Flashes of Panic

I had an idea that I might go hunting caches yesterday, since I hadn’t planned anything else. I wasn’t feeling too motivated, so I picked a particularly intriguing one over in Ware, which involved retrieving a key from another (relatively) nearby cache which included the true location of the first hide, then using the key to unlock the cache itself. Then I had to stash the key, the rules being that it should be in another cache within 45 minutes’ drive of Ware. This looked like enough of a Quest to be interesting.

Once I was out in the woods looking for the first one, though, I was hooked again. Being back on the trail was nice. As I returned to the car with the key and was plugging the new coordinates into my GPSr, I noticed that there was another waypoint nearby. (I download big batches to the GPSr, something like “the 100 closest caches I haven’t found yet,” to save keying in every one I go after.) Well, how often do you get two caches in one reservation? (I was particularly gratified since I’m a member of the conservation organization that maintains the reservation.) So, I got back out and started walking again, but this time without a sheet describing the cache, or any of the hints, since I hadn’t expected to go after this one.

I suspected I might be in trouble when what I found was simply a small canister with more coordinates. I was on the trail of a multi-cache. Oh well, now I was started. I got a pretty good tour of the reservation, in fact, with a pretty big collection of glacial erratics (leading me to log, “This cache rocks!”) Then I finally headed down to Ware, birthplace of one of my favorite creatures, to finish the quest; I eventually left the key in Granby.

Even when you’ve got coordinates to a destination, sometimes I need to remind myself to focus on the GPSr in my hand and try to get right to the destination. It’s as though I’m training myself not to be distracted by another project. Sometimes, along the way, I have to chase another destination, though, and the impulsiveness isn’t always a bad thing.

Now playing: Lodestar from You Were Here by Sarah Harmer