Waiting for the Journey

22/02/2014 By Kabutroid
Whew, been a while since I got out geocaching. Last find... Dec. 26?!? Man, even I'M disgusted with myself ToungeOut . I could give the excuse of this winter being miserably cold (which it is), or blame it on software (of which I need to reinstall on a new computer)... but all of that boils down to me just not getting off my lazy ass and finding some geocaches.

Although in my defense, I HAVE been getting out for snowshoeing on a vaguely regular basis. It's at THAT point where the software factor has been killing me. Said software which STILL has yet to be reinstalled (mainly because GSAK needs a ton of tweaking to actually make it good, like changing the icons for all of the various cache types, etc).

But today... today I decided to just suck it up and enter coordinates into the GPS manually, the OLD way. Pfft, what am I, a neanderthal? BUT... manually enter coordinates I did, and it didn't take that long for me to hit the road and head for Assiniboine Park. As with most of my winter outings (arguably all of them that didn't involve shopping in some form or another), I took my snowshoeing gear and prepared for an afternoon of fun in the snow. And hey, going to The Weather Network, it said the temperature was only -1! What are the odds, it's a FANTASTIC day out!

This misinformation was quickly dispelled upon stepping outside the apartment. I'm not sure what was up with the Weather Network's website, but it CLEARLY had a hiccup at the particular moment that I opened the page. The radio on the way to the park informed me that it was indeed closer to -30 out. But that didn't ~~snow~~ slow me down, I've snowshoed in FAR colder weather. Pfft, -30, more like minus screw you, winter!

After arriving, I ended up trekking around a little bit, and actually happened to pass about 50 meters from the geocache before heading off in a different direction. Much fun later (as well as a relaxing basking in a hammock while listening to music and looking at the gloriously blue sky... those who know me will know I'm not being sarcastic), I finally decided to head towards the coordinates. Gotta say though, when hiking along the river itself, that wind definitely hits you a lot harder. But in a FUN way. And on a related note, if anyone happens to head down to the river's edge and find the only flat triangle of ice jutting up just a bit east of the coordinates, you might see a Metroid chistled onto the surface of it ToungeOut .

Once I reached the coordinates, I had a pretty good idea where it was going to be in general. However, that sucker put up a good fight to be found. I attempted to look at things from all angles, seeing if I could spot anything out of the ordinary, but still it eluded me. For a minute I thought I would need to expand my search radius, and that I was in the entirely wrong area... but then there it was, seemingly mocking me from its hiding spot. HOW I managed to miss that while circling that spot what seemed like a dozen times, I'll never know... but find it I did! Although I wasn't particularly fond of taking off my gloves at the moment, I quickly did so in order to sign up the logbook (thanks for the pencil in there by the way... forgot to bring a writing instrument with me). One chainmail ball later, and I hid the cache back from whence it came.

Still having some energy and warmth however, I decided to leave a message for any of the dog-walkers or winter joggers that happened to travel along the nearby walking path... see attached pic. I had contemplated using the GPS to make a giant smiley face in the middle of one of the massive fields of snow, but decided against it, since the wind would probably wipe it out before I even finished ToungeOut . All in all though, a fun cache, and it gave me something to look for during my snowshoeing.

Took: Nothing
Left: Logbook entry and chainmail ball