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Has Anyone Gotten Into Trouble While Geocaching?


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I've known about Geocaching for a while but have gotten into it within the last few months and have already gotten questioned by police and tripped into barbed wire. I'm sure it has been discussed on here before but does anyone have any good stories, maybe tips on how to avoid trouble?

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If an officer approaches you the best thing to do is be honest and up front. They will know if you are lying and as long as you are not doing anything illegal (and you should not be) then you have nothing to fear. I've been approached 5 or 6 times and a couple of times the cop didn't know about caching but they figured as long as I wasn't out selling dope that I was fine.

 

I've been lucky in the fact that I've never been injured while caching but my dog got a little cut up about 2 weeks ago. We were deep in the woods and I think she might have kicked up a rabbit and chased it around a bit. I noticed later that evening that she had pretty decent cuts on both of her front lets as well as several healthy scratches on her belly. So she had to take it easy for a few days until she healed up.

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For police, be honest, and don't make any sudden moves. I have yet to run into an officer who didn't have at least some understanding of geocaching, even when I had to explain it in my terrible German to the Polizei officers who drove up.

 

I've been evasive, or just deliberately obtuse, around ordinary muggles -- him: "Can I help you?" me, smiling: "No." him: puzzled look and drove away -- but being evasive or lying to police is never a good idea.

 

For barbed wire, keep an eye out, clean your cuts, and keep your tetanus shots up to date. And don't whizz on the electric fence. :anibad:

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I've only been approached by the police once since I started Geocaching at the end of March, and that was when I was placing a Geocache in a small park about 400' from my house. It's a waterproof matchstick container that I was placing in a tree within the park, and an Erie County Sheriff drove by, turned around and pulled into the parking lot, and came up to question what I was doing to the tree. I politely and honestly explained what I was doing, allowed him to investigate the contents of the container, explained that I had received permission from the town hall to place it there, and then proceeded to have a conversation with him about what Geocaching is. He asked me to write down the URL of the website that he could go to for more information, and the next time that I saw him while going to the post office, he told me that he had since started Geocaching! :)

 

As far as scrapes, cuts, bruises, etc. are concerned, I've had my fair share since I started out, but I think that's to be expected, as it goes with the territory. The worst that I've sustained so far was a fall while climbing a ridge in a creek to reach a cache that was placed about 10' up the ridge. My feet had slipped out, sending me sliding down towards a rather deep puddle of water in the creek, and in an effort to grab onto something, I badly skinned three of my knuckles, broke and bent back two of my fingernails, and cut my knee open. I also sliced the bottom of my foot open pretty good while crossing the creek in Zoar Valley when I went there for an extreme hike with some of my Geo Crew. Other than that, it's just been minor scratches, bruises, cases of sunburn, etc. Here's to hoping it stays that way!

Cheers.gif

Edited by xShadow Shockx
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Happens a lot.... people getting into trouble.

 

Things like geocaches being blown up by the bomb squad (most times in these circumstances, somebody has to pay).

Not too long ago, somebody went to jail for driving and getting stuck in a football (soccer - lacrosse ???) field. Is a forum thread about it.

 

Then.... there are always the few, when confronted by police, just seem to say something demanding they be jailed, the reason is immaterial.... it happens. They usually do it by the numbers: Open mouth, insert foot, twist!

 

More things that I forget about too, but that's just as well..........

Edited by Gitchee-Gummee
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Been questioned once by the cops-he asked what I was doing, I said geocaching, and he told me good luck. Now I've had 2 cachers finding one of mine BOTH get stopped by the police, within 30 minutes at the same cache, no trouble then. As for injuries, I've learned not to wear work clothes out geocaching, lost some blood and a couple pairs of pants that's about it for me.

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I've had police officers, rangers, and local security question me, but all very reasonable. I try to keep myself out of sticky situations. There is one CO that tends to place caches in questionable locations so I avoid them. :laughing:

 

Bumps, scrapes, pickers, head bumps. Knock on wood - nothing major so far. On the bright side, I've gotten really non-challant about reaching into dark, icky places. Last week I didn't snap a pic first (my method to scope out dark places) and pulled out 5-15" snakes!

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Hurt twice, once pulled a muscle on the back of my calf (learned quick how not to walk up a hill)and sprain/hairline fracture on my ankle. Both times I continued caching.

Detained by police, not really, only to explain geocaching, confirmed our caches were not pipe bombs or having an officer wanting me to sign them on the log. (never found that cache)

Edited by jellis
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I had suspected blood poisoning a few weeks ago after visiting the old location of this cache: http://coord.info/GC3EJ6V I thought my leg was going to fall off! The consultant at the Emergency unit gave me a double-dose of antibiotics, some antihistamines and a steroid!

 

One chap logged that he broke his leg on the way back to his car after visiting one of my caches: http://coord.info/GC2EAFT.

 

Not long after I started caching, I was rummaging in a bush a few yards from a cycling path and a group of girls ran past, eyeing me suspiciously. I felt like some sort of lurking pervert. About 10 minutes later, I was still rummaging and who should run past me? The same bunch of girls. I felt sure I was in trouble and disappeared briskly!

 

I've never been approached by the police, but I believe they have an awareness of the activity. I live in Northern Ireland and I've often pondered the wisdom of hiding / seeking "suspect packages," particularly in urban areas! This cacher caused someone's cache to be blown up by the bomb squad in Yorkshire.and got an official police caution. It wasn't the cleverest cache location: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14042170. Not a good advert for Geocaching.

 

It is very entertaining when hoking about in the undergrowth and someone walks up and shouts "Have you found it yet!?!" That's happened to me several times this month; other cachers walking by who've already found it, or who are about to start the hunt.

 

I've often wondered if we should have some kind of ID, but if it was just something we printed ourselves then anyone who wanted to act suspiciously in bushes could just print one, so it wouldn't really work.

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I know someone who was detained by the FBI for several hours. He was dropping of a travel bug at his girl friend's cache in Bristol, RI, the same day as their annual 4th of July parade (longest running one in the US!). The cache wasn't too far from the route of the parade, and someone called in a suspicious person. He was allowed to go eventually, with the cache. After that, the cache was disabled a few days before through a few days after the parade.

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We made a wrong....very wrong... turn today and got stuck in some mud.....and found out we somehow ended up on private farm land. The owner was understandably upset...bordering on threatening...we felt stupid, but the worst part was the 300 dollar tow truck bill. ( the farmer wouldn't help us lol ). All in all our fault and I blush in embarrassment thinking about it...but hey....we had ourselves an adventure. And stuff happens. Coulda been much worse I suppose.

 

Didn't stop us from continuing on our caching journey though.

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We made a wrong....very wrong... turn today and got stuck in some mud.....and found out we somehow ended up on private farm land.

 

Oh, yeah. I almost forgot about the time I reversed into a field which was on a slight decline (always a mistake in a front wheel drive car) and couldn't get back out. By some fluke the farmer happened to be passing and towed me out. I was sort of upset that he didn't even ask me what I'd been doing...

 

Also, just spotted this forum thread of odd stuff that's happened to folk. http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=295296 and it reminded me of the other event at http://coord.info/GC3EJ6V (above): I was so obsessed with the thought that my leg might fall off that I forgot I was approached by two Asian youths who asked me if I was looking for drugs. I don't know if they thought I'd been rummaging for drugs (I was wearing light blue latex gloves similar to those used by paramedics) or if they were offering to sell. I didn't hang around.

Edited by BaseOverApex
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I parked off a busy road at night, and went off down a path in amongst some bushland, must have been around 10.30pm. I was after a FTF and had been there before, so I was sans GPS, etc. A car pulls up behind mine, 'ahha thinks I, more cachers to help with this elusive cache'. But no it was a police car, and they wanted to know what I was up to. So I gave them the geocaching spiel, and I asked them if they wanted to help me find the cache! "No thanks, we have better things to do, have a good night" and off they went.

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Title is somewhat inaccurate. We have been asked several times about what we were doing, enough that we added all the shoulde patches of officers we have encountered here.

 

Since we're doing nothing illegal, in all the times we have had a leo encounter, only one was a somewhat negative. We were parked in a legal parking space. I think the officer must not have realized it when he started yelling (literally) at us for being parked there. We let him work out his temper tantrum and eventually he moved on. We have even had officers on two occasions help us look.

 

Nosy neighbors, that is another story. Funny thing is, when they have hassled us, it has always been while we were in a public park. Go figure.

 

As long as you're not breaking any laws, be polite and just keep doing what you're doing.

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With in our first week of geocaching my hubby and I were stopped by the police. We were night caching in town. We explained and showed them our phones showing our path. A few weeks ago I broke my arm while geocaching. I was bike riding in a park and between caches I took a bad spill. I still got up and biked for two and half miles and found four more geocaches.

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I was at a GGA event last weekend that had plenty of natural opportunities to get scrapes, scratches, poison ivy etc. What do I do? I turn around and scrape my shin on one of the few man-made items on the trail....one of those little wooden survey markers with orange tape tied to it sticking out of the ground!

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I have been stopped by the fuzz, they asked what we were doing I replied geocaching they said oh, and drove off....I was recently stung by a wasp which sucked on a guardrail cache I moved it down a few feet and alerted the owner and made mention about doing so in the log I am sure most people would rather have a DNF then stung to death.

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GEOvloger Facebook

@GEOvloger

GEOvloger tumblr

 

Hey I have been stopped by the police on about 3 different occasions while geocaching. Two of the times it was based solely on the fact that i was geocaching at night. The third one was because i was geocaching at night AND i forgot to turn on my headlights while i creeped towards the walking spot.

 

The following video includes a story about that third time i got stopped by the police. It is a video from my geocaching channel called GEOvloger where me and myself take you on a geocaching adventure.

 

GEOvloger - YouTube Channel

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We were out the other day and took the long way to a couple of caches, including a point where the 4 year old fell down, and another point where there were thorns. No scratches... until we were walking home and I accidentally brushed by a fence and got a nice big scratch on my arm.

 

Moral of the story: walking home is more dangerous than caching!

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J&W I hope this does not go bad on here, first thing is don't be suspious, telling the truth is a must, carry a phamphet which explains what geocaching is. If an officer does stop you tell him your geocaching which is a worldwide treasure hunt game show him your GPS/phone etc explain to him the GPS is used to find hidden containers, offer to show him the pamphlet and where you have it. I know stealth is the key and one of the rules but to be honest being in law enforcement the first thing watched for is suspicious activity also chose areas without high crime rates there are lots out there so be picky take care and stay safe.

Edited by bwghost
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I had suspected blood poisoning a few weeks ago after visiting the old location of this cache: http://coord.info/GC3EJ6V I thought my leg was going to fall off! The consultant at the Emergency unit gave me a double-dose of antibiotics, some antihistamines and a steroid!

 

One chap logged that he broke his leg on the way back to his car after visiting one of my caches: http://coord.info/GC2EAFT.

 

Not long after I started caching, I was rummaging in a bush a few yards from a cycling path and a group of girls ran past, eyeing me suspiciously. I felt like some sort of lurking pervert. About 10 minutes later, I was still rummaging and who should run past me? The same bunch of girls. I felt sure I was in trouble and disappeared briskly!

 

I've never been approached by the police, but I believe they have an awareness of the activity. I live in Northern Ireland and I've often pondered the wisdom of hiding / seeking "suspect packages," particularly in urban areas! This cacher caused someone's cache to be blown up by the bomb squad in Yorkshire.and got an official police caution. It wasn't the cleverest cache location: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14042170. Not a good advert for Geocaching.

 

It is very entertaining when hoking about in the undergrowth and someone walks up and shouts "Have you found it yet!?!" That's happened to me several times this month; other cachers walking by who've already found it, or who are about to start the hunt.

 

I've often wondered if we should have some kind of ID, but if it was just something we printed ourselves then anyone who wanted to act suspiciously in bushes could just print one, so it wouldn't really work.

Interesting read!

Thought you should know that two of your links don't work because you have included the period at the end of the sentence as part of the link. You can still copy and paste them into the browser, but they don't work to just click on them.

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I've never been stopped by the cops, and the only trouble I've gotten in was with my wife for shredding the legs on a brand new pair of pants on some barbed wire. I always wear short sleeves and I use my right arm to push bushes out of the way, so I've got a few scars on it. The worst I got banged up was when I fell backwards and landed on my left side on a big rock. I think I cracked some ribs and bruised some muscles. It took three or four weeks to get over that one.

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Thought you should know that two of your links don't work because you have included the period at the end of the sentence as part of the link. You can still copy and paste them into the browser, but they don't work to just click on them.

 

Nah. I didn't include the period. I just typed the URL and the forum included the period as part of the link. Here they are again, but this time with appropriate markup:

 

One chap logged that he broke his leg on the way back to his car after visiting one of my caches: http://coord.info/GC2EAFT.

 

This cacher caused someone's cache to be blown up by the bomb squad in Yorkshire.and got an official police caution: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14042170.

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I've often wondered if we should have some kind of ID, but if it was just something we printed ourselves then anyone who wanted to act suspiciously in bushes could just print one, so it wouldn't really work.

Maybe if there were an official government registration for geocachers. But that would have to be issued by local governments, and wouldn't be available to everyone. But it would be nice if you could carry an official card that would be recognized by authorities, even if it were only confined to your state. I don't know. I'm just musing here. ^^

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Stopped by police, fell in swamp, wandered by a homeless guy in the middle of the woods and got in trouble with my wife. All this on one cache that was posted at 11:30pm and I needed to get one before the day was out. Cop knew what caching was, hosed the legs and shoes off when I got home, homeless guy didn't move, and the wife kept calling and telling me how ridiculous my obsession was. Kept my streak going though. :rolleyes:

 

On another cache, I ended up with contact dermatitis that took 12 weeks to go away. Doc had/has no idea what I got into and neither do I.

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We've been questioned by a neighbour to a nano cache in ivy - he wondered if it was a drug drop. We explained what we were doing, gave him info and he was satisfied.

On our last cache outing, a cache had been placed in a park near a neighbouring property. The owner came out, said we were on private property (we weren't) and he was concerned about the camas lilies getting trampled by "all you geocachers." In the last month, only three logs preceded ours and there was a lot of dog poop by the trampled areas. He wants the cache gone, so I made a note in my log. If there is no action by the CO, I will have to take it further.

Been watched by police at a distance - only once - so signed the log in plain view of him, and waved as we left. Another cacher?

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We passed a (homeless?) guy sleeping on a bench, with one boot off. It was a little unnerving, but he didn't even notice us, I think. Didn't help when the 4 year old asked loudly, "He IS dead?" I hadn't heard his first question so I just nodded, and then he came up with that one. Yay stealth. <_<

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A couple years ago we were going after a cache behind a restaurant about 250 feet away. As we approached the path between two retention ponds, we looked to the left and saw a Police K9 Officer with his German Shepard come out of the woods about 100 yards away. Then a Police car with lights flashing come up behind us. We explained what we were doing and he was not impressed. He just said we need to find another place far away to geocache. The Police were chasing a fugitive who was armed and dangerous in the woods we were about to enter. We made tracks out of there and haven't been back since. :o :o :o

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About a year and half ago I was in NC for a visit, at the time I lived in WV. Now I grew up in this town in NC, and was fairly familiar with the areas that were safe, as opposed to those that were not, oh how things change. In any case I thought to break the monotony up I would take my mother and daughter out caching. Went to grab a cache that was on an overpass foot bridge of a main highway. No particular problem with finding and logging the cache, it wasn't until after leaving gz and back into the car that I was pulled over by the county sheriffs dept. I figured no big deal, I've dealt with this before. In any case officer comes to window, asks for the usually, license, registration, proof of insurance. Little did I know, the area we were in had slid downhill a bit and was know a rather large area of drug distribution. Officer asked what we were doing, I replied with the standard answer of geocaching, gave a bit of info on the sport, and the officer had never heard of it, nor did he beleive such a thing existed, geez. So told to sit and wait he goes back to the patrol car, radios in license plate, name, etc. When he comes back he let me know that someone at dispatch did indeed know what geocaching was, but he still thought we were there to purchase drugs, if anyone has seen my mother you may come to this conclusion as she is all but 70 to 80 lbs. wet, lol. Having been sick for some time she appeared strung out. One thing led to another, had car searched, we were cleared, and off we went, so much for my remembering the area, needless to say daughter and mother, did not want to continue, lol. This was a first as many police cache themselves, just was a weird day.

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WrongTurnRick and I had a really weird incident while geocaching this week. We were checking out a cache at a County dog shelter that had been hidden with permission in a town that promotes geocaching with contests and festivals. It was at the end of a dead end road, and when we got there and saw that the weeds around the cache were taller than my head, we didn't even get out of the car, but decided to turn around and try it in the winter. There were two roads we could take when we got to the end of the dead end - the one we came in on, and a second one - we chose the second one. As we were driving away, we saw what looked like a law enforcement vehicle coming quickly along the other road. The vehicle left the road, drove across a grassy area, and to our surprise, cut us off and made us stop. Turned out to be an animal warden. I couldn't believe the over-the-top reaction, driving like in a scene from a TV cop show. He asked 'Can I help you with something', but not in a tone that indicated a desire to help. I was getting nervous - he was very hostile. WrongTurn started to explain that we had gone back to look for a geocache, and the guy lost it and started to yell. Wanted to know why 'you people' have to be doing stuff back by the animal shelter. We tried to explain that we hadn't even gone for the cache, and tried to ask if he'd had a problem with anyone, but he wouldn't let us finish a sentence. A bully with an ounce of authority that thought he was large and in charge. All in all, it was a shock, since the community in general is very supportive of geocaching, and the shelter was on property that seemed to be open to the public. In fact, we could have just driven back there by mistake and turned around, for all he knew. And no one had indicated any problem in previous logs, including recent ones.

 

I logged that there may be an issue with a warden, and the cache owner decided to archive the cache. To be honest, the vindictive part of me was hoping he'd contact whoever had given him permisson and report the jerk. I felt bad that the cache had to be archived, but the whole thing really shook me up. I wanted to stop caching for the day and have a good cry, but fortunately WrongTurn talked me into continuing, and we ended up having our best caching day to date. I can handle myself with bullies when the playing field is even, but when it is someone with authority, I know enough to keep my mouth shut. It makes me feel like a scared 10 year old, though. Fortunately, things like this don't seem to happen often, and WrongTurnRick is great at letting these things roll off him. Wish I were more like that. In fact, that was why I was drawn to this post - I wanted to see how others dealt with similar situations, since I feel I let it get to me too much.

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I don't avoid trouble.

 

If I did I'd probably do soft caches in safe, easy places.

 

In the past week I met a diamondback rattlesnake, I crawled up a sewer pipe for a high D/T cache (for a Fizzy square) and was out on two different hikes, coming back to my car near dark, in places far from home (infested with rabbits, no less!) Drove my car about 15 miles for a venerable old cache, the last two miles on some very dodgy road. Finally I stopped on a road for a P&G and had a sherriff's deputy pull up behind me. He didn't turn on his lights or question me, I just started up and drove away, no problem.

 

It's certainly a more interesting life, going to these places, doing these things. May we live in interesting times, eh?

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Yes I had, but it been a long time since. One time it was an airport security. :blink: I was a newbie at the time. The cache was near an airport but wasnt on their ground but across the road and it was a HARD cache. Yes, it does get airport security attention because people are going around and around the guardrail. I tend to cache only hiking caches now.

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I didn't have my unit with me, going by satellite image and knowledge of the site, and stopped a cop as he was looking me over. Told him what I was doing and point me to the cache only to find it had been muggled.

 

Ponce Inlet Tour - Lighthouse Harbor

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we kind of "seek" trouble :-)

I mean we like the harder more physical demanding caches,

but we also use equipment and protection and take good care not to over do anything (too much)

we also bring kids, and educate them about how to handle fear, or hard to do things,

and also about how to judge if you feel it is ok or not, to do something,

it is always perfectly ok to say NO, if you feel it is too hard or risky for your skill level.

so far we handeled all 81 combinations.

some of them we needed scuba equipment, others climb gear,

we spend about 10k$ on trips and equipment the last year alone.

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Last autumn, I came close to cutting myself up on some partially-buried, generations old barbed wire along an old railroad embankment. It was pretty well-hidden by the vegetation, and down I went like a rabbit in a snare. I only ended up with those white, grainy looking scrapes. If I had stepped three more inches in either direction, I'd have ended up getting stitches and a tetanus & diphtheria booster.

 

I've only been stopped by the police once, but I was caching at night in a neighborhood-albeit a rural one-where there had been a rash of break-ins (which I knew about but had literally not even thought of due to proximity to my own house and my sister's as well). Contrary to popular belief, this cop had no idea what geocaching was. Worse, he thought my caching bag was more like a break-in kit (the flashlight and gloves). I apparently talked my way out of it, and I did apologize since I had not even considered the crime wave in my area, which has since been solved.

 

I came across a cache, which I didn't find-in an old speedway / amusement park in the Seacoast New Hampshire area with a large homeless camp 250' away from the GZ. The GZ was unwittingly the camp's latrine. We beat feet when we heard the hobos shouting at us. I recommended it archived, but nothing ever happened. The cache author has it attributed as kid-friendly and 24/7. Pure genius.

 

After 500+ finds and two years, that's about it for finding trouble. Lucky I guess.

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oh now I remember a funny story

FL Orlando, near the large lake, there is a parking house a block away from the lake

there is a magnetic key holder cache placed under a box looking like it is electric stuff,

I found it, signed it, and put it back, while a dude from the parking was yelling at me,

when I put it back he was about to run over to me, so I just ran away,

he was too big and fat and slow to catch me :-)

he did not look like a type I wanted to argue with.

 

I just found the log:

http://coord.info/GL765KB3

Edited by OZ2CPU
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