Lazy Cachers Give Me The FTF

On June 22 I got the e-mail notice of a new cache 9 miles from home. I didn't go after it because it had already been published for an hour and there have been some FTF parties going on lately. Also, I've been reading Dan Brown's Angels and Demons and man it's good. It's hard to go after an hour old cache when you are immersed in the nonstop action of this book.

Well, that day came and went and the cache had still not been found. No DNF's or anything. I'm still too busy reading to go. Another day and another day pass and this cache is still sitting there yelling at me.

Finally, today, 5 days later, I decide to go grab the cache after work. I just printed out the coordinates because I can't install Garmin drivers on my work computer. I find the road I need to turn on and pull off to the side to enter the coordinates in the GPSr. Once the numbers were in and if clicked on "Find" I was only 53 feet away. Nice shootin' Tex!

Just then a muggle van pulls in front of me and just sits there. I swear these people are sent to test me. The name of the cache is Almost a Winchester Mystery House. It's near a really odd looking house in the city of.................you guessed it, Winchester, CA. I snapped a few pics on my phone to try and look like I was just looking at the house. Finally the van pulls away.

I didn't spot the cache right away. The hint said, "Another term for love in tennis?" Stupid me, I was thinking love meant the score was tied, so I'm looking for a railroad tie or something tied to the fence. (That's the tennis knowledge you get growing up poor in Central Illinois.) I finally spotted the cache just before giving up. After seeing the hide and having The Wife correct my tennis foul, the clue made some sense. It was still a bit too cryptic and wouldn't have helped me in the hunt.

Once I saw the container, I realized that it was swag from one of my caches that TGR's made into a cache of their own. That's the second time I've found a geocache made out of geoswag from one of my own caches. That's always a good time.

Anyway, I got the FTF. The log was too tiny for me to compose my custom FTF message but I put a big old Hick@Heart on there for the world to see. Who knows why this cache had not been found, but I'll take it.