Caching Trip – The Summary (& using a purse to cache)

Last night we got home from our caching trip.  I have been wanting to write about it but as mentioned before, we found little time.  As a result, I wrote only two short items and posted a few comments.  Now that I have the time, I have decided to post some items over the next while.  Rather than try and do it chronologically, which wont work with my short memory, I will try and do it by subjects or topics.  This should allow me to talk about such things as: adventures, people, hiking, biking, trails, events, weather, funny stories, camo, caching techniques, TB’s, socializing,  food, accommodations, etc.

Hopefully you will all find the posts interesting, but before going to them, I should give you a few stats from our trip. (after reading thru the stats, you will find a cute caching story from our trip):

Left home April 9

Arrived Home  May 5

Caching days  ALL 27 days

Total caches found 719

Caches hidden 1   (Our 4 th Logic Micro in Gatineau)

Most caches in a day  52

Least caches in a day 3

Average daily 26.6

Puzzles found 22

Events 9 (including two 10-Year events)

Kms by car   5000

Kms by bike 100

Weather: Some Tshirt weather, but also some snow and rain, and cold and combinations thereof.

Travel Bugs and Coins: We arrived in Ottawa/Gatineau on April 26 with 26 from NB and QC.  We dropped off the ones from NB in that area and dropped some of the ones from QC also.  We picked up more in that area and on our return trip and arrived home with 16. We will drop the TB’s  in local caches and bring the coins to events for local cachers to discover and grab.

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Now for the purse story.

While in Ottawa, we cached alone during the week since Natasha and George worked and Jake & Ben were at school.  There were a few caches we could not find, and we decided that all 6 of us would have better luck, so we brought them with us on the Sunday.  One of the caches was described as behind a knobby tree.  The only knobby tree was a large tree at the edge of the trail at the top of a steep slope.  Ma and I had looked and could not spot a cache anywhere on the tree.

This time Tasha looked up and spotted something in one of the knobs about 15 feet up the tree.  The hole in the center of the knob was about the size of a film canister and something brown seemed to be in the hole.  Nothing was sticking out so we had no idea if it was a cache and how to get it down. 

George volunteered to shimmy up the tree but was vetoed.  Jake produced a long thin branch with a small hooked branch on the end.  I took it and somehow managed to dislodge the cache from its hiding spot and have it fall to the ground.  It was a film canister cache. We were so pleased to have found it. However,  now we had two problems: How do we get the cache back up the tree, and thru the trees we could see someone standing at his window watching the six of us. (fortunately he was on the other side of the tree from the cache).

We noticed a magnet duct taped to the end of the film canister. It was obviously to be used to put the cache back but how?  We had brought nothing with us.  Then MA noted that the clasp that kept her purse closed was actually a magnet (I have no idea why she brought a purse into the woods). So we worked at tying the purse to the end of the stick, and then placed the cache on the magnet on the purse. I slowly raised the heavy purse way over my head on the end of the thin stick, all the while being watched by the man in the window. The purse, swung from side to side, but finally I got the cache to the hole and used the purse to shove it in. I then slid the purse down the side of the tree, and the cache remained.

We left smiling as the man in the window watched us leave.  I doubt that he had any idea what was going on and I wonder how he would explain it to his friends.