The Helen Geo-Trip...
The GGA decided to have a meeting up in the Helen area (PHAT.bak country) here is the log for that cache...
Slayerette attended Georgia Geocachers Assn - April 2008 Meeting (Event Cache) HI GUYS!!!!
This was a great event. What a turn out! Tons of people in what really was a perfect day in the mountains. I got to chat a huge bunch to some new cachers and some old friends. got a TON of coke tops from my new riend boxerlady and boxerlady-man. *I even got to play with some puppies Duece and Sadie. I think she and Lucy (DAP)would be best pals. I picked up some tips from Allen about what to take with you go hiking - You know, about being prepared. Well, I just solved that problem years ago by making sure I take a "Lacy" with me when I go. Then I'm always prepared.
I also got to spend a bunch of quality time with some of my fave-O-Rite geobuds the Lacy's (Johnnie, Allen, Robert and his gang of Girls - Jennie, Rachel and Lydia), Phat.bak (our wonderful Helen Ambassador of geowill) and BadDawg for dinner afterwards in town. It was so exciting to actually see Mtn-man in the mountains. Now that was worth the trip in itself!
I had a great time. The whole weekend as a Blast. Everyone did an outstanding job to make sure everybody had a great time... which is important you see. Because fun is the reason we all play this game. Cause if it isn't fun then we might as well just call it work.
Thanks all for a great time. Dogapotamus is kinda upset she didn't get to come. Definitely she will be there in June...
Johnnie came over to the house friday night before the big storms hit and had dinner with me and the Herd. Steak and French Green beans... We waited for everything to settle and then took Foster and Dollie out for a walk around the block. You have never seen 2 happier dogs. it had been a awhile since they had trucked around the block, and it was obvious with dollie... Foster bounced back into line right away. After the walk we watched movies till it was time for lights out. Foster slept with Johnnie the other 2 with me until about 5:00am and dollie went to Johnnie's room to check on him and stayed. Lucy never budged.
We headed out of the house about 9:00am and hit our first cache...
Slayerette found Another Cache (Unknown Cache) Ok here's the story... you know there always is... 2 years ago I complained about Puzzle caches. Ok it's been for a lot longer than that, but let that go for the stories sake. I find them very difficult becasue I don't get them. I can't look at them and "click" get them. I just don't think that way. To me they were like a foreign language... you either get them or you don't. I don't. Point me in the right directing and ***POOOOOF*** I am like a bloodhound and I won't give up till I figure the coords out.
Soooo one day, I am talking to phat.bak and I complaining about them and said "I am just not going to do the Friggin' things!" and I think I said something like "HAAAA! Take that! you puzzle cache makers! Kiss my big ol' Aunt Nancy!" And then I went on my way.
Now phat.bak being the nice guy that he is understood my plight and decided to give me a nudge. And I freakin' ran with it... til I hit the big brick wall called "Too busy at work to mess with it" and then I got sick and then my dog ate my homework and blah blah blah... once you lose focus on something it kind of just fades away. You know what I mean?
So Flash forward (from the complaining and nudging above or backward from now, whichever) to about 3 weeks ago. I set a little goal for myself. It was to clear out the caches in a 15 mile radius from my house. Most of what's left are multi's or Puzzles. And some of the puzzles that are out there I have solved (yes, some from nudging and others on my own) but not found. Coords verified just not searched for. All these little pieces of paper with solutions on them laying around my office. So I decided to clean house (or office if you will), work on my 15 mile goal and get out into great outdoors. Now this one, I hadn't solved yet. I started, but hadn't finished. So in the midst of waiting for the data guys at work to get the data corrected so I could do my job, I pulled out that little piece of nudge and started my search. I pulled all the info together and solved this puzzle by the end of the day. I didn't get asked once what I was doing at work cause I looked so busy!
I knew I was coming up here for the GGA meeting in April and I saved the cache search for then. And I am glad I did. I definitely needed Johnnie's help on this one. It was an evilly aggressive hide. And in my Best Simon Cowell "Oyyyyyy, Luuuuuved it!".
Thanks for the cache. Left some nickles. Took nothing, but a smile on my face ooooh and a wet Shirt. I forgot to tell you it was raining when we found this one.
#56
We then tried a couple more with a lot less luck. One was in a nasty dumping area on the Lake which I didn't know till I read the logs was missing. Tried 2 more caches with out any luck No Lampost? and Nacoochee's Incentive. It was just obvious our cache mojo was not on at all today. So we headed to the meeting. (Log entry above).
We then headed over to the restaurant that phat.bak had suggested and had dinner. Then headed out to the parking lot and saw Bamadaisy doing the Riverside Park cache.
Slayerette found Riverside Park (Traditional Cache) Now this is a funny story...
We (BadDawg, Phat.bak, Johnnie, Allen, Robert, Jenny(and the girls rachel and lydia) and I) had just finished dinner at a nearby restaurant and were outside saying our goodbyes. We just happened to be scanning the riverside park when we see some suspicious behavior. Phat.bak say's something like "Hey look, If you didn't know where the cache was, You do now." and points to the suspicious girl.
At this point she has turned around and picking up something. That's when Johnnie say's "That looks like BamaDaisey from behind..." and when she turned around, he then said "And it looks like her front too!" Now I don't have my glasses on and I can't see her face... But I start laughing.
Bout this time, the suspicious girl is out there signing something. She closes up the (what we now know) cache, turns around and tosses it in the river. That's when phat.bak start wiggin' out. He gets all riled up because he can't understand why she would bother to take the time to sign the log before she threw it in the river. So a gang of us start heading that direction. And the closer we get we realize that Johnnie was right.
As we get closer to the edge of the river, we are able to see she didn't throw it in the water, but to her Caching buddy Blessed by God. Since we were already there, we went ahead and signed it.
Thanks for the cache and the extra view of Helen. I had a gret time.
Then we headed to the Condo/Suite for an evening of Geo-Drinking. Hurricanes and beer all around. Now I am a lightweight drinker. I really don't have (nor did I ever have) an empty leg. I have always found that it is a fine line between drunk and buzzed. I like buzzed not drunk. So maintaining that Buzz is an art when you are pretty much a non-drinker like myself. Plus it hurt my teeth to drink the hurricane because they were so cold (as they should be). The Boys however, had a blast! They weren't eSSSSS faced, but they were having a whoopin' good time. Which In turn made me smile.
I slepted on the couch in the living room and absolutely loved it. It was soft and fluffy and the best part... no dog hair. I got to sleep all the way through the night without being stepped on, body slammed, shaken, stirred, nudged, had my covers stolen or awakened by inhaling dog hair. It was the best nights sleep in a long time.
We then headed out after Phat.bak (eggs) and BadDawg(biscuits, bacon and sausage) made breakfast. We (Johnnie and I) decided to hit the caches in town that Phat.bak had put out and then a couple we didn't get the day before. here are the logs:
Slayerette found Corner of Edelweiss & Hooch (Traditional Cache) Found this one first thing this morning after a wonderful breakfast made by Phat.bak and BadDawg. You see we stayed in Helen last night in order to just have a mini cachin' vay-kay since we were already here. We weathered out the Hurricanes last night... and somehow managed to be up and att'em early this morning.
Johnnie zeroed in on this one while I found and dealt with the powerade cap (mycokereward) I spied under the bridge. We were blessed by the pressence of the non-heckling cache master phat on this one. It's true! He didn't heckle once. I was so proud of him.
He IS in his happy place!
Slayerette found Unicoi Hill City Park (Traditional Cache) Got this one on our way out of town this morning. Phat.bak joined us to make us think he was going to heckle us, but then not. I kept waiting for that other shoe to drop, but he never teased us once while we were caching.
I think he was still recovering from the GGA meeting we had last night. I did enjoy these little caches that were scattered all through Helen. I got to see a few places I just drive past on my way to the mountains.
I can't believe I spotted this one before Johnnie though. He said I saw it first, but I think he was trying to make me feel better.
Thanks for the tour through Helen.
Slayerette found Nacoochee's Incentive (Traditional Cache) Yup... I found it today with Johnnie. Yesterday we just didn't have our cache-mojo on. We couldn't find my bottom with a search team and a canine unit.
But today went much better... except for that lampost cache...AAAAAack. It was right where we were looking yesterday. It was all in the manner of directional searching. I was looking for an ammo can. Silly me. We did locate it quite quickly today now that we had already found 2 caches and had a BadDawg breakfast. I wasn't going to leave the Helen area and not find this one. I have been up this mountain before, and I plan to go up it again to get the remaining caches... but not today. Maybe in about minus 60 pounds.
Thanks phat for reminding me about this mountain. It needs to go on my todo list.
Like that's not long enough already!
Slayerette couldn't find No Lampost? (Traditional Cache) You would think that as many people who were at this cache yesterday uhhhh I think it was around 27! - there would be more than just 3 DNF's.
I am proud to say I didn't find it. I am also ashamed to say that place looks like a tornado hit it. Johnnie and I stopped by yesterday on our way to the meeting around 10:00am and it wasn't too bad... But coming back through today around Noon is a completely different story. If it's there it's buried, compromised or just thrown to a completely different area. I am thnking it's been compromised. I know it was hard to manuever around in there, but come on people you don't have to tear down the whole bamboo forest and destroy everything looking for a cache.
Phat, you may want to double check that cache, just for grins.
And that would be my Geo-trip to Helen. One heck of a great time with great friends and caches.
Thanks Johnnie.