparation for future construction that had not begun in earnest. The preliminaries must have been done a while before. Ground had been flattened, but some grass had started growing back where it had been torn out. The houses in the subdivision didn’t look more than a few years old at most, so maybe they were going to build there and had some kind of delay. All I knew was that in the middle of the dusty field were two things: a tree that must have been my new GZ and a quartet of unhoused people resting in the shade beneath it. Two were in folding chairs, and two were on the ground, all seated by a tent that had been pitched there. From my vantage, I could see they were passing something back and forth, but I couldn’t tell if it was food, a bottle, or something else I couldn’t think of at the moment. I grimaced a bit at having to choose another cache, but I also remembered that I would be back at my own home in an hour after mere recreational activity, so I had no place to be truly annoyed. I was lucky enough to be able to change my plan in the first place.
My third attempt took me to the edge of a park in the center of the subdivision. I knew the cache was magnetic, and I saw the metal tables and chairs. I knew this would be the one! Well, I knew it right up until I stopped and pointed my phone in the direction of the cache. It looked to be at the only table and chairs where joggers were seated. Really?! Isn’t the entire point that those folks are supposed to keep moving? Usually away from the space they had previously occupied? A couple of them had their phones out as they lingered about. I thought for a few seconds about how funny it would be if they were cachers looking for this one, too. I watched them sit and stretch for a while but quickly opted to move on. I had ditched two already. I didn’t feel like spending more time waiting for these to move. I gave them the time it took to choose another cache and fill up my bottle from a water fountain, and then I was off.
My fourth and final attempt was at a nearby convenience store. I pulled up to an LPC at the back of the parking lot, far from other vehicles. Just as I pulled up, another car pulled up beside me. Really?!? At least 200 feet from the entrance, 150 feet from any other car, someone chooses to park right next to me? Come on!!! I delayed leaving the car and observed the driver of the vehicle parked unnecessarily close to me. He bounded out and headed for the door. Whew! I went to the lamppost and lifted the skirt to reveal a key box. I went through this entire comedy for just this? I guess I did. A cache is a cache is a cache. I signed the log and then set off for home. Maybe next time the muggles can just … you know … not be there?
Geocaching While Black 