GC1BDT9 SLAGA Peace of Trash Cache

GC80PAK Day 6 - 2018 Cachemas in STL

GC8E3HF Saint Louis City Artwork (It was near Bevo Mill.)

GCAWWF9 SW STL Happy Hour - Harvest Moon Edition

Carol and Hcube1015 (Harold) usually cache together and try challenges they think they can accomplish in the allotted time frames.  They've entered the Adventure Awaits Challenge every month.  Carol says, "it gets us out of the house with the bonus of possibly winning a prize as an incentive too. Nice job, SLAGA!"  For September's themed challenge, which Carol thought could be an obstacle for some cachers, she and Harold used GSAK and narrowed down their choices. 

Carol started geocaching in 2012, but how she got started is a fun story.  As she tells it: "We watched a show about geocaching on PBS with my brother and sister-in-law when they visited for Christmas 2011." Upon their return to Maryland, "my sister-in-law started finding caches since her cell phone had a GPS function. We didn't have a "fancy" phone or a Nuvi navigator of any kind, so we just got emails from her telling us how much she enjoyed it, and I wanted to try it. In March the following year," while vacationing in Gulf Shores with old college friends who had a Nuvi in their vehicle, "I told them about geocaching and checked the app to see if there were any caches nearby and there were some in Gulf State Park. Hcube want to go golfing, but the remaining three of us didn't play, so I suggested we try caching with their Nuvi. We didn't know what we were doing and had no success.  Luckily, it began raining, so we scurried to the parking lot to hop into the vehicle and high-tailed it to the indoor Nature Center at the park, where we knew there was another hide.  Still not knowing what we were doing, the ranger kept giving us clues, but we were clueless.  Finally he talked me into putting my hand into a grab bag box, and I pulled out my first find!" 

The following day Carol got Harold to try geocaching and they had success at a wooden birdhouse.  Harold didn't think Carol would stick with this new hobby long as she had never been much of an outdoors person, but she continued to enjoy it.  A few months later, Harold finally joined the game too. Now Carol has over 3600 finds and Harold is close behind.

When interviewed about a memorable caching experience, Carol had another interesting story.  She 'relived' a Union MO. caching adventure. "One of the most disturbing encounters we had was while finding a cache at the roller rink.  The description stated that the owner of the rink specifically asked that a cache be place there. It was nearing dusk, and we had just found the rather hard and sneaky container.  Hcube had just handed me the log to sign when a man yells, 'Put up your hands!'  He had his hand in his pocket to make it look like he was holding a gun in it.  Another man approached to support him.  They'd driven into the lot in trucks with mowers in the attached trailers.  They weren't officers or 'officials' of any kind.  They said we were trespassing and had to leave immediately.  Well, we didn't put our hands up and weren't leaving until I signed the log and hcube put the container back.  We tried to explain what we were doing and tried to show them the page description, but they didn't care that the owner was aware of geocaching and that it was okay for us to be there.  I wouldn't describe us as really scared; we were more irritated and angry at these know-nothing vigilante individuals who thought they could make us do what they wanted.  We knew we were 'allowed' to be there."  It's not a wonder Carol stuck with game, since she certainly has some fun geo-stories to tell.  

With this final inaugural 12-month Adventure Awaits win, the SLAGA community now anticipates a Grand Prize winner to be announced at the upcoming SLAGA Fall Picnic (GCAXXFZ) on October 19, 2024.