Our first multi-cache!

Instead of in one looong blog, I thought I'd post our second find of the day in a seperate entry.

The next one was also a cemetery. I chose the cemeteries because my MIL had showed interest in the old cemetery that was our first cache hunt I told her about. Unfortunately, she was out shooting pheasants with her dog Cody. Maybe I can get her out in the AM tomorrow before her and FIL leave, but I doubt it.

Hunter entered the coordinates into Richard and we were off on our first multi-cache!!

I neglected to mention that during the above both Devin and Bryce were out cold.

Richard took us to an area that is familiar to my hubby. As we approached the old cemetery we saw it was about 200 yards off the main road and on one much bumpier and horribly patched one, we passed two hunters wearing blazing orange coats and carrying rifles bent into V’s over their shoulders. We practiced some stealth by driving by our cache like this was our road and hoping the bumps and shakes wouldn’t wake my sleeping princes. After about a mile I turned around in an open space where two pick up trucks were parked, probably the property of some more hunters in orange, and headed back to the cemetery. Those men had stayed in my rear view mirror for awhile because of their colors, but we didn’t see them anywhere at all as we approached and parked in the grass just before the open gateway in the fence around the place.

There were no hints for this first stage of our first multi-cache. The cache owner said it would most likely be a “cache and dash”, meaning it would be easily found and we’d be on our way. We hoped so!

Since my conversation with my sister yesterday, I now knew how to work Richard more efficiently, so I brought up the screen with the L&L coordinates and placing him on our journal page underneath the printed directions, we watched ourselves get closer to the right spot. We actually ended up back tracking toward the gate. We had walked in a bit once past the entryway but found us going back. Once we were at the coordinates we looked up and found we had two trees, the fence and the gate post before our eyes. We read back through our cache info page in the journal and found the sentence where the cache owner jokes you might need a tool to open this one, but maybe not. Hunter and I agreed you wouldn’t normally use a tool on a tree, so we walked away from them and approached the fence and the gate post. I looked at the base of the post and saw what looked like a cover on it with small screws at the top and bottom. I pushed at it with my finger…and it moved. It was a magnet!

I showed Hunter and he pulled it from the post. It was a solid plate, like one you’d put over an electrical outlet you no longer wanted to use. It was painted black to match the post and on the other side were the coordinates to the second and final stage of this two step trek!

I wrote it down in the notebook and once back in the van Hunter entered it into Richard. Bryce was awake and smiling at us, Dev still asleep with his head hanging down. The next leg was two and a half miles away. Hunter watched for the green arrow and when he saw it, he told me where to turn before Richard. The cache owner didn’t give us much help as to what to expect at this second cache. He said two things. One – Stage two was a non-typical small container and two, Hunter deciphered the hint and it said, Final counter-clock wise.

We found ourselves at another cemetery, this one still in use and looking like it was being expanded at the far side. I parked the van well onto the grounds and left the door open as both Dev and B were awake now. The clue wasn’t very helpful in telling us where to go, but the title of this cache, The Pyre, was. I didn’t know what a pyre was so I had to Google it before we had left. Once I read the definition I recognized what it was, a structure, usually made of wood, for burning a body as part of a funeral rite. Well, there weren’t any crematoriums on the burial grounds and there wasn’t anything in sight where someone might lay a body to burn, but there was a small wooden building at the back near the woods. While walking toward it I kept an eye on Richard, and his W reading was already in agreement with my written coordinates from the cache info page and the N degrees were climbing in the right direction as we approached the building. Once there Hunter and I looked around and on the fence behind the building was what looked like a large bleached candy cane with a screw top on the side. It wasn’t natural to the environment and it was indeed a “non-typical small container”. Hunter grabbed the front square, not unlike the one at the previous cache we checked off our list. I told him by turning it to the left he’d be going counter-clock wise like the hint said. It opened and he pulled out another plastic bag! We had found two in one day. Hooray! Hunter claimed a gold coin and a guitar pick and left an Indian figure and a sea shell from our time at the beach in N.C. in exchange. We folded up the bag, pushed it back into the hole and replaced the top. We walked back to the van and found the boys still warm and safe in their car seats and went home, satisfied with our caching adventure!

Thanks for reading our adventures!