I must have Picked the Wrong Day!

[Sivartius]

Ok, so you old-timers probably have dozens of stories like this, but I had a really weird attempt to find this week.

 

The cache is located on a back road on top of table mountain here. There used to be a booming gold town there, but now... nothing, but a few houses here and there, and this beautiful covered bridge.

It's only about 2 and a half miles from my house, but most people in Butte County probably don't have an idea this place exists. I came last summer when the stream was completely dry, and couldn't find it. Aside from the few people who live on this gravel road, and a couple tiny ones that branch off of it, it probably sees less than 1 dozen cars a week, quite possibly less.

 

I came back to see if I could find this one, now that I've had a little more experience. No such luck. This time my Mom and I were both there. We looked on the left close Bank and in the big rocks on that side, we looked on the bridge itself, we looked on the left far bank. I looked underneath on the far bank, and we looked on the right far bank.

 

After about 20 min, a car pulled up with a newly married couple still wearing the wedding clothes to take pictures. Then the photographer showed up.

While they were trying to take pictures, (oh, I forgot to mention they had to very young boys,) a UPS van showed up, and they had to get out of the road.

Then, more family showed up. They went back to taking pictures. After they were done, we congratulated them, and they went to lunch.

 

We went back to to searching, but not five minutes had gone by when another member of there party came by looking for them. When they had left, we went back to searching. Another 5 minutes and someone else came through, but they just drove through and kept going. We searched all the already mentioned places again. I searched under the bridge on the near bank. I did not find the cache, but I found a bong and lighter on the cement ledge. We searched on the right near side. We searched along the left near bank and in the rocks again. I don't have a clue.

 

I was looking at the logs, it looks like the last person to find it was back in March. They also mentioned that this "regular" size cache was now a film canister size now. Between then and now there are only six logs, including mine. All are DNFs, except one "Needs Maintenance" from November. I guess I should have read through before hand. The cache owner now lives in New York, and his Mom apparently does the maintenance, or at least, she replaced the container sometime prior to last year when the previous container gave out. Anyway, it was frustrating, but also kind of funny, too. That's probably the busiest day that place has had all year. If that cache is deactivated, I'll place MY first cache there. It's too nice a spot not to have a cache.

Edited January 6, 2013 by Sivartius

[+Need me glasses]

That is a great story! thanks for sharing.

As soon as I saw that picture the bridge looked familiar, has it been in a film do you know? for some reason Erin Brocovitch is in my mind, dont know why though.

[+L0ne.R]

Great story. Nice location. The owner hasn't been on the geocaching site since 2009. Looks like the cache listing and cache have been abandoned. Too bad. Nice bridge.

[+NanCycle]

Seems like it might be appropriate for you to post a Needs Archived. Then place your own cache there when the spot becomes available.