What follows are the continuing stories, antecdotes, tall tales, and exaggerations of mythic proportions of Da Krewe, a blended family scouring the world in search of geocaches and a good burger...

So... the story starts with a ringy dingy from the cell phone. It's about 10:45pm on a Wednesday night and it goes off 3 times.

"WTH?", I think as I reach for the phone. I open the email app to find 3 new geocaches. I quickly scan them and find that 2 are in another county and look like they are on some road where, when you turn onto it, you can hear banjos playing in the distance. So, automagically, those two are out. I pull up the third one and am interested. It is just off of Hwy 69. "Check The Tide" (GC2P4PN) is its name. I look at the cache, then to the snoring beauty laying next to me. After a few minutes I decide to stay put and go to sleep...

The alarm goes off at 6am and I jump in the shower. I start wondering and thinking. As I finish my morning ritual, I wake up my beloved and tell her about the new caches.

"Why didn't you wake me up?"

"You did wake up. You looked at me, said "SSSSSssssshhhhh!" and went back to sleep".

"Whatever. Someone probably hit them already".

I opened the app and found that none had been hit. I looked at her and said, "I'm going to get that cache!"

"Not without me, you aren't!"

We got the kids up and ready for school in record breaking time. Mrs. Da Krewe had to drop her mom and Lil Bit off but swore me to a blood oath to not go to the cache without her. Actually it was more like she swore she would leave a bloody pile of humanity that was once me if I hit it without her. Isn't she wonderful?

When I get to the general area of the cache I notice we may have a small problem. I call Mrs. Da Krewe...

"Honey, we may have a small problem".

"Like?"

"I'm showing a ditch or canal or something with water in it between me and the cache"

"Well, go look and see what is it and we will go from there"

I park and take a few steps and see it is a ditch. A DEEP ditch, but a ditch we can cross. For an instant I flash back to that back road in Louisiana where Mrs. Da Krewe tried, and failed, to jump across a not large ditch. Good times...

I make my way across the ditch with no problems. I walk towards GZ and can see what I assume to be the cache. I suddenly get all panicky and paranoid as I realize we could very well be the FTF and other geocachers could be, at that very instance, heading to this cache and may try to get to it and sign the FTF before us! I quickly ran into the woods and stood over the cache like a lion that has taken down the antelope. Of course, I was being very silly.

After what seemed an eternity, Mrs. Da Krewe pulls up and gets out of her car. My heart is racing. She walks, ever so slowly to the edge of the ditch. I'm almost jumping out of my skin! She looks at the ditch and exclaims, "I can't cross that!"

"Sure you can. Just kinda walk sideways". Obviously, this woman has never played in drainage ditches!

After a few minutes of talking, convincing, and begging, she starts down the ditch. She makes it to the bottom and starts up the side. I grab her hand and help her up. Now, we are only feet from what we hope is our First To Find cache. And, to top it off - it's a "hit man" cache!

We walk into the woods and open the cache. It has some swag, but we are more interested in the log. I pull the log bag out and see...













...that it is NOT signed! Our 1st FTF!

WOOHOO!

I date the log and Mrs. Da Krewe signed it. We celebrate, but have to both get to work. Now, Mrs. Da Krewe decides that maybe there is someplace else we can cross the ditch at. We walk one way for a while and decide there is no place easier, so we head back to where she crossed. We make it across without incident.

We walk to our cars, kiss, and head off to work...




As, I am heading home from a hard day at work, I get a call from Mrs. Da Krewe telling me that she is taking Krewe S to get a dress for a wedding/not wedding we are going to this weekend. Its weird so I won't try to explain it. So, I think, "She is out, spending money. I'll grab Da Boyz and go caching".

I get home, tell Da Boyz to get their shoes on while I look something up. I get online and find that the 2 other caches that were posted last night still have not been logged. "Cool beans", I think and decide we are going to hit both before dark.

We load up and hit the road. I figure we have maybe an hour of light. Interesting note: M and J Krewe's mother lives not too far away from these caches.

We get within .10 of a mile of the cache and get turned around. We take a wrong turn and get confused. We finally get things straight and back to where we need to be. We still end up about .11 mile from where the cache is. We park and start to hike to the cache. We are a couple of hundred feet into the woods when I realize that J Krewe is wearing shorts! "Well, hell. Be careful, son", and we continue. I know, Father of the Year material...

We come to a levy. A STEEP levy. Me and M Krewe manage it with no problem. Krewezer and J Krewe need help. After we get on the levy we see it. Not the cache, but a swamp. A Real Swamp. With Cypress trees and mist on the water even! I look at the boys and see we still have over 400 feet to the cache. "CRAP!"

"Son, you have your phone?"

"Yes"

"Stay here", and I start into the swamp. There were a couple of fallen trees at the edge of the water so I stepped on them and started into the swamp. Let me pause here to inform you all that I can't swim. Back to the story...

I wade, crawl, pray myself out to a cluster of trees with some dirt at their bases and stop to see how far I am from the cache. The boys are watching as I take out my phone. 408 feet from the cache. I look out over the water and back at the boys. "We ain't getting this one tonight boys". I turn and make my way back to semi-dry land. Only incident going back was the cramp I got and almost slipped into the water/muck/ick.

We bail out of the woods quickly. As we pile back into the car, I pull out the phone and look for the third new cache. It is about a mile and a half down the road. It is getting dark and it is now that I remember that my flashlight is on the bed in the house! Well, maybe we could get there and find it without the need of a flashlight. Yeah, right...

A mile and a half later....

M Krewe is on tonight and gets us within 20 feet of the cache. And, it is dark. Pretty freakin' dark. The cache, "Hollow Tree"(GC2P4QP), was somewhere right over there...

And now, we are stumbling around, in the dark, trying to find a cache, in the dark, without a flashlight, in the dark, in the woods. I remember something about a flashlight app and quickly download one. The light, from the phone's camera flash, is bright and lights the area well. As I start to look where I think the cache is I hear "CRACK!" then, "Oops!". I look up to see Krewezer stopped in midstep.

"Son, remember the name of this cache is 'Hollow Tree'. Let's NOT destroy the cache before anyone finds it, please"

I start to go back to searching when I hear another "Crack". This time I look up to see J Krewe stopped. I just shake my head and... "AH!"

The cache is found!

I open it and grab the log...

We are first again! 2 in one day! Far out!

I send M Krewe to get a couple of bits of swag and I sign the log with all of our names. We replace the cache without anymore destruction to the area and load up and start home. As we pass our DNF, we vow to return... and soon!

It started out as a regular day and ended up being a very notable one. For this geocaching family, we reached a notable event twice in less than 12 hours.




Pretty good for a Thursday...

By Da Krewe