Saturday, the Girls and I went out to a thing. When we left to make our way back home, I remembered that I hadn’t gotten a cache yet so I dragged them along. We were in Central Austin just south of the river, which was fertile ground since a cacher has recently been dropping new caches all over the parks and trails around the area. We pulled into the parking lot of a favorite burger place and took a moment to get our bearings. It was pretty obvious that it was a good old LPC. We debarked from the car, lifted the skirt, and beheld a little tin box with an armadillo glued to it. When my younger daughter grabbed it, we learned that the glue had, in fact, not adhered to the box and the armadillo came off separately, but that’s not the point. It was a cute little container, even if it wasn’t perfect.
Everyone of you have gotten a lamp post cache. I’m willing to bet that at least five percent of the caches you’ve found in your caching career are LPCs. I can only speak for myself, but I doubt there is a state I’ve cached in that I haven’t found one or more (though, now that I think about it, I didn’t find one in Delaware, New Jersey, or New York, but small sample sizes so give me time). There’s not one of us who hasn’t found a metal tin or a film canister or something similar. And I bet that a lot of us have hidden them as well. They serve the purpose of being easy to find , which is great for passers-through, but they’re never exciting. They’re not. But there’s nothing to say that you can’t make them a little more interesting. I’ve found a 3D printed maze box under a skirt before. Many moons ago, I made an LPC at a library that was more involved than normal. I’ve seen more interesting ones that feature entire miniature tableaus and such. They can be done, but I also realize how hard it can be to maintain a cache. The more interesting you make it, the more upkeep and repair it will require, especially if it is easier to find. The one I have had to do the most replacement of is the first cache I ever placed which, as you can imagine, is an LPC. If it was really nice, I probably would have archived it at some point for being a pain. But they don’t always have to be forever, do they? What’s wrong with making a really cool cache, taking care of it for a year, and then letting it go? Not every cache was meant to last forever, so why not make something nice for everyone for a while? I don’t expect this little armadillo we found to last forever, especially now that it has come off of the metal tin, but for a little while it brought some of us joy. Isn’t that enough? I’m not arguing for short-lived caches, but some of my best caches haven’t lived long because they were too hard to replicate and some of my worst caches have limped along weakly for-seemingly-ever. Isn’t it better to have a flash of awesome than an eternity of crappy? I sure think so.
Geocaching While Black 