A safe crossing

11/04/2009 By Kabutroid
I never even realized this cache existed until today! It must be just outside of my 5km radius notification range. Actually... let's find out.

checks

Apparently it's 5.5km's away. Well, one way or another, I discovered, and then located it ToungeOut . I had just finished finding several caches on the other side of the river, and was heading onto Pembina in hopes of locating a cache a lot further South that had given me trouble in the past. Looking at the GPS at random, I noticed this extra icon between myself and the Perimeter. What's this... a new cache? Apparently one that's been around since February it would seem. Pulling into a nearby parking lot, I immediately headed out towards the crosswalk. At least, that's where I figured it'd be given the name and all.

However, upon walking towards the crosswalk, I notice that the numbers on the GPS indicating distance to waypoint were going UP instead of down. Strange, I thought. Walking a bit randomly in several different directions, I soon found the direction I SHOULD be walking in (I have the Garmin 60Cx, so I have to move a bit in one direction for the arrow to update which way I'm pointing. No electronic compass for me. Alternatively, no electronic-compass recalibrating for me Smile ). I knew this cache was labelled as a 'micro', since I have the waypoint name on my GPS set to tell me the cache type and size. Hence, I had my 'micro' thinking cap on. Several minutes into the search, and I was turning up empty. Trying to remain inconspicuous, I found some nearby seating and checked my Palm Pilot. Cachemate tells me that this isn't quite a micro... but is actually a nano. A magnetic one, at that. Well, I had been going about this entirely wrong at this point!

Switching my mindset to 'micro', I actually located the cache on my first attempt. It didn't even require looking, either! By blind luck, I reached my hand into the first place (that I hadn't already checked when I was in 'micro' mindset), felt a familiar shape, and continued walking with the cache in hand! Finding a slightly different seating... ie: the bench by the bus stop... I opened up the cache container and set about extracting the logscroll.

At this point, I realized something that I need to add to my geocaching kit at one point or another. Somewhere on the outer surface of my geocaching bag, I need to add a small plate of steel. Nothing big... just like... less than an inch circle or something, and find a way to affix it to the side. Usually, with this type of cache container (of which seem to be more prevalant these days... but also with other magnetics in general), I've usually found some surface to stick the container to while I sign the logbook, for convenient's sake, and to avoid losing it. However, on this bus stop bench, there didn't appear to be ANYTHING that the magnet would remotely stick to. The bolt on the bench seemed to be aluminum, and everything else was wood. Nothing on my person was metal. For now, I worked with just putting the cache container in my pocket while signing the log. However... got a mental note going for the future from this one ToungeOut .

Replacing the log, I got a nanomail ball into there and closed it up again. Walking back to the coordinates, I re-hid the cache container as I had found it, and continued on to the car. Find number 493 complete BigSmile . Only 3 more finds until the big milestone that I'm looking forward to. Nuts to 500... find number 496 is probably going to be the most significant milestone in my eyes for the next long time.

But anyway, thanks for sliding a cache in over here, for me to unexpectedly discover today BigSmile .

Took: Nothing
Left: Logbook entry and nanomail ball