Come Out & Play – Win A Night At The Delta

25 thoughts on “Come Out & Play – Win A Night At The Delta”

• This year was my first winter attempting to geocache. I am fairly new at the game and I am not a fan of winter at all… like a bear I tend to hibernate!
  I was doing the “7days” of caching (part of the winter challenge) it was a busy day and the sun was about to set so I really needed to get this cache. It was planned… an easy one on my way home from work just off of the highway. I pulled over and put on my snowshoes and jumped over the 4ft sow bank that the plow had created after the last storm. After thinking that this was going to be a quick grab I suddenly sank well past my waist. OMG with my snowshoes on I just couldn’t get myself out of this hole. Panic set in! Arm flailing, pushing, pulling, twisting, jumping I finally got myself out of my situation probably getting a few laughs from passers-by. “I have to remember not to walk on that spot on my way back” I think to myself but then I sink again! ARG!!!!!
  At this point I just want to go back to the car… forget the cache! Once again I repeat my performance and get myself out of my hole but I am stubborn and need that cache so I decide to try and “swim” to the cache… by spreading my weight I should be able to make it to more solid ground. Sure enough it worked! I made my way to the cache and back to my car my “swimming” on top of the snow. I sure hope that no one who passed by recognized me!
  Somehow I managed to laugh about it once I got back to my Jeep and I must admit I was a little proud of myself for not quitting. This little adventure made me realize that winter might not be so bad after all!

• I’m throwing my own story in here even though I have excused myself from the contest. This one’s about my first “real” hike experience for caching and it was in the winter.

  It was my first Ice Walk experience. I had not been caching very long and had never really gone on any long hikes so I was pretty inexperienced at that point. I decided to go out and do all of the caches on Shediac Island. Misha, El Nimrod and a few others were with me as we crossed the ice from Ma & Pa’s place. The walk across was fine, and in fact the hike around the island was fine as well. But come near the end of the journey, I was pretty much spent.

  I had chosen to wear jeans for the hike which I realized later on was a bad choice. They eventually froze pretty solid and made the walk more difficult. On the far side of the island, with four caches left, I opted to head back to the house instead of finishing. I was done.

  The hike back was the longest and most exhausting thing I had ever done. I was cold, and pretty much frozen. I’d walk 10 steps, then sit for a small break. I’d crawl 10 steps, then stop again. Folks from the house could see me slowly creeping up towards them wondering if I would make it.

  After what felt like forever (I’m sure it was at least 2 hours) I crawled over the snowbank and made my way into the house. I was wet from head to toe and never so glad to be inside where it was warm. Pa told me they had been watching my progress and wondering how I was doing.

  Since then, I learned how to better dress and prepare myself and have nailed the island twice since then with no issue. Believe me, I’ll never forget that long haul back to Ma & Pa’s house.

• Not to be a wet blanket, but who is doing the judging?

• No judging, Forest “The Wet Blanket” Fauna 😉 it will be a random draw. Am I correct Zor? I think you forgot to mention that part.

  • Rev, that would “forest “the wet blanket” fauna” with small “f”s. 🙂

    Thanks.

  • You are correct. Random draw for the winner.

• Our favourite story is really someone elses story but it gave us a lot of laughs when we read it and with the great description of events,we could sure picture it. It was mud in the faces’s trip to get GC38H2C, Grampie Enjoyed A Good Pipe.
  The story speaks for itself and here it is:

  “Okay now I came to where the plow stopped and turned around and I wasn’t long figuring out why. As I started my walk up the hill I soon realized that for every step I took I slide back 2, man after 4 inches of fresh snow on this icy hill this was going to be a challenge to get up. I thought maybe the side of the road would be easier but they were all covered with ice also. There was places that I slide back down the hill 20 feet. This soon turned out to be a good workout. I eventually got to the top and when turning around and looking back down the hill, the first thing I was rewarded with was not that I made it to the top,but what a view. And wouldn’t you know it, I had my camera with me,but not on me, that is right, it at the bottom of the hill in the truck. Now after doing the one before this I though this one might be quicker done. But within about 500 feet of the cache wouldn’t you know it, low battery warning comes on my gps. Probably from spending so much time trying to get to the top of the hill, the cold was killing my battery. So I was trying to hurry and slipping on more ice about 300 feet from the cache, my gps fades and turns off. And as a good cacher I do carry spare batteries with me, and yes they are back in the truck with my camera…. So what am I to do now.? I take the batteries out of the gps and hold them in my hand in my pocket,trying to warm them up to get that little spark of life back in them. I am not going to leave this hide without trying to find it. Walked in to the near by shelter and had a look around, now it is time to put the batteries back in the gps and cross my fingers. YES there is life left in the batteries and the gps is saying that I am 70 feet from the cache. Thanks goodness it was another quick find. As you said in the hint it was a micro. Well done. SL Replaced as found. Dropped off and retrieved our geo caching buddy. But this in not the end of the adventure, I still had to get back down the hill. And I wasn’t looking forward to it. Trying to get down carefully I had to make an attempt to cross the road somewhere. So after a lot of slipping and sliding, some short and some long, down I went on my backside. And now the sliding began to pick up speed. At least I could see the truck that I was fast approaching. This is going to be interesting, I was thinking to myself, so as I put out my wings,hoping to gather some snow to slow me down, I looked like a snow plow coming down the road, with snow flying everywhere. Here comes the truck….there it goes, hey if I keep going I will be at Tim’s in Sussex before I get stopped. Finally came to a stop…. If anyone comes out here today behind me they would think that someone travelled out here just to slide down this hill.Little would they know that a geo cacher will go to any length to make a find. Thanks for a geo caching experience that I will remember for some time.And of course all the fun that I had. SL Dropped off and retrieved our geo caching buddy.”

• Thank goodness the instructions say 50 words or more, not 50 words or less! So, how about the story of what happens when you take your 4WD Company Ford F150 out geocaching? You get a $60 cache! Hey, I’ll be honest, for $20 apiece, I don’t think we’d have done it any other way… but being in the middle of nowhere with more GPS’s than cellphones? Well, let’s just go to the official logs, shall we?

  01/15/2011
  Laker121 Tribute – GC20NMY
  grelmo Found it: Out with edsmom and moshera for a fun day of caching, dining and shopping in Maine. This was our second find of the day, easily located. TFTC
  edsmom Found it: TFTC
  moshera Found it: See now, this one was easy! I warned grelmo and edsmom that the roads might be snowcovered, so we might not be able to get the caches but this one lulled me into a false sense of security! And that all goes to explain what happens on Sudonim…. tftc!

  Sudonim Tribute – GC20NMX
  grelmo Found it: OOOPS! Out with edsmom and moshera for a fun day of caching, dining and shopping in Maine. Our snow apparel was a blessing here as we waded in for the cache. There are many rocks and branches hidden under all that snow. I said if I fell I would make an angel which I did and messed her up trying to stand up, lol. We soon found it and SL.
  edsmom Found it: lots of snow hmm what is road and what is not? TFTC Snowmobiles only ooops
  moshera Found it:
  “911, what is your emergency?”

  “Ummm…well…I am an idiot, and…”

  In my defense, the Snowmobiles Only sign was on the power line road, and not on this perfectly adequate looking, albeit snowmobile track covered “road”.

  “Maybe I should back out…”

  “That looks like a road right up there.”

  The error was pulling over to the side…which was not the side but a lovely snowmobile trail over a three foot ditch filled with snow. First order of business for some people was getting the cache. A nice ME state trooper named Jason F. called a Dodge, and the Dodge pulled us out! We stuck to mostly bare asphalt for the rest of the day, and all was well.

  …And that, folks, is why we always cache in a Dodge now. 🙂
  Ande

  • “Dodge got stuck in the tractor rut which eventually pulled out the Ford” Your groups new theme song 🙂

    Read this one and thats all I could think of… see link if your not sure what I’m talking about.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCcWzLAcv4o

    • Great video clip!

  • Well, moshera had something to do with my winter story. She was the one who put out the cache that Edsmom and I were after when we encountered the difficulty.
    First of all we had been in this area before and got the cache “don’t forget to Log” so on this day we started on a path heading in the direction of GC3CZZY and came up to a running brook that had been flowing over the sides. Can’t go there. Too deep, and too cold to get wet. Okay, lets go for the other one, GC3D013. So we retraced our steps and headed up the other path. We realized that Moshera had put out the caches before the warm weather which made for water puddles and the running brook. It would still have been frozen when she was here. We found the other cache and continued with easy going till we came to the hill. The rain we had got a few days before had turned it into an icy slide with few footholds. Edsmom made it up holding on to the trees at the side. I think her footwear had better traction than mine because the only way I got up was on hands and knees. Its a good thing I had my gloves. After logging that unique cache,we headed back. I stayed off the trail preferring to walk in the snow, even if I had to bushwack a bit. Edsmom sat on the slide to go down while I managed to slide on the snow straddling a tree to break my speed coming down. That is when edsmom decided she needed a picture.
    Oh the things we will do to get a cache.

• This was my first winter geocaching and I learned some really important lessons….the hard way LOL
  My 4WD is not a snowmobile, nor is it a tractor or a plow.
  Snowshoes make excellent shovels
  The distance to a bathroom lengthens the colder you are or the more you have to pee !
  You’re never too old to learn things the hard way 🙂
  There are still Angels out there who go out of their way to help strangers in need.

  I had just finished putting the final details on my 2 creative regular caches for COAP GC3DKHB Mountain Rest Stop and GC3DKHY So, I have a Labrador Retriever. It was a really nice day and the snow had gone down. Decided to take the back way to our Camp where I was placing the caches. Long story short. Got stuck at the top of the hill, mired might better describe it. Had to snowshoe down the mountain (the same hill Mud in the Face slid down ) , and hike to the main road about 5 km, fretting the entire way about how I was going to get the car out. Decided I might have to wait till Spring Thaw !! Called a friend to pick me up and take me home. I was exhausted and frustrated. At home I called my Uncle , who called a friend and at 10 pm I was driving back up the Mountain. This Angel with a tractor plowed the hill, pulled me out and ensured the car was running ok. LESSON LEARNED !!
  I waited a couple more weeks before I put out the caches, and will wait till all is dry and firm before I head up the hill this spring . This hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm, just made me a bit more savvy and all the more ready for next winter !

• Oh,it is very hard to narrow months worth of fun down to your favorite winter geocaching experience. But I think I will pick our experience of doing the “Fancy Dress” task and heading for the Freak’n Bugs cache. After all what other time would you put on your special pj’s, dress the darling daughter up in a costume and even deck the family dog up in her Halloween costume to go for a walk in the woods. What made it so memorable was that we were staying at the Ramada in Fredericton for the weekend and the stares we got as we made our way through the lobby. It never seizes to amaze me what lengths we will go to get the cache.

• This was our first season geocaching. My family started just after the trip we took down the Dobson Trail back on Nov. 19 with Zor and all of the rest of you. WOW Have we learned a lot from some very patient people. 😉

  My favorite winter story so far was our hike up to Hayward Pinnacle to get our photo for our Xmas cards. It was an absolutely breathtaking morning up there, light flurries falling and not even the slightest breath of wind at about -2 degrees C if I remember right. We had just bought our new winter boots and gaiters the week before and this was a great walk to try them out on. Not to mention the fact I discovered I like a woman in gaiters 😉

  While we were up there we snagged GCJKRW and left this log GL71Z7HC

  It one of my favorite family trips so far. The boys loved that trip too.

  the winter panorama view from hayward pinnacle:
  http://www.panoramio.com/photo/63051605

  our trail: http://www.gobreadcrumbs.com/user/evulc/hiking/dobson-trail/2011-12-03-hayward-pinnacle

• Ok so our two big time fav experiences were GC33M2X and GC3AM15

  So the first is Gilbert’s cove. It was our first 5/5 cache which was really a 10/10 as we went twice. The first time it was mid-December and slightly snowing but me (Savannah) and a muggle friend of mine went over via canoe. we searched until the sun was almost gone and walked away without a smiley face (pun intended). It was a good first effort either way. Again we returned (both of us + muggle) and we walked over the ice with ski poles and homemade ice picks borrowed by the CO. We made it there with little difficulty and met some skaters on the way. Once we arrived at the island once more we circled the same area. We found it accidentally on purpose! On our way back the ice was making some scary cracks from the beautiful sun shining on it. We took some fun pictures and then headed over to critter road for more fun.

  A separate day we returned to critter road for a new mutli he placed. It had received a layer of fresh fallen snow as well as a days worth of ran which in the end turn the road into an ice rink. I discovered it was all ice but there was no turning back, down the hill we went as breaks were moot in this situation. Going up the hill on the other side was a lost cause so we got out and snow on the side of the road. “walked” up the hill using the traction of the side. We “skated” the rest of the way and found the container quickly, it was getting the final coords that took us a few minutes but low and behold there they were. We had a blast coming down the hill “surfing” the icy waves. Then came the daunting task of getting the cavalier back up the ice hill. We turned it around and half drove on the snowbank which gave traction to one side. We managed to get up the hill and find the second with minor issues unlike the unlucky cachers before us who got stuck at the top of the hill for an hour or so with there SUV (using tree bows and digging at the ice to get traction). We have a rugged little caching mobile.

  Thanks to the winter challenge for the incentive to get out there (not that I wouldn’t have) but it give you a reason to climb a tree, a Mountain and even drive on an ice rink for a road. The things we do to get a find. Thanks all for placing the cache’s and making the challenge available.

  Army.of.two

• This adventure is thanks to milosheart and the Come Out and Play Contest.

  We initially tried to use K57’s geoart series to challenge for the most micros in a day but we did not count on him actually making the hides interesting which is a nice way of saying they were not easy pickings. After all, we had already done JIM52 and Belladan’s Dog series and finding those caches was relatively quick and easy… solving the puzzles was the hard part.

  Thanks to K57 we wandered around the woods (sometimes having to c-a-r-ry-i-n-g our bikes) in the Mactaquac Park for 8 hours. The scenery was beautiful but we were not racking up very many finds so we decided to change tactics and do some of the guardrail series in Rusagonis. We then wandered around another 5 hours (in the dark at this point) groping a lot of metal railings until we had 70 micros for the day. We stopped at so many guardrails that we thought we should add a new bumper sticker to our van which says ‘This Vehicle Stops for Guardrails’. (Landsharkz might want to consider adding that item to their sales inventory.)

  It was close to midnight when we got back to the Miramichi and we were exiting off route 8 when hubby slammed on his breaks – which had me scared for a moment (as I relived another geocaching trip for the Come Out & Play contest where we hit a deer). Then hubby yelled out…THERE’S ANOTHER GUARDRAIL!! No cache just a guardrail…I guess he thought we were supposed to stop for all guardrails from now on to check for caches.

  This was not the end of the story because Wackyjack (my sister) kept saying she was going to beat our 70 caches. Not wanting to be outdone, we started scanning the internet for a location with lots of micros. The Stud Mill Road series from Princeton to Bangor by Ekidokai stood out as a good route that was not too far from home. We invited Wackyjack to join us. The following writeup is the log of our trip.
  ————————————————————————-Marcipanek Tribute (GC20N51) This cache was the beginning of road trip to get as many micros as possible for the NB Come Out & Play Winter Challenge.

  As usual I was too excited after a week of planning to get much sleep the night before. We (hubby, myself and wackyjack) hit the road at 4:45 am from Fredericton, NB and (other than a quick Timmy stop on the Hanwell Road) we drove directly to Princeton ME. We crossed the border at Vanceboro and those familiar with the area know it takes a strong stomach to survive all those hills and turns. At 6:55 am we were glad to set our feet on solid ground and start our 18 hour georun from Princeton to Bangor via the back roads.

  For the first hour it was difficult going as we discovered the 7 am internet sunrise time was probably based on NB time. The US sun did not come up for another hour. Wackyjack and Mr. Freedom Five shared the driving responsibilities as I (Mrs. Freedom Five) did not want to be responsible for overshooting any caches. Geocachers can get pretty cranky about that kind of thing.

  The dirt roads were bumpy and rutted at times but overall quite good. Wackyjack took the first shift as driver on this cross country trip and her motto was that it did not matter whether you hit those bumps fast or slow; they are still the same bumps. It wasn’t long before our nice clean van was covered in road dust (we had just gotten it back from the body shop after hitting that deer).

  At one point the van started making terrible noises and what we assumed were rocks in the brakes had us worried…we did not think our Canadian Tire Road Side Assistance would be of any use on the back roads of Maine. Wackyjack had the solution to the problem…hit more bumps and knock those rocks ‘out of them brakes’. It took half an hour but it worked.

  At some point during the trip Hubby took over the driving and he became known as the Duke (in reference to the Duke’s of Hazard show). He denies it but wackyjack and I were sure there was some air between all the tires and the road when we crested some of the hills.

  Our energy was starting to wan after a hundred caches so we decided to record how fast we could find a cache. For an hour and a half we found a cache every three minutes or less thanks to the Duke’s driving and some quick finds. I claimed the 2 minute record at 16:35 hours only to be outdone by wackyjack at 16:37 hours who claimed the 2 minute record on a cache which had a baggied log…a much harder feat. The challenge was on…

  At 16:48 hours, at the CachingMike94 Tribute, the Duke pulled to a stop and pointed out the cache from the road. With no time to lose I leaped from the van and grabbed the cache. The log was froze in the container so I squeezed the cache container, popping the cube of ice (the log) out,and scratched our names in the ice. After putting it back in place I leaped for the van and looked at the clock…1 Minute. A NEW RECORD!! Wackyjack claimed unfair driving on the part of the Duke because according to her, he biasedly drove faster between the caches. (She had been recording his speed with her fancy garmin GPS and threatened to notify the troopers). I guess the record is on hold pending an official review.

  At 17:31 hours (NB time) it started getting dark but Wackyjack had found her second wind and encouraged us to finish what we had started out to do. At that point we did a new type of night caching (Greybeast style) which did not require any tacks just a strong flashlight. With no distractions it was easier to focus on the trails left by others and if the cache had any light coloration it reflected off the flashlights making it easier to find.

  We made it to the end of the dirt roads and did some caching in Orono and other spots on the way to Bangor. We even stopped in to get a puzzle cache at the Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center. Some people would think we should have stayed for a visit??
  After 16 hours we decided to stop and get something to eat and then head home to the Miramichi. We arrived back at 4:45 am…exactly 24 hours after we left Fredericton. It definitely was a day to remember!

  PS There was one casualty …we take the van to the garage for a new muffler on Monday.
  ————————————————————————-
  After we posted our log the geocache owner sent this reply:

  Subject: [GEO] Ekidokai contacting Freedom Five from Geocaching.com

  I am so glad you had a good time out here. I have reviewed the data and have made a decision on the record. Since this is a private road and law enforcement has no claim to the area, the one minutes record stands.

• Snoik and I were in the St. Stephen area to do a little caching and cross border shopping this winter. We had to stop by the RCMP station for a few moments and while we were waiting for an officer to come to the door I commented to Andrew about how the wrought iron railing would make a good place for a nano cache. I glance into the shrub by the stairs and see an excel mint tin in the tree and joke about how someone has already left a cache there. After we finished our business at the detachment we were on the doorstep chatting with the officer and I told him that I thought it was a great place for a geocache. I reach into the shrub and take out the mint box and shake it. Yep, there is something inside. I open it and it looks like some garbage. I hand the container over to the officer and as we are chatting he dumps the contents out into his hand. The contents happened to be some drugs! lol…I guess it was a stash instead of a cache! Snoik commented on how it was my fingerprints all over the container! Thank goodness the officer had a sense of humour. 🙂

• My favorite Winter caching Hike was to The Minister’s Face GCD2A1
  http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=23060bbb-0ec8-4ce2-b4e1-90c8076c7589
  on Feb 7,2005
  My wife , my dog and I crossed the ice on the Kennebecasis
  River to Long Island and hiked inland to get the cache.
  On the way back to the car we could hear the ice cracking.
  At the end of the day we were tired but really enjoyed the trip.

  Below is my log of the cache
  http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=064426ce-d619-4b0b-a587-78ae6612972f

  Great hike into the cache for my wife, our dog and I.
  Love the hikes across the ice. Had a easier time than
  TheRetiredHiker as an ATV had made a trail in off the
  Main trail to about 450 meters from the cache. We then
  followed their Snowshoe trail to the cache. We brought
  Snowshoes but didn’t wear them at all. I had brought a
  Log book but decided not to leave it at the cache as
  this cache needs maintenance or needs to be archived.
  It was just a zip lock bag, everything inside it was
  rusty or moldie. We just signed the web sheet that
  TheRetiredHiker left.
  It was a round trip of 12.3 kms. for us today.
  Great spot and thanks for the cache.

  With only 6 finds of this cache it has been archived.
  LongReacher has sense placed a new cache here.
  http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=6bb623f0-65d1-4393-9241-4fb731a04fe6
  A very view from the cache site. It’s a must do cache.

  Two years later we ventured back to this new cache
  on Feb 25,2007
  Below is my log of the new cache.
  http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=f97b80c2-1eaa-479f-bd6d-a1429d31948f

  Had a great day out in the sun with my wife and dog. Loved the ice walk
  and the hike into the island to the cache.
  We only had to bushwack about 315 meter. After finding the cache we went
  up to the look out at the Minister Face. What a great view.
  We must of met 200 ATV & snowmobiles today.
  Thanks for the great adventure.

• This was my first year winter caching, and paired it up a few times with night caching. I love the woods on a quiet winter night, so this seemed like a good combination. One Friday night in early January, the girls and I decided to do a few night caches.

  We started with a newly posted COAP related cache by ScouterRick:
  GC396NZ – Be Prepared for a Night Cache

  Just coming from WallMart with two new powerful flash lights for my girls, they had a lot of fun finding the markers and blinding each other all the way! We found that cache and the girls were impressed with their old man’s “cracking of the safe”. It was such a nice night and we were laughing to much to quit so we headed for Kilarney lake and a couple of night caches I had my eyes on there.

  We quickly found GC108E4 – Killarney Night, so we struck out for the next
  GC234ZP – Spring Peepers. This was a slippery walk but beautiful walking along side the lake. What really made it memorable was a moaning nose coming from the back of the lake where we were headed. To be honest, I was a bit jumpy and didn’t get right away that it was the ice on the lake! Chick-a and Bookworm-101 were all about getting out of there!!! They are brave little ones, but let’s just say that we came out after finding the cache a lot quicker than we came in!

• Our best winter caching story would have to be the Ice Walk. We had every intention of being at Edgewater for 9am. but we n did not load the car and leave till 8:30. We arrived at Edgewater to find only Army.of.Two their, we proceeded to strap on our snowshoes and head off. Two of the people we brought soon began to lag behind. W made it to Skull Island before they caught up. They were making excuses about how they were tired. We said there is a lot more walking so suck it up. We arrived on the island and proceeded for the first cache. I fell on the little brush and then proceeded to almost get ran over by my companion. W aarived at a cache and dropped our things agreeing to eat when we got back. So we continued on our way. We then met CG,CS,and chatelaine. We talked for a minute. We made it around the tip and saw a person eating their can of beans. I asked how his caching was going and he said “Me eating”. We made it back to the backpacks and were they ever a glorious sight, we proceeded to help our selves to some food and some Pepsi. We arrived back at the entrance to the island, where our little 5person group had to split. One had heel problems and the other his snowshoes were too small. We continued on by this time,I was ready to call it quits. But I continued on. We made it and around 5 and a half hr. My favorite cache was GC23NAW,mainly because this was where the car was.

• My favorite story from my first winter of caching was an easy one. My 4 year old daughter and I went out for a short hike in the Hartland area this winter and soon realized it was the perfect place for the 5 caches I had in the car, all ready to put out. I used the opportunity to teach my daughter about the wildlife and tracks we found near each cache placement. It was a real thrill for her to see a pileated woodpecker up close and she is now a hawk when it comes to tracks while out caching. She still remembers this outing and mentions it every time she sees tracks while enjoying the outdoors. This happy day of dad-daughter time has been brought to you by geocaching 🙂

• I’d have to say my most memorable time caching in the winter was while out with Marocma working on a series of caches along a snowmobile trail in the Grand Bay area. The trail itself was in pretty good shape, with snow well packed and easy enough to walk on with boots, so obviously this relates to the winter before the one we just enjoyed.

  We had brought out and put on our snow shoes and soon realized we didn’t really need them. Well, they were staying on anyways! As we approached the first cache we started off the trail into the woods. Even with snowshoes on, we quickly sunk as we tried to cross the ditches! The snow shoes didn’t help us stay on top of the snow, but certainly made it interesting trying to get back out of the holes we formed! I had a blast, took some photos of Marocma stuck (had to destroy them, though!) and enjoyed the afternoon with the best caching partner around!

  PS – In Box me for photos! (Don’t tell Marocma!)

• This was my first challenge and also dedicated winter caching, had alot of fun with the challenges and did most of them solo, so braved the back roads, icy crusts on the snow and caches frozen solid….was pefect 🙂

  I had a few interesting challenges, but will take the funniest one, which my friend and mentor 2n1 from NFLD reminded me of recently.

  I was working on the out of the country cache and crossed the border in woodstock to Houlton Maine, and there was quite a bit of snow, so wasn’t having much luck on my first 2 tries. I moved on to a cache very close to the border which was hidden in the guard rail ( not magnetic ) so was definitely wedged inbetween the folded over metal rail where it meets the ground.I was not giving up as I had parked my car and was digging thru the snow when a trcuk pulled up behind my Rav, I lifted my head and kept digging. A young man in a uniform got out and proceeded to walk across the road…I lifted my head smiled and said hello…I kept digging snow was frozen solid.

  He walks to wear I am digging…I notice his jacket shows he works for the border patrol…I said beautiful day and keep digging, he starts to laugh and explains why he stopped.

  He suspected I was attempting to pick someone up for an illegal crossing…then when he realized I was digging he thought she must be picking up drugs. As he crossed the road he sees my gps swinging madly from my neck and realises I am caching, I of course laugh and keep chipping away at the hard crust. He tells me about his family and friends who cache, and I explain the NB challenge, he then goes and gets his shovel from the trunk to get the large boulder of frozen snow away from the rail so I can get the cache.

  I thank him very much clutch the cache sign the log book and speed off to drop a TB off at my next stop Then the humour of the situation made me laugh the rest of the day, as my only concern was the cache and not the potential of being held in custody as a suspect…

  Was a funny experience to share along with everyone else’s wonderful stories, it appears we all had a great deal of fun this winter caching, thank you to all who set up and contributed their time to this event.

  Troublebug 🙂

• I think my favorite winter caching experience had to do with one of the Shediac Island ice walks. Zonker was out of town and had left his precious jeep in the care of markirene. Mark came up with the idea that we all post logs about how Mark had attempted to drive the jeep over to the island but it had fallen through. We were pretty sure Zonk wouldn’t believe it, especially with how silly some logs were, but it was easy to see that there was that liiiiitle bit of doubt in Zonker as he followed the logs. Good times!

• Sitting in my hotel room here in London, I wrote out the names of every name that posted a comment here. Put all of the names into an empty section of my laptop bag, closed my eyes, mixed them up with one hand and pulled out a name. I chuckled as I read it knowing the name had been mentioned in the scribbles about this very contest.

  Paulandstacey is our official winner. Both him and the person who donated the prize have been notified by email. Congrats!

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