Geotantrum: Geocaching at Sunset

Certain people make fun of me for this, but I really like to immerse myself in geocaching. I don't want to remember the cache, I want to remember the whole experience. This is why I take lots of pictures and why I blog. It's also why my favorite time to geocache is at sunset. Even mundane locations are beautiful when the sky melts into shades of gold, orange, and red. Plus there's an added sense of urgency when it's about to get dark and I don't have a flashlight. For reasons unknown to me, we get our best sunsets between now and the end of the year, so I have a lot to look forward to.

But before I talk about this week's caches, let's spend a moment in geohazard corner. As Vikki4FSU recovers from Lyme disease, I count my blessings that I'm not in her shoes. That was until I took my car in for an oil change this week and learned I needed an alignment on my tires, a mere four months after I bought the car. The guy asked if I go over lots of speedbumps. I said no, and neglected to mention the off-roading we did in Naples. It reminded me of when Vikki4FSU said, "if only we had a boat, we could get to that cache." To which ZykoMike responded, "geocaching is cheap until you say, 'I need to a buy a boat for this cache.'" Indeed. It's all cool until someone loses an eye. Or buys a helicopter. Or gets Lyme disease.

I ended up with 6 finds this week, which is really quite good considering I worked 12-hour days all week and wrote two papers. On Thursday I ended up near the airport, at sunset. Since it was the first day all week I'd gotten out of the office before dark, I scoped out the area and found four within a mile radius.

Three were part of a series of waterproof match containers hidden in different but obvious locations. The first one was tucked into the pipe you see above. The second was hidden under a rock, under this crapified traffic cone.

The third was tucked into this cabbage palm. As if the palm itself wasn't a hint, there was a pronounced geotrail. While these caches are usually easy, I am really starting to dislike them. They're usually infested with ants and the fronds have no respect for personal space.

Then I tried for this one, also located in a cabbage palm, but I didn't find it. I was over the bugs at that point, but the bridge was super cool.

My last cache of the day was a plastic jar loaded with swag. I only took a geocoin. The cache was perched behind a tree. I used my mirror to avoid reaching into the unknown.

Then I got to finish the day with this sunset. This picture was taken a few feet from the cache.

I didn't think I was going to grab any caches this weekend, but I was able to squeeze this one in this afternoon. I had looked before with no luck. Today, I stopped by on a lark. As soon as I pulled up, something the Orlando Holleys had said to me at another cache fell into place, and I started twisting all the rebar. I can't believe I missed it before.