Caching in Rome!

This hunt was an adventure indeed. It was at the Lock & Dam... there are actually two here but Matt got a call in the middle of my first hunt and considering what happened here he said, "Your caching is done for the day."

I started off, as it seems I normally do in these hunts, walking back and forth in the same area until I get my bearings. As it turns out I never really got my bearings because I was kind of lost in the parking lot... blame it on the GPS not me ;)

I was following the GPS coordinates and I came to a stop. I was on one side of a tiny creek and the GPS said I needed to be on the other. Matt had taken off the other way (which turned out to be correct - damn him!) to wait for me. I saw what appeared to be a stable spot to hop from one side of the creek to the other... ya know, cause I "hop" so gracefully every other day (ha!)... so I went to take off and make my triumphant jump... and my foot slipped in the mud that was apparently hiding under my "stable" take off.

Everything kind of went in slow motion then because I felt parts of my body go in all different directions. One arm off to the left, one arm off to the right (the one that was holding the GPS, which went flying through the air), my right hip definitely hit the ground because I can still feel that now and a rock/twig punctured my right shin.

I literally watched the GPS fly through the air, land on the other side of the creek (bastard!) and roll down the hill towards the creek! As I said everything seemed to slow down and as I watched it tumble down I was saying, "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" as I tried to regain my footing... in the same damn muddy spot I slipped in the first time of course and busted my ass yet again. Since I was not blessed with Go-Go-Gadget arms that could extend out to save my beloved GPS... I had to watch it drowned in the creek :(

I finally gave up trying to get vertical and pulled myself/half crawled over to the creek and fished out my GPS. I almost burst into tears. Here, I had FINALLY figured out a way to be able to geocache and I had drowned my caching buddy! How do I keep three children alive???

I pulled myself up the hill until I found firm ground and sulked my way over to Matt. I'm sure he was wondering how I managed to go from sparkling clean and excited to almost on the verge of tears and completely muddy. I described to him as best I could what had happened but I was too humiliated to go into much detail.

I would have screamed for help but there were several fishermen at the dam and I really didn't need a boatload of men to come rushing over and laugh at the crazy white girl flopping around in the mud and fishing for her GPS :(

Matt took the GPS (I said to him, "See! That's why the handheld ones are on a necklace thingy!) and walked as far as it would take us before conking out. He said, "Well, if I had to guess I'd say it's somewhere in this area."

So I started looking around. I spotted a tree trunk I wanted to check out and took off towards it... and promptly tripped on a tree branch and landed sunny side down. How much more humiliation can one aspiring geocacher take I ask you???" I looked over to my right and spied the corner of the ammo box.

Once again, my hyper chipmunk alter ego kicked in and I did my, "OMG THERE IT IS! THERE'S THE CACHE! I FOUND IT!" happy dance again. True, I did trip and find it but the fact that I found it is all that matters!

Here's to hoping that my GPS is able to dry out and be functional again.

The prize... (I left the lizard trackable here)

Until my next adventure... happy caching!