I’m sure that I’ve mentioned this before, but for some reason I just don’t like going to far South Austin for caches. I’ll go east, west, or north, even to surrounding communities to keep from going south of the river. And I figure that if I go far enough south, I might as well continue on to farther flung areas like San Marcos. Over the weekend, I found myself in far South Austin on my way home and decided to get a cache. The pickings would be good because, as previously stated, I don’t go down there that often, but a little sparse because the majority of area cachers live in northern Travis or Williamson Counties. One caught my attention immediately, not only because it was easy (D1.5/T1.5) but because it was old. I thought I had gotten pretty much every easy cache that was over twenty years old, and yet there it was, placed in 2004 and still unfound. I haven’t thought much about trying for a second Jasmer, but I of course checked whether or not I needed it if I did (I didn’t). When I got to it (in a planned community very reminiscent of Dallas), it was pretty easy to find, an Altoids can magnetically attached to some electrical equipment. But even though it was old, I was disappointed as I looked at that fresh tin. It had recently been replaced so its bright colors and the barely touched log within felt like less than they should have been.
I know there are many cachers who feel that certain caches are better than others: older ones, bigger ones, physical ones… A hike or other significant Terrain makes a cache more desirable in many of their eyes, more of a challenge to be had. I don’t feel that way. As I have said many times before, a cache is a cache is a cache. And yet, I got a twinge of it looking at that tin. After finding some of the oldest and most venerable caches in the country, that thinking is rubbing off on me a little bit. I shouldn’t think that way – one of the oldest caches in town is an LPC that has been there since 2003 – but I did. I don’t care that it’s tiny or easy or whatever. But for one so old, I just wanted it to be … more.
Please, don’t let me become a grognard.
