Tue, Sep 30, 2008

Soup Quest

Alphabet soup, yummy, tasty, and the latest local challenge cache.

Oh, there is soup in other states, but our bowl had just arrived and it was steaming hot. Letters were popping up everywhere, “I need an x” “just y and z for me.”  Some of our caches that hadn’t had finders in months suddenly became popular “U?V?” is a puzzle cache which had never courted as much activity as it had this week. “Yuppy Guppy” had a whole school of folks finding it and “Q.E.D.” was demonstrating a remarkable rise in seekers. Someone else’s cache ”Xylophobia” in the woods near our home was fearfully busy as well.

What did we need? I ran the Query, imported it to GSAK and sorted alphabetically by cache name. Scrolling down, we had lots of A’s, blocks of B’s and C’s, and several of almost every other letter. We had 3 Z’s and 2 Y’s, 1 X (we were the FTF on ”Xylophobia”) and 1 Q. Great! We were all set to find and log the “Alphabet Soup” cache and planned to collect it the next weekend when we went to the Salt Creek III breakfast upstairs in Cheri O’s basement. The cache was on the way there for us.

I began making the list as we need to post only one find for each letter. Hmm, how to choose? By our favorite, alphabetically, random? I used the ‘whatever caught my eye as I looked it over’ method. I referred to the cache page to see how my file needed to be arranged and read the requirements again. All caches must be within the borders of Nebraska. No problem, just make sure the one’s I list have that little ne next to it. Swapping the columns in GSAK and checking the user flag so I can export a .csv file to excel, I work my way down the list. A check, B check…O check, P check, Q..Oh nooo! Our only Q cache is from Iowa. Looking over the rest, I find that the Q is our only missing Nebraska cache letter.

I run another Query to sort and find any local caches beginning with a Q. I find three, two in Bellevue and the one in Omaha that we own. Let’s see we have “Quail Qreek Quickie” and “Quantitative Methods” a puzzle cache. Which one should we choose? Right! Just to make it worth our while I run a Query for caches within a mile radius of the Quail and come up with 9. That will work; we can go out after work on Tuesday. We’ll get our Quick Q along the Qreek and leave the nettles Quivering as we Qruise on to the next Qache.

I get off work about 15 minutes early and grab a Quick dinner. We are headed south mmm right about rush hour. No problem, traffic generally moves along well unless there is an accident or other attraction for the rubberneckers to gawk at. Before we got near the downtown area, some vehicle had Quacked up a mile or two ahead.  Cars were backing up and it looked like a Quick exit was in order. Yup, took us ten minutes to exit the interstate and then another ten going through town to get back on the first ramp after the accident site.

Somewhere in that time I asked Vic if we would go to the Quail first or go to nearest waypoint. She drives, she decides. “Nearest” and I pull out the Palm for information on the cache. ”The Hills are Golden” and “The Midas Touch”, cool... themed caches, and 2 in the same park! We tromp up the hill and collect the first cache after a few minutes search. Walking towards the other cache, we begin to look for likely places, there are a few, and we check them out. No luck, we try to get our signal to settle down, no luck. After spending way too much time under the circumstances we move along to the next nearest waypoint.

Driving towards the next cache we see the familiar; there is a creek here, line of trees there, and Vic says it’s probably on the other side of that creek and drives off looking for the nearest crossing street. In the meantime another cache becomes the closest so we park and walk towards it across a big sports field. This one is a multi so we have no clue yet where the second set of coords would take us. It turns out the final was close by the trail head to the cache we incorrectly thought was on the other side of the creek. Instead of going back for the car we went on ahead the ¼ mile for a Quick find and returned to the car to cross the highway for the next cache. Along the way we pass a trailhead with a big “Quail Creek” sign. I bet that’s the place! But we go get the one by the highway first.

Parking on the street we lock up and head down the trail to a long metal grated bridge over the creek and into a canopied area with relatively thick undergrowth. Commenting on the state of the bridge to some passing muggles and then waiting for them to pass out of sight we Quietly begin our hunt. Into the undergrowth, consisting mostly of nettles and some viney plants, out into an open area to get good signals again. back in, right smack into unseen spider webs, that made us Quiver.

Looking in every hollow, trying to look under the vines. I hear a Quack and Vic explains “Sorry, there was a bunny that jumped at me.” “Was it a big, vicious rabbit with long pointy teeth?” I inquired, while making snapping gestures with my hands near my mouth. Good thing I was out of reach! Vic is now swearing at the nettles which are irritating her right through her slacks and it’s starting to get darker. “I’m calling it! I Quit!” and we start back for the car, I purposely stop and head back to check one more place hoping for the proverbial ‘last place I look’ find. Nope, back at the car we pick off the collection of burrs from our butts and head for home.

We must not have gotten all of them because as soon as we got home we started working the puzzle for the other Q but don’t come up with the same answer and we Quibble about it.  I email my Questionable Qordinates to the cache owner for Qualification while Vic looks for other Q’s in the state. There is another in Nebraska City and she suggested we go there Thursday night after work. Roughly an hour long drive, each way, for a single cache on a weeknight?  “I don’t think so, Vic.” I Quip in my best “Al” Quote.

We take Wednesday night off because it is “FAVORITE TV SHOW“ night. (Drat, I thought we had lost the Voice.) I’m not Quite Qwazy enough to insist we Quest for Q on TV night.

I had written this story up to this point, prior to our Thursday evening hunt. Vic wasn’t feeling the best and said that if we find the Quantitative Methods cache we wouldn’t be going back after the Quail. Having got a reply confirming the coordinates, we felt confident that it would be an easy find, ok, confident it would at least be a find. During the drive to the cache the comment is made “What if nothing interesting enough to write about happens tonight?” mmm good Question. We park within 30 feet of the cache, look a bit, try one place, try another, try the first place more aggressively and bingo, we have it. The log is wet so we add a rite in the rain strip and start back for home. Along the way Vic jabs at me “Not much to write about huh?” “Nope, not unless we have an accident on the way home.” Q ominous music??

Getting home safe and sound I log the cache as follows: After a Quirky failed attempt for another Q cache. We attempted the puzzle for this one and emailed the cache owner to see if our Quoted Quantities Qualified. They did and we set off in search of the cache. We found it Quietly and Quick, however the log was Quite wet. So we signed a Quarter sheet of rite in the rain and Quit the area. We are now in the Queue for the Alphabet Soup! Thank Q for the cache!

I know it’s a real thriller, I can see the wheels turning in your heads.” How many more Q’s can he use?” a better Question may be “But can he use Q’s without U’s?” and if you go back and look, I did use Q’s without U’s although U’s with Q’s is better to use. Any Q’s?

Ooh, boy! Let’s hope there is something to write about this weekend when we take the puppies upstairs to the basement and chase the challenge cache.

Cheri O’s is a pleasant coffee house located on a brick paved main street in downtown Ashland Ne. The local Nebraskache group gathers there on the first Saturday of the month for a bit of socializing. We meet on the second floor which has been decorated with articles from the owner’s home basement. Old children’s toys, kitchen items and ties, lots of ties. There is also an area of roof that has been set up as an outdoor dining area, making this a walkout basement, upstairs at Cheri O’s.

This is the first time we have taken the puppies there and they enjoyed themselves. My oldest was raving over the biscuits and gravy and everyone enjoyed their chosen food. As the plates were cleared we got down to the business of discovering coins, telling tales and seeking hints on those elusive caches. Recently, there was discussion among the group about making our vehicles into travel bugs. We purchased 2 of the magnetic tags and created “Van Camp” and “Short Jaunt” for people to spot while we are on our road trips. There was another vehicle that had been “bugged” and we discovered it. One of the members also had bugged herself with a TB t-shirt. I expect we’ll see more “buggies” when we go to the big Nebraskache event next weekend in Kearney.

I have an upcoming business trip to Alabama that I had mentioned because there were 6 Earthcaches within a reasonable distance .One member was familiar with some of the caches and gave me some good advice about caching while I’m there. Ooh I hope I have the chance to get out with the Garmin!

Generally, after the group breaks up, some will pair off and seek local caches. Today was the day that the nearby Nebraska Alphabet Soup cache was going to gather lots of  TFTC’s. We scooted a bit early to avoid the rush to find the cache, anxious to see the hiding spot as it had some very complimentary comments from previous finders. It was a very impressive stump from what must have been an even more impressive tree. It had a difficult approach but we made it to the cache and signed the swag trader’s ticket.

Off to seek more caches, we find a bridge cache with a lovely view of a shaded lane disappearing into the distance. I get razzed for not bringing the camera to the bridge. I make up for that by holding us up, after retrieving the camera from the car, to get some pics of nearby wildflowers. We find 2 more caches in a state park and stop at our Earthcache “Schratta” so that mohjoe can claim it. (Yes, he has to email the answers to me.) There is another micro on a highway pull off, we collect it and head for the small town we had centered our query on.

Down Main Street, right at South Sixth, there is a park a few blocks ahead. Dash lights blaze on, the van’s engine quits and Vic slips it into neutral to restart it. It catches but stalls again just as we have to turn into the park. Fighting to turn the wheel without power steering she makes it into the parking lot. She tosses the keys to me and heads over to find the nano on a caboose with the puppies. Priorities, you know! Coming back after getting the smiley, she asks if I had got it started. Nope, now I am auto-challenged, able to take care of basic minor problems but far from being a mechanic. Vic and I figure it is either a fuel pump or fuel filter problem. In any case, we need a tow. Hmm Saturday afternoon in a small Nebraska town after the first game of the season for the Huskers had started. There are NO service stations open. So a few more calls, to find both a ride for the five of us and a place to fix Van Camp, we find that we’ll have to tow it to Omaha. Our tow arrives and we watch our vehicle go off as it heads in for repair. A few minutes later our ride arrives and we stop on the way home to give the station our information.

“We should be able to look at it Monday.” It was a busy place. So as I am sitting here typing out the story, I’m waiting to hear from the service place just how much naughty little Van Camp is going to cost us. Too much and our long awaited trip to Kearney will have to be canceled. Come on phone... ring.

Oh yeah, remind me, never, ever to speculate about not having something to write about!

Well, it didn’t cost us much.  Some labor for checking it out and having it towed. Diagnosis: Engine is shot and not worth repairing. Van Camp will never take another trip, never be made into a rolling cache for a parade, won’t be our shelter and home on long caching trips. It will never log miles as a travel bug.

I’m gonna miss Van. I’ve never been attached to a vehicle before... at one time I would have laughed at someone who expressed such feelings. I probably should not have given it a name. Sure it used more gas than we would have preferred and had a few minor mechanical problems in the past.

Van was made for road trips, with many features that added to both our comfort and enjoyment on the highways. Even Vic, who is more frugal than I, overlooked the gas consumption because it was just so well suited to its tasks. We were happy with Van Camp along on our trips. We won’t be able to replace it for awhile due to many factors. We’ll have to carry on with Short Jaunt. I don’t know yet what we’ll do with the travel bug, maybe let Short Jaunt carry two bugs for awhile or make a t-shirt bearing Van’s tracking number. Eventually there will come another, possibly better, vehicle for our cache excursions.

But right now, we’re mourning a friend.