01/08/2012 By Kabutroid
Man, I can safely say I did NOT see getting this cache coming today. You could have asked me “Hey Kabuthunk, if you could think of the least likely cache you’ll run across today”, I probably wouldn’t even have an answer, because thinking about this one was SO far out of my realm of possibility that it wouldn’t have even come to mind.
But here we are.
Now don’t get me wrong... it’s not unlikely because I dislike it or anything. Hell, you can’t even FATHOM how much I want to live here, purely for the sake of sitting at one of these chess boards on a nice day playing by myself, waiting and hoping for someone to come up and challenge me. Right after I click on ‘submit’ for this cache log (assuming I haven’t gone over the 4000 character limit and need to pare it down a bit like usual) will be to set it as a favourite.
That said, the unlikely factor above. So this cache has been gnawing away at my mind ever since... wait, November 2011? Really, it’s been that long? Damn. But anyway, it’s been gnawing away at my mind for... apparently almost a year 
. However, this area is so out of the way, and my knowledge of the area is borderlining on nonexistent.
And with that in mind, I found this cache WITHOUT A GPS to boot!
“How”, asks you? “Ah”, say I. “It was all thanks to my brother in law”. My brother in law happened to be moving out of his parents’ place today, and so I was helping him haul his stuff over. My wife driving, we meandered our way over to the area, to eventually come up to his new place (shared house with several others) about a 3/4 of a block north on this same street. Since parking was entirely full just north of this intersection, we pulled past and did a quick 180 to park here.
At this point, my wife says “Hey, isn’t that place where you found that geocache?”
- the fact that she REMEMBERS where I found a geocache to begin with is a surprise, her being an avid non-cacher.
Beginning to pay attention to my surroundings, my eyes light up. “No, this is where that cache that I DIDN’T find was!!!” So here I am, grinning like an idiot as we park, dead set on resolving an old DNF quite unexpectedly. Thankfully, attached to my keys is the inkless pen, and a small bison tube filled with emergency micro chainmail balls for JUST this occasion. Hopping out of the car, I quickly go to where I figured the cache was supposed to be the first time around, and moments later have it in hand 
. AT LAST! MY PRECIOUS! I did however take note of the streets, and seeing nobody walking by or at least looking in my direction, I was able to make the find rather discretely. Signing my name and dropping in an emergency titanium micromail ball, I quickly closed up the container (although when we were taking my mother in law back to her place from here, I showed her the park and geocache... she’s at least slightly more interested in the concept of geocaching) and replaced it as found. Running with that same goofy grin back to the car, I was very pleased to have most unexpectedly been able to knock off this DNF from the list .
And in a rather bizarre coincidence, the LAST cache I found... Dance and Song in Manitou is on the Manitou Opera House ALSO dedicated to Nellie McClung.
So, to say the least this cheered me up immensely from the drudgery of moving, and now should I go to visit my brother in law, I can spend some time either before or after visiting sitting down and playing some chess, seeing if anyone wishes to join . This cache is like... win, win, win all over for me... you have NO idea how happy this made me for just the massive string of coincidences and blind stupid luck that brought me here. If there had been parking north of the intersection, I’d have had no clue I was this close to the cache!
Took: Nothing
Left: Logbook entry and emergency titanium micromail ball
05/11/2011 By Kabutroid
Shoot. Well, I guess this’ll teach me to not update my GPS and just cross my fingers that a cache will still be there with several week old waypoints . But in all actuality, I’m not even slightly mad or frustrated, because this is EXACTLY the type of park I’ve been looking for for the longest time. A park... with chessboards on it . The only other place in Winnipeg that I’ve ever seen that has had something like this was at the now archived Poe cache. However, that area was a bit sketchy when I was there, and being the paranoid individual that I am I couldn’t see me wanting to spend a ton of time there.
This location however seemed quite pleasant and nice, and I really liked this little mini-park in general. The large, circular stonework on the ground somewhat perplexed me, since it seemed like it was trying to be a stage for something. Not sure what could take place here other than chess or checkers (of which it seems some people just markered various pieces or moves onto the boards), but I digress. After having parked pretty much right beside the park, my wife waited in the car while I went after the cache. When I first walked in, I didn’t even notice the chess boards, so was just enjoying the nice little walk. When I spotted those boards however... man, my eyes just lit right up, and I headed straight for them. Immediately sitting down, I imagined myself bringing chess pieces here and just practicing on my own, hoping upon hope that someone random would pass by and offer to play as well. That’s my ideal stay at a park. Unfortunately as I said, public boards like this seem to be far and few between. I’m hoping there will eventually be some closer to where I live, but hey... until then, I’m mental noting the hell out of this place .
BUT... back to the matter at hand... the cache. After my little bit of daydreaming, I began to hunt for the cache container. At first I searched where most likely the cache container was hidden given the hint, but came up empty. I hunted around anywhere nearby, but was still coming up dry. After about 10 minutes of scouring around and finding nothing, I decided to park myself in one of the chairs again and check out what my palm pilot had to say about the cache. The hint pretty much confirmed that I was looking in the right place in general. Although there is technically several places it could be, I also completely scoured the second possible spot, but again came up blank. All of this is of course obviously because the cache is no longer there.
So, about another 10 minutes of futile searching later (thank god for the complete lack of people passing by... there was even ridiculously few cars that drove past during this entire time), I decided to turn in. At this point, I was about 99% certain that the cache had to have been missing. Nice to see that my instincts were apparently correct on that part . But as I said... not going to complain about that at all, since this gives me a chance to return to the area. And if I’m lucky, I’ll both have several hours to kill, and will have either found or bought some chess pieces to bring with me .
Thanks for putting a cache in a wonderful area though. I may not have been able to make a find on it this time around, but I’m definitely DEFINITELY glad to have learned of this location’s existence.
I shall return! Possibly several times. Although more than likely the ‘several times’ (unless I DNF again ) will take place sometime other than in the middle of winter.
Windy Nellie
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