Mock-multiple

As you can tell from my lack of posting, I haven't had a lot of time to go geocaching in recent weeks. This week: one cache.

We met some friends for breakfast (on the way to the Lady of the Lakes Renaissance Festival...go ahead, point and laugh), and we got to the restaurant 70 minutes early. They said 9:30, Brian heard 8:30. So, we decided to grab a nearby cache to kill some time.

The search was short. After a final review of the description, and the realization that it was a 2.5/1.5, I stumbled upon the cache. As we took it back to the car, I said to Brian, "I don't know why this is a 2.5 difficulty, it was practically out in the open." Then, in Saw-like fashion, I opened the cache to find instructions and a locked box.

I exclaimed something quite profane when I read the instructions. They included a new set of coordinates and instructions for how to get the combination. My first thought was, extract the log (which was inside the locked box) with tweezers...but that's dishonest. Plus, you have to email the combo to the cache owner or he won't let you claim the find.

With hesitation, I closed out the Geocaching app and opened up Motion-X GPS, which is a pretty comprehensive GPS app for the iPhone. In the past I've used it to location-stamp photos, so this was the first time I used it to find something. I fumbled a bit with the settings, but eventually I entered a new waypoint and off we went. Our instructions were to use the nearby addresses to figure out the code.

I have a geo-confession to make, and I shouldn't admit this in print. I kidnapped the cache. I knew we were staying close and wouldn't be gone long, so I took it with so we could guess at combos on the spot instead of writing them all down and taking them back to the cache. If you have less respect for me, I understand. The good news is we quickly figured the combination, signed the log, and replaced the cache. No harm done.

I'm classifying this as a mock-multiple. I didn't even think of it as a multiple until the two people I told both misunderstood and thought I was talking about a multiple. Yes, we had to go to two locations, but there was only one cache. We just had to go to a different spot to get information.

I hope we come across more like this. It was slightly challenging, but not mind-bendingly difficult. As the only cache I grabbed this week, I don't regret that it was this one.