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Stories with police questioning you


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I just want to hear some stories about where cops stop you and start asking questions? I was at one cache last night at 8:30 at night and it was just dark and right by a water pump, it was a micro and my girlfriend and I were looking with our flashlight I could just imagine what I cop would do if they saw us there.

 

Can I hear some of your stories?

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Unfortunately I don't have any good stories to tell because I am a law enforcement officer and I have yet to stop myself and ask myself questions. However I'm still waiting for the day when I find someone suspiciously lurking around in the bushes just to find out that it is actually a Geocacher! :laughing:

 

That would be funny if you found someone lurking around in the bushes and you had your uniform on and started questioning them and then whipped out your GPS and was like oh my shift is over for the day mind if I tag along with the find. :laughing:

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Unfortunately I don't have any good stories to tell because I am a law enforcement officer and I have yet to stop myself and ask myself questions. However I'm still waiting for the day when I find someone suspiciously lurking around in the bushes just to find out that it is actually a Geocacher! :blink:

There are a few police officer/cacher in my area. One of them playfully harassed a cacher before. :blink: Maybe he'll tell the story firsthand. (He recently retired)

 

I had a sheriff shine his brights on me at night while I was hiding a cache. Once I showed him the attachment was magnetic and no government property was damaged in the process, he was happy and left me alone. The cache is still there.

 

An inexperienced officer saw me digging for a benchmark and told me to "drop your shovel." Once I explained what I was doing, he moved on and nabbed a speeder few minutes later.

 

An officer was staking out a park for druggies when I showed up and started to look for a cache. He approached and asked what I was doing. He was fascinated with the sport, so he joined the search. The cache went missing soon after, though. :laughing:

 

An officer (not security guard) was patrolling a parking area on his electric cart when he saw me carry an urban camo container to sign. He wanted to see the log book and bag very closely, to make sure it wasn't illegal drugs. Once he was satisfied with what I was doing, I asked him a favor, to keep an eye on the cache in the future. :laughing:

 

I've had countless night encounters with police officers. I always show my GPSr, explain Geocaching without hesitation, and answer his questions directly. So far, no problems. <_<

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There was a cache in Portugal called "Home of the little Red Porsche" (it was archived) that was placed in Lisbon´s suburbs where some Cachers had some troubles with the Police.

This Cache was the first cache of a guy that had no founds in his profile (i dont know how it was approved) and was place in the backyards of some buildings in a hole in the wall. Everyone from the surrounding buildings could see what the cachers were doing.

There were some DNF, the owner came to change something in the cache and took it away at the same time that a group of cachers were trying to find it. They searched the all area (atracting the attention of the people who live in nearby buildings) and didn´t find anything. When they were leaving, someone arrived in a motorcicle, went to the cache place (that hole in the wall), and, quickly left the scene. He was seen by the cachers who though "Now The Cache is there!!", and, went for another search. It was dusk already.

Meanwhile, all this activity had caught someones attention and the police was called.

There was a police car, and several police man crawled arround them to surround them and made and arrest (they though that it was some sort of drug dealing).

I dont remember if they fond the cache, but, if they did, there were no stashnote explaining what geocaching is, they were searched and had to show all the bags content while the cache owner saw it all from his window without making anything to help them.

At the end the police undestood what it was about, send them away but not without asking them to remove the cache because that place was known for being a drug dealing spot.

I think the story was this, but, if someone involved reads this, please correct me if needed.

 

Things like this can happen everywhere, specially today with all that terrorist threats, drugs, etc... so, we all need to take some care, put the stashnotes in the caches, maybe carry a copy to show, and, answer all the questions directly, etc...

 

Regards from Portugal

Alberto aka manchanegra

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Another police encounter last night, and this time, a policewoman! :P:laughing:

 

She saw me with a flashlight searching in a park.

 

Officer: "What are you doing?"

Me: "Geocaching!"

Officer: "WHAT??"

Me: "Geocaching!!"

 

(I approached her slowly with my hands in plain view, with both my GPSr's)

 

Me: "It's a treasure hunting game. I'm looking for clues. I use the GPS device to pinpoint the location"

Officer: "Ah, I see..."

Me: "Does this park have curfew?"

Officer: "It does. 9 pm. That's why I talked to you. However, since you aren't drinking, or partying (i.e. drugs), you can carry on."

Me: "Thanks!"

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Not an encounter, but a heartwarming story...(I think so)

 

I placed a cache (and be very quiet about this, but it was next to a public pathway with a gorgeous view, and I didn't ask permission...)

 

So, I went to check on the cache, it's a micro, and I was surprised to see two business cards jammed in there. I was going to remove them, but certainly not, when I saw that two of our fine local police officers had logged into the cache with their official cards.

 

The same police department loaned me a police car for an event cache. How cool is that?

Edited by bumblingbs
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Oh, no. Our police department has a fake police officer. Officer "Bob Wire". He sits all day by the side of the road watching tourists jam on their brakes. The only problem I had with borrowing him was that a bunch of people called in to report a crazy woman writing on the police car. That was me, with a dry erase marker on the window. Writing coordinates.

Edited by bumblingbs
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I was on a VERY decommisioned Naval Air Station tooling around with the kids on the seaplane ramps, looking for a cache. We realized we were on the wrong side of the fence so I turned around and floored it, just for the kids (the place is wide open, nothing around for a 100 yards) Had it up to about 50 when the local law swung in. I tested the anti-lock brakes and rolled by him, then my 7 year old son sings out with "He's turning around!!!" Sure enough, here he come, lights lighting up everything for a mile. He asked a bunch of questions, and I offered a brief explanation of geocaching. He was on the lookout for kids racing their sportscars. I can't help but wonder if I would've been in a little more hot water if my kids hadn't been with me..... :laughing:

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I had parked my van on the side of a road here on day so that I could hunt for a micro placed somewhere in a big empty field. Upon returning to my van I saw a highway patrol car parked directly behind mine, so I casually walked over and asked him if there was any problem. He told me that he thought my van had been abandoned (LOL! A 1988 Dodge Caravan that has more rust than paint and smokes enough to kill off it's weight in mosquitos) so he was fixin' on calling it in. I explained to him that I was just geocaching, and at that his eyes lit up and he asked "Why, is there one down there?" No further explanation of my activity was necessary. :)

 

WolfWalker

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once. I guess they were concerned about a woman out alone where I was and thought I needed help. (that was all, right? they couldn't possibly have thought little ol' me was up to anything? B) ) I ended up taking the policeman back to the cache, letting him see it etc. He wanted to know about those things with tags :) so we covered the whole TB thing. I wonder if there was any progress made towards turning him into a geocacher! I tried! B):)

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About 2-3 months ago my 15 Y.O. daughter and I came walking out of the woods in front of a few guys riding motorcycles on a popular trail. one of the guys stopped us and asked us what were doing. I told him just out for a walk but he blocked out path and made me real uncomfortable so I told my daughter to get to the truck and off we went. The guy wrote down our license plate # I guess because 45 minutes later after we got another few caches up the road we got lit up by a sheriff. I asked what the problem was and he quickly told me to shut up and he'd be right back....I was starting to get a bit nervous especially when he asked my daughter if she was alright and if I was her father....It seems the guy that stopped us on the trail earlier was an off duty sheriff deputy and he wrote down the plate number wrong. The one he wrote down came back to a registered sex offender. Once he ran the right plate number and all came back clear he asked us what we were really doing. We had a good laugh and I explained geocacing to him.

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This one time while I was caching....

 

Busted

 

Dang, that's a scary story....was those bags near a cache? I must have missed that detail if it was in there.

 

My police story was when I was looking for a cache in downtown Chattanooga! We were parked in an empty baseball stadium parking lot and we were looking under the rail road ties in the parking lot that served as parking bumpers (gravel parking lot mind you) and their was supposed to be a film canister under one of these bumpers.

 

A police officer arrives and sees our lone car in the parking lot and he is looking into it, and then we pop up. He askes what we are doing out here when it wasn't a baseball game and all...and we told him Geocaching! He rolled his eyes and was like "yeah, I was patrolling this area about a year ago and I saw someone looking for something under one of them RR ties and they said Geocaching too....Well, sounds fun have a great day"

 

And he was off.

 

Even though I have found 930 caches, I have only been encountered by law enforcement twice (the other time he was a cacher and was looking for the same one as us) Most of the time I get questioned by store managers, or citizens, or something like that.....but rarely the cops.

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I haven't had any encounters with full time law enforcement, but I did get questioned by a security officer for a hotel where a stage for a multi was placed nearby. He came out and said people had been going into the lobby saying there were strange people looking around the bushes on the edge of the parking lot. After I explained geocaching to him and what we were doing, he oked us for the hunt to continue. We didn't find the stage that day, but went back another day and found it; we gave the hotel desk people a brief overview of geocaching before we started out again, to head off any complaints.

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This was almost a really bad one. I have had more police encounters while caching than I can remember and they are usually the same each time. I tell the officer(s) exactly what I am doing and answer all questions honestly but this was completely different.

 

I will just repost my log:

 

Silver Creek Welcome (GCN95W)

May 19, 2006

 

While signing the log the Silvercreek Police showed up. They ran our vehicle license plate and all of our driver's licenses. I tried to explain the concept of Geocaching to them they looked very skeptical. The officer then asked if the DOT knew that people were tampering with their traffic signals. He called the DOT and then called in a county sherrif. They inspected the electrical boxes and questioned us at great length.

Luckly for us the Department of Transportation did not want to press charges. If they had we would have been in a lot of trouble as the officer explained that tampering with a traffic signal was a federal crime. They were very unhappy that the cache was there and after over a half hour they let us go. I asked the SC officer if he wanted us to remove the cache. He said that if we did not do so that he would.

 

Took the cache and told them that we were heading back to PA. The sherrif followed us for a while and when he went his seperate was I dropped the cache in a new location. I will notify the owner via e-mail as to where the cache can be retreived at.

 

For now do not go and look for it. It is no longer there. I would also strongly advise against the cache being replaced in the same fashion.

 

 

 

- Rev. Mike

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I've been stopped and questioned twice...

 

The first time, I drove up to a homeland security checkpoint after a full day of caching...my jeep was covered in mud, my car was loaded with electronics and maps, and the guys with gun couldn't have been less interested...they asked me what I was doing, one of them knew about geocaching and waved me through...there was a group of college kids who were hassling the people manning the stop who did get waved over while we were talking, and they may still be there. B)

 

The second time, I was looking for boundary markers up at the border, and crossed the line into Canada and back a bunch of times in the hinterlands of Northern NY...some body must have called it in, because homeland security was waiting by my jeep as I returned from one of the markers...the woman was a little freaked to see me coming out of the woods, and asked me to remain where I was while she, with my permission, looked through the windows of my jeep...after she evaluated the crap/gear/garbage in my jeep...she thought my explanation was nerdy but believable, and I went on my way...

 

Jamie - NFA

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Here is our police story...

 

It was a hot summer day and my boys were having baseball practice at the park. My 7 yr. old daugther and I decided to try one more time to find 1 of the 2 geocaches in the woods between the park and the nearby highschool. We had previously found 2 others at the park near the baseball fields. We decided to drive around and park in the school lot next to the tennis courts and the entrance to the woods. We got out to look and relized we didn't have the coordinates with us for the cache we were planning on looking for. I tried calling a friend for her to look the information up on her computer, but my cell phone was dying fast! I noticed a Fishers police officer had pulled into the school lot, he was not really facing us, but he was there for observation, none the less. I told my daughter if we were going to find this cache we were going to need some help. So, we walked right over to the police car and asked him if he could use his computer to look up something for us. I told him the website, my password, and what the cache was called and he gave us coordinates. I explained what geocaching was and told him there were 2 right beside the police station that he could check out. We went into the woods and found the cache he given us coordinates to. My daughter and I bet eachother if he would be gone where we came out of the woods. He was still there but, had moved off a bit. I gave him a thumbs up and we went back to the baseball fields! We are still trying to find that second one...but, we stay out of the school lot.

friend of the frog :laughing:

Fishersfinders

Edited by fishersfinders
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My story is not nearly as exciting as some of the ones I have read but It did get my heart pumping a bit. I live in the western suburbs of phoenix. It is an area that is experiencing huge growth. It is not uncommon to have a square half mile of desert surrounded by new housing developments and shopping centers. We pulled of the road on the side of one of these desert areas where a multi puzzle cache was hidden to try and figure out the clue and get the FTF. While sitting there a man in blue pulls up behind me. He asks why I am pulled off the side of the rode here and if I need any help. Meanwhile my kids are asking me "Daddy are you going to get a ticket." I just smile and give the officer the best explanation of geocaching I can and show him some print outs of the cache we are looking for. He looked skeptical but said nothing much more accept to advise me to move along... which I did. Needless to say I did not get the FTF.

I was crazy to think I could figure out that puzzle at the cache site anyway. It was two months later before I got back for the find. Great puzzle idea though. Check it out at GCWWE2.

Edited by smcpeaknkids
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Here is our log from GCX8W6

 

Where do I start?? We had attempted this cache a few weeks ago, and came up with a DNF. Bloodhound emailed Izzy and got slight hint. Using this hint, and spending the next few weeks grounded due to a bad asthma attack, gave me time to work this out in my head before coming back. We happened to be in the area tonight, and figuring this would be an easy way to get back on the geo scene without needing oxygen. We stopped without the GPS, or paper thinking neither would be of use due to knowing where to look. I started looking at what I was sure was the cache, working on grabbing the container when Debbie says, “There is a sheriff watching us”. I turned around to the Sheriff pulling up right behind us, not looking to happy about us being there. He asked what we were doing; I tried to explain geocaching, which he had never heard of. OMG!!! We still hadn’t found the cache, what proof did I have this was legitimate? Thank God, he took us as being harmless leaving us by saying, “Don’t break anything” as he took off. NOW I NEED OXYGEN!!! I turn and continued working to free the cache, even still worried about this being what I believed it was. I have to say, this container is one of the best I ever seen, we signed the log and retreated with needing oxygen as blue as one of the Smurfs with the sheriff pulling out just ahead of us :laughing:

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I was doing a cache on Army Corp of engineers property. Admittedly I took the wrong path to the cache and was erronously parked under some power lines.

When I came out from the cache my Jeep was blocked by Army Corp vehicles and the Army Corp officers were giving me the evil eye.

They asked what I was doing back there under the power lines. I stated I was caching.

They said they did not believe me because they have done all the caches around the area and there is not one back there.

 

I told them the name of the cache and prepared to show them the cache page.

 

They said oh...that's the puzzle cache they could not figure out.......and let me go...

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this isnt cache related, as it just happened to me about an hour ago

 

i had just got off work at the local kmart(no stupid Rain Man jokes) and im walking home, as i live VERY close. im walking between kmart and Kuhns, the store next door, and i spot headlights somewhat following me, i look back and its a cop, remember i JUST got off work (we close at 10), and he asks me if i had some beef with the manager (or something like that) ;);)

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We had just returned to the Jeep after signing a logbook at a very remote area only accessible by four wheel drive vehicles. We thought we were the only people around for miles. While looking at the map, I noticed a reflection in my glasses that was human in form - and it was sneaking up the side of the Cherokee! Before I could turn and look out the window there was knock on the glass. It was a conservation officer! Here we are, in prime hunting territory with a hunting dog, out of season. After answering his questions we explained geocaching and showed him the container. Now we have a Michigan DNR Officer involved in caching. He said he could hide caches that would take days to find. Does it get any better?

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this isnt cache related, as it just happened to me about an hour ago

i had just got off work at the local kmart(no stupid Rain Man jokes) and im walking home, as i live VERY close. im walking between kmart and Kuhns, the store next door, and i spot headlights somewhat following me, i look back and its a cop, remember i JUST got off work (we close at 10), and he asks me if i had some beef with the manager (or something like that) as it turns out, an employee got fired.......

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I had parked my van on the side of a road here on day so that I could hunt for a micro placed somewhere in a big empty field. Upon returning to my van I saw a highway patrol car parked directly behind mine, so I casually walked over and asked him if there was any problem. He told me that he thought my van had been abandoned (LOL! A 1988 Dodge Caravan that has more rust than paint and smokes enough to kill off it's weight in mosquitos) so he was fixin' on calling it in. I explained to him that I was just geocaching, and at that his eyes lit up and he asked "Why, is there one down there?" No further explanation of my activity was necessary. <_<

 

WolfWalker

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...

Officer: "It does. 9 pm. That's why I talked to you. However, since you aren't drinking, or partying (i.e. drugs), you can carry on."

 

Its usually at this point when I can see that the cops internal voice is saying, "GEEK!"

 

I've had a couple inquiries from police and always tell them straight away whats going on. I wonder if anyone tries to tell a different story.

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I was caching with a friend over spring break (hmm, Cachers Gone Wild...) near a VFW hall when some cops called us over. The place had been broken into the night before, and we were looking kinda suspicious. I got no grudge.

 

He called the school we went to (we were a few towns over) to conform we really were on spirng break, and another cop had heard of Geocaching. They helped us look for awhile, and I found it just before they were about to leave.

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I have been questioned by the police several times.

 

I only have a couple caches left out there ..but in the past whenever I placed a new cache..I started getting into the habit of emailing the chief of police for the town with the area and coordinates that the cache was in......in each email I would link geocaching.com with a small explanation of what caching is and then update them on another cache location.

 

The former chief of police for gresham has actually sent me emails back....but they have a new one now and i havent placed any new caches lately.

 

Although I am planning on spending most of wednesday to bring my MHCC multimania cache back online.

 

I have been gone too long...the burnout I had from caching is finally over.

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With only one exception, all of my questionings have been when I was night caching, and I've been completely honest about what I was doing. There was the one time where the officer said that looking for a tackle box with a 1.5 million candlepower light wasn't being discreet enough. Or the time when the officer stopped us and asked what we were doing, and when we replied, "Geocaching!" he asked, "So, what am I supposed to do with that, what's it mean to me?" A brief explanation, and he was off like OJ to find the real killers. All of the other times have been pretty similar, a brief explanation, and they're on their way, and I still get my smilie.

 

I just figure that the cops have a pretty well-tuned BS detector, considering who they normally deal with, and if you're honest up-front, they'll let you be. Or, I'm a deluded optimist.

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:) As i read all those texts i realise that the bigest problem for a cacher is to be accuse for drug dealing.

The same happens to me.

Try to cache the GCNNT2, a cup stop me and start ask qustion .The place were the cache was hiding is a drag dealing park.Thank god the cup was a young one and understand the game and now is a cacher himself

Edited by 21april
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:) As i read all those texts i realise that the bigest problem for a cacher is to be accuse for drug dealing.

The same happens to me.

Try to cache the GCNNT2, a cup stop me and start ask qustion .The place were the cache was hiding is a drag dealing park.Thank god the cup was a young one and understand the game and now is a cacher himself

 

you were talked to by cups? and whats a drag dealer?

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We had an experience with a sheriff's deputy at a cache last year.

 

We were in Lamar, MO during a vacation to visit with my wife's family. We took a drive to Lamar to get some of the caches there (over a dozen in town there)

 

One of them was in the wooded property behind the cache placer's in-laws house. Placed with their full permission. Apparently though some of the neighbors had no idea about it, as they called 911 to report a suspicious vehicle (out of state plates) and that the driver got out and took off into the woods behind the house.

 

[url http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...9a-a91446853112]Lamar Cache 6 (Gerald Gulch) [/url] [

 

My wife stayed behind with our pup in the car, I went down the hill behind the house and out along the dry river bed, it was nearly a 1/4 mile hike to the cache. coordinates were off, so I looked for abit, then finally found it. Called back to say I found it and was on my way back.

 

(this part I wasn't there for)

After that a Large Black SUV pulled into the driveway (where the cache says we should park) and my wife thought it was the owners and we may need to move the car cause it might be in the way... it stopped behind her, she got out to see if she needed to move the car (she was on the passenger side yet) and then saw it was a sheriff car. He asked what she was doing there, she told him we were geocaching and offered him her drivers license. He hadn't ever heard of geocaching, and she explained as best she could while he called in the DL and our car plates.

 

I come back up the hillside and see the SUV behind the car figured it was some other cachers waiting till we finished, my wife got out of the car to let me know what was happening. The deputy asked me what we were doing there (probably checking that our stories match), I told him geocaching, and then had to explain it again to him, showed him the GPS, and our PDA with the cache info, and told him that the cache owner had permission and that the property owners gave permission to have cache hunters come and search for the cache.

 

Luckily he was in a good mood and nice, he only held us there while waiting for the NEW dispatcher to check our licenses and car registration. Initially she claimed my wife didn't exist, nor did the plates for our car!

 

We were there with him for around 15 minutes or so after I got back from the cache. He was very nice and suggested the cache be removed, told him we would let the owner know (never received a reply) and post a note on the cache page.

 

He told us it was very lucky that my wife had stayed behind, because he probably would have confronted us in the woods with his gun drawn! Then it certainly wouldn't have gone so smoothly. As it was, I think we were lucky that he didn't take us in for the questioning. As we left, he went across the street to talk with the neighbors who called it in, they were in their yard watching the whole time. We decided that was our last cache for the day, though it was only about 1pm. And that we will be very careful about any future private property caches.

 

Looking through the logs, it would appear the owner still hasn't notified the neighbors about what is happening, as a recent visitor had to explain to a neighbor what they were doing there while the property owners where out of town. I did put the very basic info into our log, and send the cache owner a message, though never received a reply.

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I was night caching in Chicago looking for a guardrail hide and a squad car with a lady cop stopped by and asked if I was OK. I explained what I was doing, and she was a bit startled but smiled, wished me well, and drove on. :huh: Found the cache, too.

 

Her voice was gentle, and she acted so un-cop-like (no sexism intended :huh: ) so I had difficulty imagining that she's trained to pin me down, or draw her side arm at the blink of an eye. :(

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Here is my log. To go into a bit more detail, the deputy noticed me leaving in the wrong direction on foot. (I was believing the GPSr and not the map.) He asked me whether I intended to go into the park. I told him I was caching and then noticed the map on the GPSr. At that point he pulled out his maps of the park and we discussed the trails going up there. As he left he mentioned he might drive up there and watch me look. I never did find the right trails and abandoned the search, but I did wonder if he did get up the hill to look for me again.
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