Catching up

I've obviously got some caches to catch up on. You see - I don't have the camera anymore, and without the pictures it almost isn't worth posting (as one of my avid readers pointed out to me). So, though I have been continuing to cache in the name of Wil Wheaton, I haven't posted anything for a while - there was no visual. So I'm sorry to my fives of readers that must be disappointed to check the site and see nothing here for over a month now. I'll try to recap.
First of all - don't get me wrong. As the weather gets colder, naturally the urge to cache wanes a bit, but since we had such an amazing autumn here I should be ashamed of myself. I get out when I can, though. Let's see - where did I leave off? Oh yeah - the bridge tour, which was totally cool. But since then, I guess I've only cached 2 times.
The first time was with my cousin Chris - I finally got him interested after I used a PDA to download the caches, rather than printing them out and wasting all that paper. Made it all that much more geeky and technical, though it IS a pain in the ass. Its much faster to just freakin' print the things out. Anyway, I called him one Sunday and said.. Let's go. The first one we did was a cemetery cache - which are the best ones to do, in my opinion (as this entire blog will probably indicate). It was a hidden little parking area, and you had to walk down a long grassy lane that included a 'deer stand'. I've heard of those, but never seen one (usually I kill deer with my car - I don't need no stinkin' deer stand and a gun). If we had a camera, there's no way you wouldn't see a picture right now with one of us up on that thing - that would have been a GREAT photo. Anyway, the cemetery was old, hidden back in the trees, with nothing else around. Just how I like it. We found it without too much trouble. Actually - Chris is the one that located it. I always love to give my virgin cachers the opportunity to locate it themselves. It is a great sense of accomplishment. From there, we found one that had something to do with President Hayes - I can't remember what the landmark was, because frankly, it wasn't that interesting. Especially after we read the information about how his wife was the first First Lady that wouldn't serve alcohol in the White House. Bah! But.. the canister was cleverly hidden under a bench with a magnetic strip, and it did take us quite a while find it. After which we decided to get some food and margaritas at La Vaquera, which was right down the road. Hey - you need fuel, right? We then proceeded to do a cache that was a multi-stage at a string of parks next to the river. I hate to say this, but we FAILED. Does anyone else know what the 'bole' of a tree is? Well, we didn't either. But we looked it up, and that still didn't help. No one has found it since, and I'm convinced it isn't there anymore. But.. we ended our day well with another cemetery cache. I think the cache explicitly said you can't be there any time other than 9 to 5 on the weekdays, but... what the hell. It was getting dark. But we set out anyway. And at the corner of a path that left a meadowy area up in to the woods, there was this really weird Blair Witch looking .... chair or something. In the corner, made out of... twigs? I don't know. But it was creepy. Maybe it was made from a vine of some sort. Chris - feel free to comment and correct me there. But because I didn't have an F-ING CAMERA, I can't show it to you. Anyway, we proceeded up the hill, past a small sign that just said "cemetery", and ended up in some sort of old pioneer burial place. The cache owner said he could not find ANY information about who these people were, which is sad and, I'll admit, scary after dark. Because the sun set, and there we were. After the previous failure, I couldn't allow us to leave without finding it. Luckily, being the prepared boyscout type Chris is, he had a flashlight. Which did not help when walking around and tripping over those little nubby gravestones you sometimes see in these kind of places. But.. we were victorious. I will say here that it was really Chris's resolve that kept me in that cemetery after dark with a full moon rising. We got it, though. My first cache in the dark - it was very cool.
The only other time without a camera was with my friend Mark, who is also a geocaching virgin. I just love introducing this to people - because it is amazing to find these stashes in the natural landscape, and it makes you wonder - how many of these things have I walked right past and never even knew such a thing existed? I did make a mistake, however, in trying to make a roadtrip out of it and trying for caches that were out toward the Yellow Springs area. But we did find the first one. The first one, which took us down backroads and through weird little towns we didn't know existed. Again, I will say - that is what caching is all about. This cache was in a park along the Little Miami River outside of Clifton. Where's Clifton, you ask? I have no idea, and couldn't get back there without Gordie even if you paid me lots of money to do so. It was actually a cool little park, complete with log cabin and ducks in the river. And I will say that maybe Mark was amazed that I followed Gordie's off road arrow right to a tree, and from the trunk of that tree I pulled out a plastic container full of useless crap. Again - that's what its all about. From there, we proceeded to Yellow Springs, where neither of us have ever been. I've heard lots about this little town where Antioch College is, and some time I'll go back to check out the actual town (and maybe go cut down my own Christmas tree on the way). The cache was not really a typical cache - it didn't REALLY require the gps, only a compass. The gorge there was absolutely beautiful, but we were unable to figure out WHERE THE HELL we were supposed to go. I vowed to return - that one WILL NOT beat me. But the walk in that park was great, and if you want to get out of town and go see some awesome rock formations (which almost look like ancient ruins of some sort) and several waterfalls, then I recommend checking that out. Maybe you can help me find the damn cache.
Okay - I thought this would be brief, but I guess even without pictures I have a lot to say. Which is good for those of you that don't need things you read to have pictures in order to understand them. And don't worry - my camera situation will be remedied soon, and maybe you'll see pictures of Kerry and I digging through 8 inches of snow to find a cache. I'll post another cache story very soon, as Kerry was here over the weekend and we did one in Franklin Park - but... it was another failure. I need to return to caching alone - I think other people are dragging me down, man. No offense to anyone, but I gotta blame it on something, right?