Prologue
I needed to go into Turner’s Falls. Christine planned to go out for dinner with a friend. When I got home, me and the boys would have pizza and maybe watch a movie without her. I wanted to leav work early to get home in a timely fashion. And, so it was, that last Friday became a day of PNG for me. If I put togther a list of geocaches quickly found, I might be able to get 10 of them and put myself way ahead of my pace to find 1000 in the year.
Here, you probably expect me to lament about my bad luck and toss out another geocaching abbreviation, DNF, a few times. I mean, who am I to deny my beloved readers? One of the pieces of advice I received as a young teacher that stayed with me is always start with the bad news. And, so I heed the advice of younger me and start with the bad news.
A Day of DNF (JKLOL)
I made it to Northfield before registering my first DNF for the day. Before that, everything came up Millhouse. Six found in a row. The funny thing is that several of the logs said how easy the cache was to find. I gave it the old college try, poking and prodding in a likely hiding spot as the cache listing said, to no avail. See if you can find it.
The other lost opportunity of the day lies buried under a mountain of snow and ice. I scaled that mountain, dug deep into a fissure at the apex. My search proved futile. Dejected and suddenly devoid of the joy of that find after the frustration of striking out numerous times, I stared into the distance. Pondering about what life I was living, I also contemplated just walking away. No more searches. Not another hike. Never again. But, who would that hurt? What about those beloved readers I mentioned earlier? I soldier on.
Focus on the Positive
As it probably is in most of my life, while I focus on the negative the positive far outweighed it. The title of the post is A Day of PNG. I ended up searching for about an hour and a half and found nine total geocaches in that time. 9 wins against 2 losses? That’s good enough for first place in pretty much any playoff race. Sorry, I’m still high from the Bills/Chiefs game on Sunday night. More on that tomorrow or Thursday on the main page. Plus, and I don’t know why, I’m stalling for time. Nevertheless, it worked. I came up with a theme for the finds. Let me introduce to you the first (annual? monthly? weekly?) Day of PNG Awards.
Favorite Container
C is for Cookie – What does the title make you think? Yep, I thought the exact same thing and for good reason. Now, though, you probably wonder how exctly they pulled it all off. Once again, I thought the same thing and with good reason. A cookie monster geocache? What the heck? Well, luckily, I can show you what the heck.
Most Scenic Location
The Schell Bridge #1 – I found this one completely by accident during my drive. It looked, from the map, like I might be able to cross the bridge and grab a second. It wasn’t until I started walking that it dawned on me that the bridge was most likely one of the many condemned in the state. Still, as I approached, I met the most wonderful views of the day. I’m sure you will agree.
Best (Worst) Display of Racism on a Memorial
Captain Beers Last Stand – I think I went to find this one years ago when I first started geocaching. Naively, I rushed to find the cache because I thought passing motorists might interpret my search as a terrorist act and pull over to administer a citizen’s arrest. I should have known then, as I do now, that our inherently selfish species either (a) doesn’t care all that much that I might be a terrorist or (b) is afraid that I might be in distress and they’d have to help. Sorry, that last bit was unnecessarily negative. I rescind my comment.
The point is that in my rush before I never actually found the cache. This time, armed with the knowledge of my near invisibility, I crossed the road, fumbled around for a bit, pretended to take a picture (because you truly never know when that rouge element might try something), and found the cache. As often happens with these things, you get a little bigotry with your sightseeing.
Best Sunset View
I really thought I was going to award this one to the bridge picture. I like my bridge pictures very much. Then, as I scrolled through, I saw the other sunset picture and liked that one very much, too. I leave it up to you to break the tie. Whichever one you like, that one wins!
Epilogue
Park and Grab caches get a bad name in the community. I understand on one level why. People want to be introduced to new and interesting places and sometimes the act of simply parking and grabbing a cache doesn’t give you the time to truly appreciate where the cache led you. However, during my day of PNG, I both found a good amount of caches and took time at each place to discover why the cache owner considered it to be special enough to share. I look forward to my next day of PNG and hope that it will be as special as this one.