Too much time has passed....

Please forgive me. I go through phases where I really enjoy writing and then I fall out of the habit. Well....now its time to get back into the habit. We have not been caching as much as I like. However, a couple of weeks ago we did get to go caching with another family. One of my FAVORITE aspects of caching (other than the long walks through woods never knowing what to expect and the sites that it may bring you to...and the long hard puzzles that you spend countless hours at trying to slove) is when I actually get to meet other cachers and cache with them. After church, we went to breakfast at a local restaurant/cafe we have never been to. The breakfast was decent but it was in good company. After that, we took them to find their first nano. Now, as I know some of you are not geocachers, let me explain what a nano is. A nano is a VERY small cache container. Until you find your first nanocache, you may take a while finding it. Even after you have have found them, it can still take a while. Imagine your pinkie nail.... Its probably bigger than some nanos.

So after a while of searching, yours truly made the find. When I held it up to show our friends, they were shocked by how small it was. Honestly, I was shocked that Melissa did not find it before I did. She is usually the eagle eye. At least that is the excuse I use when she complains about my refrigerator blindness.

So after the nano, we decided to try to find a regular sized cache not too far away. We were all thinking of seeing a movie so we did not want to stray far from where we were.

As always, we took the harder way into the woods to find the cache. Dancing our way through thorns, we made our way to the cache site. It did not take long before we heard one of the young voices yell "Found it!". We all went over to log the cache. Credit for this find went to the youngest in the bunch....Carolina City Girl. She was very proud and from what I hear, her enjoyment of geocaching increased quite a bit after that. When leaving the cache we saw a path clear of thorns and obstacles. It took us to the road just a bit down from where we entered.... Go figure!

After that, we all went to see the movie "Hop". This was our last group thing of the day but rest assured, we will be caching with this family again soon. We are already making plans to do a day of caching with a picnic lunch at one of my favorite places, Latta Plantation.

Next day, Monday morning..... I get the familiar e-mail message indicating that a new cache is published. I look to see where it is.... Latta Plantation/Wildlife Center. I read about it. Its a Murder Mystery themed multi cache called "Who, What, Where?". First thing through my head? You know it... FTF (First To Find) for those non-cachers.

I head out to do some quick errands with the mother in law but the whole time I am thinking "This one could be mine!". We get back from our errands and I notice on Facebook that the cache owner had posted a link to the cache page with a lot of responses like "I would be going for this if I was not at work." I see that the cache has yet to be found. I ask the cache owner, Smithy, how long of a search is it? He responds saying that depending on hiking speed, maybe 90 minutes. I sit down and do my math. 2:00....I do not need to pick Cole up until 5.....I have the car and Latta is a 5 minute drive. I quickly download and print anything I need.....beginning coordinates, paper, geocaching pack, GPS.... Do I have pens in my pack? YES! I respond to his post on Facebook.....I am on my way!

I arrive at Latta minutes later and park at the posted parking coordinates. I grab everything I need from the trunk of the car, a couple bottles of water and my hiking/poking stick (down here a poking stick is very handy as you do not want to be reaching in where a not so friendly copperhead maybe). From there I set off to find the first stop on this adventure. Now, as nice as Latta is, it is home to a lot of horse trails. Where there are people riding horses, you have a chance of encountering horsie land mines as big as a splattered watermelon. Dodging these on my walk, I soon make it to the first stop, get the coords to the next location and again I am on my way.

After walking a little over a half mile or so, I come up to the next stage. I complete the instructions for that stage and get the new coords. Off I go.... In the middle of the search for the next stage, my cell phone rings. Responsibly, I answer it. Its my mother in law calling to let me know that work had just called me. Oh no! Do I pretend I never got the call? Using better judgement I call work back keeping my fingers crossed that I do not have to abandon my quest of the elusive FTF. Luckily, I was being called so they could warn me about a big stock shipment coming in and that I would need to work extra the next day. Phew! My quest continues....

After I find the next couple of stages and completing the instructions at each one, I get the coords to the 5th and final stage. Thinking I may be FTF because I did not see anyone else on those trails, I get very excited when I get within 20-30 feet. Then.....the cache. I think I hear a choir of angels singing as I get the cache....open it.....and....find it logged already by one of our local cachers Termite Hunter. Nooooooooo! Come to find out, he probably only beat me by a little bit. Oh well.... Second To Find is not terrible.

After all this, I can tell you that if you have a chance to get this cache, do it. Its fun. Its at a great place with some great trails. Its INTERACTIVE.

I will end this post here but I will post more after we cache with our friends at Latta this weekend. Hopefully with some great pictures.