After complaining about the old Treasure collections that I haven’t completed, I decided to do something about it. A whole bunch of the new caches dropped along Town Lake and the accompanying Hike and Bike Trail have exactly what I need, being mostly Traditionals with the Scenic View attribute. I made my way towards downtown and parked by the river in a somewhat familiar spot (I had found caches around there before). I took a short walk down a path, dodging runners, joggers, and bikers until I arrived at GZ and then read the re-read the description. It didn’t say much of importance other than to watch out for cyclists and runners, which was fine. I looked at the hint, and it only said one word: oak. Now here’s the thing… After years of doing outside activities (caching, boy scouting, the Army version of “camping”), I still can’t recognize trees to save my life. I happen to be lucky that I know what an oak looks like (and strangely enough, birch), but if it had been another kind of tree, I would have been screwed. If you put a gun to my head, I could probably get a cedar right because they’re all over the place in Central Texas, but I’ve gotten them wrong before. I took a moment to look about and identified the oak in the area. There I began my search. It went poorly. This was my possibly least favorite cache style: a micro in a tree. For some reason, they are so hard for me to find and I don’t know why. Oddly enough, I have to wonder if it’s a daytime thing because I’ve managed to find more than a few at night when one would think it should be impossible. Up and down the trunk, along branches, no joy. I stepped back and considered my next move for a moment and then realized what the problem was: I was looking at the wrong tree. Behind it, coming up to my waist, was an oak tree sapling and on its trunk, no thicker than my thumb, was a bison tube waiting to be opened. Inveni, inscripsi, reposui. I logged it on the walk back to the car and then looked to see which Treasure I had gotten for it. The answer was none. I had forgotten that not only does it have to have Scenic View, it also has to have a favorite point and I didn’t check for that!
Yes, I got a cache for the day, but otherwise, I managed to focus on nothing! I know better than that!
Geocaching While Black 