What's Your Best Muggle Story?

[+no_peeking]

What's your 1 best muggle story?

 

I once was looking for a cache on a community college campus and happened to be outside the security office. They came out and asked, "what are you looking for?" I'm sure they were being polite but more likely very concerned about my suspicious behavior.

 

"Ahhh" I said, "I lost my house key out here last week."

 

"Oh, come on inside, we've got a whole lot of keys. Maybe it's in there."

 

"OK" I said. And into the building I went, looking for a non-existent key. I was surprised at the hundred or so keys they had collected. Didn't people miss them?

 

"Nope. Not here" I said. Then went back to look for the cache. After a few more minutes, and noticing that they continued to watch me from the building, I decided to complete this one another day.

[+Peconic Bay Sailors]

We were at a geocache and at the same time trying to log the "Nude Terracache"...

Well a bunch of Hooters waitresses & their Chippendale boyfriends came by...

OH wait... I can't tell that story here... it's trerracaching...

Never mind...

Edited February 18, 2008 by Peconic Bay Sailors

[Bumperboats3]

Last week my husband and I had to wait for a man to stop peeing on a tree where our cache was to be found before we could go in and get it. He missed it by a foot or two at best!

[+spankyjoe]

I was wandering thru a wooded area in Sarasota Florida, at the Seista Key beach, when a young man, Man I sounded old just then(I am 32) asked me if I was a Biologist. I replied yes that I was looking for abandoned Alligator nests to tak back to my lab, and he went about his business without asking another question.

[+GRANPA ALEX]

Hunting a cache at night in a small neighborhood park when the police came up. They were looking for drug people and they challenged me. I shared our program, they helped find the cache and wrote in the log book "Don't do drugs!"

[+Night Stalker]

My favorite has to do with a first to find. I had put out a cache called Fall Creek's 2nd falls. This is aways into a forest and was not visited right away. When a geocacher finally found and logged it he also left a note stating that he was not first to find. I checked on the cache and found a note in the logbook by a hunter. He had found the cache read the enclosed note identifying it as a geocache. After looking through the cache he found a computer game that his daughter wanted to he got something out of his pack and made the trade. Like a good cacher he traded up. I couldn't have asked for a better first finder.

[+nekom]

The only time I was ever actually approached was doing a cache off of a fairly well frequented bike trail. At least two locals walking by asked me "Did you find it?" The locals must have known what the game was. Then a man asked me if we were geocaching, and when I told him that we were he asked a few questions about it, apparantly he'd heard of it and was interested. Other than that, I've never been encountered by anyone. I've run into other geocachers in the field twice, that's always a good time, but that's another story altogether.

[+Dragonfire870]

We ran into a muggle at a cache in El Paso (GCNXJ5), which is next to a large garden area as well as a large lake (it was very odd seeing a natural lake in the middle of the desert like that). Anyhow, the lake was fenced off because it was a protected natural area, and the gardens were closed, so we found the cache and signed it.

 

After we signed it however, we ran into someone who had just arrived at the place, and was getting ready to check on the lake and the seagulls (yes, there are seagulls in El Paso). She asked us what we were doing and when we explained it all, she was kind enough to let us go into the fenced-off area and watch her feed the birds. It was pretty interesting.

[+admo1972]

I went after a cache near where I work, and after signing the log and returning to the trail, a muggle came up behind me and asked me if I had hid it. I said no, but I know who had. Turns out, this guy was up in a tree stand hunting deer when the cache owner was placing the cache! I called the CO shortly afterwords, and he was a bit freaked that the 20 minutes he was there hiding the cache and getting GPS readings, he never noticed the hunter.

[bradnlinds]

We haven't been geocaching very long, so we haven't had an actual run in with a muggle. But we've sure seen some interesting people while out caching, one time we had to use considerable stealth at a roadside cache site where the was a man just up the road sitting in his car alone eating fried chicken. Brad said maybe he was hiding his "problem" from his family. I don't know maybe he was on a stake out, it was just odd for him to be there alone on a deserted street with nothing around!

[JohnMac56]

Yesterday me and Johnslady56 were out grabbing a couple of caches after lunch. We decided to go for one in a small park in a residential neighborhood that has some short trails leading off into the brush. We had just found the cache and opened it. Sitting right on top of everything in the container was a lifelike rubber snake. I had the snake in my hand as she was filling in the log when a man and his dog came down the trail. We didn't have time to hide the container before he would see it so we just looked at him and smiled. He looked at us (as his dog started barking) and asked, "Did you just find that?". I, thinking he was a fellow geocacher and that he meant the cache replied, "Yes we did". He then asked, "Is that a gopher snake?". I started laughing and told him that it was a fake snake, and he went on his way apparently unfazed by the open cache container on the ground.

[+StumpWater]

Looks like two stories, but is really one:

 

"The Tiny Park" (GC13JEY)

January 15 by StumpWater (117 found)

 

Got it, and stealthily no less! Somewhat complicated, though. Here's the story:

 

Had accidentally left my GPSr at home prior to coming to DC on a business trip. Oh, no! OK, OK, regroup and strategize. Hmmm. Let's try the antithesis of paperless caching. Get the cache coordinates, use Google Earth a bit, be sure to look at hints prior to heading out the door, and ... draw a DC Cache Map on hotel stationery, naturally!

 

Found this, the first cache, fairly easily. Did a quick removal and walkaway to sign the log (a safety first procedure in these cases), turned around to do the re-placement and ... oh, no again! A big ol' flesh and blood Muggle standing right where I needed to be to re-place the cache! OK, OK, regroup again. Wait. Wait some more. Man, he was planted on that spot. So, decided to go to the next cache ("Illumination" GC17JQH, nearby) with the cache in my pocket. The cache owner had strongly and wisely cautioned on a stealthy replacement, so I rationalized that I was pretty much following instructions. Not ideal, no, felt bad ... but was really all I could do given that darkness was fast approaching and the Muggle showed no signs of moving.

 

After another adventure at “Illumination” (see log there), was able to return to the spot and stealthily replace the cache just as darkness was falling.

 

Boy it was cold and windy today! TFTC and adventure.

 

StumpWater

 

"Illumination" (GC17JQH)

January 15 by StumpWater (117 found)

OK, had just found “Tiny Park” (see log there, GC13JEY) and arrived at GZ with that cache in my pocket. Yes, “in my pocket” ... you read that right ... and it does sound bad, but you need to read that log to understand why.

 

So, I happily made a quick find of "Illumination", did the normal walkaway to sign the log, turned around to come back for the replacement, and there's another Muggle standing right where I needed to be! Unbelievable, twice in a row. Feeling pretty snake-bit at this point. So I watch and I wait and I watch and I wait some more. No movement from Mr. Muggle.

 

With regret, I make the decision to keep the cache with me and have a cup of coffee at an establishment from which I could view the cache spot and make a replacement as quickly as possible. There I am, sitting in the establishment drinking coffee with two caches in my jacket pocket! Unreal. I pull the caches out, read the logs, and enjoy seeing a lot of names that I’ve never seen before. I reflect a bit on my own hides which are mostly, though not entirely, swamp and forest micros. None of these issues of stealthy replacement there (unless being seen by snakes or deer matters).

 

At any rate, Mr Muggle does leave after about 10 minutes and I dash back to the spot and make a stealthy re-placement. Following that, I hustle back to “Tiny Park” through the cold wind. No Muggle there and a quick and stealthy re-placement is made with ease.

 

Quite a day. 2-for-2 on urban micros with no GPSr. Muggles are bothersome. TFTC.

 

StumpWater

Edited February 20, 2008 by StumpWater

[cowcreekgeeks]

I went after a cache near where I work, and after signing the log and returning to the trail, a muggle came up behind me and asked me if I had hid it. I said no, but I know who had. Turns out, this guy was up in a tree stand hunting deer when the cache owner was placing the cache! I called the CO shortly afterwords, and he was a bit freaked that the 20 minutes he was there hiding the cache and getting GPS readings, he never noticed the hunter.

 

Very much like deer, geocachers seldom look up.

[+PlantAKiss]

Last week my husband and I had to wait for a man to stop peeing on a tree where our cache was to be found before we could go in and get it. He missed it by a foot or two at best!

 

Oh mi god. You know...if you take the "k" out of the OP's name...then I think you'd have a good sign for that cache...

 

Speaking of looking up.... My third cache hunt was at the bottom of a steeeep hill in a small wooded park. I was getting a lot of bounce and having a hard time finding it. I was determined I was not leaving until I found it. I happened to glance up the hill and saw a man at the top watching me. It totally unnerved me. I was alone in an empty, isolated park. I decided dammit I'm NOT leaving! I kept a furtive eye on the guy and continued hunting. I felt like a mouse under the hungry eye of a hawk. I must have looked crazy to this guy walking, stopping, turning around, bending over, walking, stopping, poking, prodding... At last I was thrilled to find the cache. The man was still there. I decided there was nothing else to do but head back up and meet my observer face to face. Deep breath, long haul up steep hill. I decided to tell him what I was doing since I couldn't think of anything else very believable. He listened politely and then walked with me back to my car. He turned out to be very nice and an "informal" park caretaker. Here I was worried about him and he probably thought I was some nutcase loose in "his" park.

[+Deliveryguy428]

All I will say is I have a friend and fellow geocacher who once asked another guy in the park who he thought was a geocacher "Are You Looking For What I am Looking For"...you can imagine the rest....

[+sseegars]

Don't forget talking to the ladies at the Winnsboro Wal-Mart while we were looking for Ann!

 

So, me and Geoholic28 were looking for a wally world cache and it states plainly on the cache page to come in and meet the owner. We looked all over for her (Ann) when we finally asked some of her coworkers if she was working that day.

 

Me: Is Ann working today?

 

Employee: Ann (Last Name) or Ann (Last Name)?

 

Me: I don't know her personally, we know her from the internet.

 

Employee: Starts to laugh......

 

And you get the general idea.....

Edited February 21, 2008 by DoctorWho

[+Deliveryguy428]

And I quote from the fellow geocacher I was with who said this

Oh we don't know her in person, just from the internet

[+gelfling6]

I usually go the Honest route.. If Someone asks me what I'm doing, I'll ask them if they've ever heard of Geocaching, and explain it if they don't.

 

I've encountered one woman shortly before they made the changes requiring caches to be registered at White Memorial Forrest. She wasn't familiar with Geocaching, but with Letterboxing, so she understood some of the game.

 

I've also run into a few Letterboxers when solving one multi-cache. While I was searching the next clue, they were trying to find the letterbox.

 

There's always the encounters with other cachers.. Again, always best to be honest. We don't want to become another case of the guy putting a magnetic cache on a sign, claiming it to be a traffic counter. (and getting the bomb squad going after it.)

[+ollave]

What's your 1 best muggle story?

Some muggles are (repeatedly) crazy. This is a terrain '3' cache, and I stopped to rest twice on the way up, it is so steep: Pied Piper logs and the photograph, although when I saw him it was a boiling hot summer day.