From art deco to Neoclassical! I liked this trend. Part of me felt that I should say something about the landscaping, but I was beginning to feel the tiredness pressing into my bones. I had done well over a thousand miles of driving by that point and still had a couple of hours until sunset. I began to think of preparations for nighttime (and, by that, I meant some well-deserved rest) but until then sleep was for the weak!
My first cache attempt failed for a reason that has cropped up constantly over the years: hide style. While every place has some fairly universal hides (LPCs, micros in trees, etc.), most places also have regional hide styles that are unfamiliar to outsiders. In this case, the CO of the cache had recently replaced it with a small container and gave it the hint “beacon has the goodie”. Someone else had recently found it so I was fairly sure it was there but otherwise I had no idea what that means. If I was at home, I might have spent more time searching for it, but out on the road time is my most valuable asset. I’d burned enough time that day so even though it felt like it should be a park and grab, I had no other context for what I was even supposed to be looking for or how I should do it. So I had to let a theoretical park and grab go. I also noticed that the CO hid all the caches around Flandreau so I was worried that this experience was going to be duplicated over the next hours looking for another of their caches. My second attempt turned out, luckily, to be a micro in a tree. Unluckily, it was another one of those pokey trees like back in Pierce (the irony not lost on me), but I managed to find it despite being annoyed as all get out, so I took it and ran. Victory requires no explanation! And ran I did, out of Flandreau, all the way to…
Geocaching While Black 