My First FTF!

Here I am blogging about a pile of sticks in the woods again. If this is news to you, check out How to Go Geocaching.

This time it's special, though. Well, to me, at least.

At about 10:45pm on Tuesday night as I was taking out the trash, I got email notification on my Treo that a new geocache had just been published. Wilbur's #2 Cache. It was about a mile and a half from my house.

I mentioned it to Melissa as I went back inside, but I was tired and wasn't going to go after it. She insisted I go, so I quickly looked on the computer and found it was south. I got in the car and started that way, knowing the general area where it was. I was almost there by the time my GPS locked on and guided me to park on the side of the road about a hundred feet away.

By now, I was nervous. I'd never been the first to find (FTF) a cache. That's sort of a badge of honor and people race to get there and find it first. I got my Treo, GPS, and flashlight and headed toward the cache.

Just as I'm entering the woods, I see headlights. Is it another cacher? The police? Neither, as they continue past me.

This one wasn't difficult at all to find, though it was quite a different experience hunting with a flashlight and there was certainly other animals in those woods.

I found it and opened it. I was first at 11:05pm!

As I was getting into my car, I saw more headlights approaching. This time they pulled up right behind me and parked. It was another cacher and he was disappointed to see that I'd already taken the FTF honors.

Turns out that yet another cacher showed up that night after we left. You gotta be quick out of the gate to be FTF. Anytime, day or night, geocachers are out hunting.

Labels: geocaching

Posted by Chris on 5/04/2006 02:49:00 PM :: Permalink   
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