Turtle In, Rabbit Out

Yesterday, while I was considering what cache to find for the day, I remembered I had wanted to go for one last week but opted not to because it was raining. The funny thing about Texas weather is that it can change vastly over a short period. While last week was wet and cold, the last couple of days have been beautiful, so I decided to vindicate myself and go get a large.

Once I arrived on the scene, I had the same problem I had the first time I drove around: I couldn’t figure out how to get into the woods to find this thing. It was all fairly dense, but I realized there was nothing to it but to do it. Ground zero was about two hundred feet in, and I’ve been through that much roughly packed terrain before. Time wasn’t a huge factor, so all I had to do was take it slow and steady, and I would make it. So slow and steady I went. My first concern was avoiding greenbrier. Because it wreaks havoc on my clothes and because, as other cachers will tell you, I’m not a fan of pokey bull … crap. Of course, the greenbrier quickly became a secondary concern as soon as I realized there were platoons of cactus plants scattered around, their spines presented like little bayonets at the ready. It also didn’t help that there were downed limbs and detritus from previous storms. It seemed like a lot of effort for a T2.

But slow and steady I went. One thing that I have always been lucky about is that I move with an odd grace for my size. I can probably count on both hands the number of times I’ve had things happen while looking for caches that should have put me down: stepping on unsteady rocks, catching holes before I stepped in them, gently traversing over limbs that should have broken beneath my weight. The only time I ever seriously failed a dex check while caching, I tripped backward over a sealed well. My lucky grace was with me still, though. I rolled on my back over the cement cap and onto the cool, damp grass. The only things hurt were my toe (it stubbed against the ground when I landed) and my pride (another cacher witnessed the entire thing).

Slowly and steadily, I continued, slipping past limbs and avoiding pokey bullcrap. The hardest parts were when I couldn’t stand erect. It’s no big deal to duck under something, but I can’t stand remaining crouched or bent over for an extended period. There’s something about being able to stretch out to my full height that’s comforting, and I took every chance I could get to do so in any clearing I could find. I thought at first there might be a path I missed when I saw such open areas. There was no such luck, but it gave me a chance to reassess my vector to the cache. Little by little, the distance got shorter: 135 feet … 65 feet … 28 feet … until eventually, I could see the cache at the foot of a tree about 25 feet off GZ. The coordinates were a little off, but not enough to be a serious issue. Or maybe there was enough signal interference from the trees that I was showing the wrong spot. Either way, it was there and waiting for me. After dodging one last greenbrier vine, I had reached my quarry!

Contained inside was an entire five-gallon bucket full of swag and tchotchkes. I quickly realized that the log would be obscured somewhere within. I began to root around in the treasures, trying to figure out which one it could be. Then it dawned on me that the name of the cache provided a relevant clue, and the especially terse hint provided another. With the two pieces of information, I could already guess what to look for, and I was not disappointed. Inveni, inscripsi, reposui back inside the pile.

After my searching and signing, I set myself to the task of getting out. I thought for a moment about which way I should go but immediately noticed that I could see cars driving past in the distance. I walked about fifty feet to a sidewalk through far less densely packed cover than I had arrived through. Where was this ease twenty minutes before when I was dodging limbs, thorns, and spines? And once I was on the sidewalk, I quickly figured out that I was just around the corner from my car. As the saying goes, we always find the easy way out and the hard way in.