A Muggle and an FTF

Well, if you’ve been following along for awhile, you know that several times I’ve attempted to go caching with a co-worker named Nicole. Inevitably something would happen that prevented her from coming. Well, as Rex is off this week and someone needed to cover his second closing day, I had almost all of Thursday off. And so did she. So we make the plans and try our best not to jinx it.

Thursday rolls around and I’m waiting, figuring once again something had come up. Turns out, something did, but she wasn’t going to let it stop her! Nicole and I were finally off on a caching adventure.

I stopped by ICN2U to give her some practice with a full sized can, then also at SHM #213 (which at this point still had not been published). The first she found after I shrugged when she said “It just can’t be there!” and the second she found on her own, with little prodding from me. Practice in; it was time to head to Lockwood.

I’d been seeing GeoSpyder’s Lockwood caches since they had popped up (being within my 2 mile radius of a watched spot), so I decided today was the day to get them. We drove out 80, first stopping at the Patrick “Scenic” overlook. Took a moment to find, but eventually the tuppertainer was ours. Then back towards Reno. The second stop was the old bridge at Mustang, during which her husband called. He asked where we were, and her answer was “Oh, the Mustang Ranch.” I can just see Bob’s face over that one!! This was a bugger to find, as we first couldn’t determine which side of the bridge it was on. Laying the electronic gear (open area down to the Truckee is not good from such equipment) at ground zero we began to hunt. After about 5-10 minutes, I gave up, checked the logs, and phoned John for help. He couldn’t exactly remember where it was, so I ended up on a three-way call with Jodi. Mustang calling Fallon calling San Diego – yeah, the tangled webs we weave. Jodi provided the needed clue and as I was drifting up and down the bridge spotted the clue about 25 feet from the gear. Nicole came over and, being a few feet taller than me, scored the cache. I thanked John and we were off to the next!

Another cache mentioned a short walk, but “with a 4x4, you can drive to within a few feet.” Knowing Spyder’s love of driving as close as vehicularly possible, I decided to drive. Up onto an old fence line road and down a hill that Nicole wasn’t sure we would be able to climb again; I parked 7 feet from the cache. She made the find and I got us back onto pavement. We then turned into the very full Exit 22 area and grabbed two more caches, demonstrating the “unnatural rock/stick/thing pile” and why rock piles suck. Thankfully, Spyder did not hide the micro in the rocks, but those imposing piles would make any cacher weep.

Brought Nicole home at noon, grabbed my uniform for the night, and back up to Reno to meet LostInReno for lunch and some quick caching before work. While parked at her house, I felt my phone vibrate, signaling new email. Bringing up the screen shows “[Notify] RoadRunner published….” twice. I checked quickly to see where the new caches were and they were both in Reno, by the same person, in the same area. She hopped into the truck and we were off at 1pm in hopes of beating both Randallh and byjer to an FTF. The first was rated a 4 star difficulty, se we went armed to the teeth. Well, we had our GPS’s, what else do you need? Finding the site also found us the cache quickly. Four star my foot, 2.5 maybe. Popping the lid open and opening the logbook reveals… a blank page! We did it!! Took a photo, signed the log, laughed as a skateboarder went over our heads, and off we went to the next.

This was rated a 3.5/4, but since the other was way overrated, we decided to tackle it anyway. Got to the site and LostInReno began by heading straight to the river bank. She braved the rock wall and found the cache. I scrambled up (we’d made this far harder than it needed to be) ready for another photo op. As I clicked the camera open, I heard a rather colorful word come from the direction of LostInReno. Looking up, there she was, holding a log book with a bright shiny new signature in it.

Byjer.

Damn.

We grabbed lunch after that and two nearby caches that I’d skipped, thinking they were puzzles. Then it was time to drop her off and head back to work. Work, boring as usual, was highlighted by BroncoCacher signing on to report he’d arrived in Sparks the night before, had been in Carson all day, and was ready for some caching. Tomorrow night, I’m heading up there to catch up with him and LostInReno to grab some caches and just meet. Then WhtWolfDen will fly in Saturday and we’ll all head off to the event that night. BC, however, realized he won’t be coming to the Rally, so is instead suggesting we power cache Reno/Sparks. Sounds like a definite plan to me, let’s see who else we can recruit for a Sunday outing.

Speaking of Nicole – after her 7 caches, she is now officially HOOKED ON THE GAME! She is going to dive headfirst into this and next Thursday I am in the same situation. Where can I take her to show her the best of caching, to firmly implant that bug so deep it’ll never work its way free of her???