+gmanhanson Posted March 17, 2004 Posted March 17, 2004 March 14, 2004A Penny Saved is a Penny Cursed... It started as a wonderfully sunny Sunday afternoon of geocaching. We had started a multi-stage cache and found part two when something went tragically wrong. Part 2 of the multi-stage cache had a jar of lucky shiny pennies under it so we took two coins thinking it was good luck, as the clue sheet suggested. Little did we know that the pennies were cursed by the cement elf who sat near by. Part three was quite a distance from the second and it "had" to be over the creek! The GPS does not lie! But it does record distance "as the crow flies", NOT as the creek BENDS! So we traversed the easy foot bridge and went to cross a drainage ditch that flowed into the creek only to find out it was full of water. Turn back? Heck no! There was a large cottonwood that had fallen, making a bridge over troubled water. We decided it was the best path. I had suspicions that I was not meant to be a high-rise steel worker when I told my high school counselor I was afraid of heights. But crossing that cottonwood tree insured I would never add that to my resume... unless high-rise steel workers can get paid shimmying across steel beams like little girls! But alas we crossed and proceeded to walk through tall weeds and marsh land to within 150 feet of where the cache should have been. As we strode on to glance over a rise, we found it! No, not the cache site but the DAMNED CREEK and directly on the other side, the cache site, in "the bend" of the creek. dadgum that GPS! Team Creepers motto is "we hunt, we find, or we never go home" so we marched on thinking that a road or a bridge lay ahead. Coming to the next bend we saw nothing but rocky rapids and more deep and wide DAMNED CREEK. We knew we were trapped. Our only choice was to take off our hiking boots and cross the rocks OR back track up hill, through the fog, over the Ho Chi Min Trail and back to the beginning. "We will make our stand and cross", I said bravely! (OK, really we shrugged our shoulders and said what the heck.) What I failed to remember on this warm Sunday is creek water is not really warm in March in Kansas and that the rocks that seem flat under the water, are sharp and REALLY slippery! A simple 40 feet took fifteen minutes to navigate. One good thing about ice cold water is that your feet go numb really quick and you can not feel REALLY sharp rocks! We made it and rock climbed up the creek bank and found the cache. WHEW! An hour later when the blood returned to my feet and all signs of frostbite had left, they actually felt good! Oh...we are not done yet... The second cache of the day (in three hours) was nearby. We followed the road to the GPS coordinates and parked by a roadside park where we thought the cache was located. The cache was from the Kansas City Geocaching Picnic from last year (03). I looked at the park and thought "wow this place sucks". I was afraid to go in that I might find a body or two. Well the GPS pointed the other direction to my joy and we went towards the rail road tracks. Just as we climbed the high, loose rocked birm a train came along and we had to back up and wait. So we waited...and waited...and waited...and then the train stopped. We decided then and there that the pennies we picked up from stage two of the last cache (The Haunted Trees) were evil and we laid them on the tracks to squeeze out the demons. Guessing the train was stopping for a while, we crawled under the train (this was not smart and I about crapped my pants in doing so) to the other side. Sliding down the embankment we went to within 120 feet of the cache and found....THAT SAME DAMNED CREEK!!!!!! We turned back cussing and cursing the geocaching Gods and found out why the first train was stopped on the higher tracks. A second train came by and we waited...and waited...and waited and did you know that the engineers MUST honk the air horns when they are right by you to scare the Bejesus out of every tissue in your body. I think it is a Department of Transportation law. Once that train passed and the second started up and left be found one penny smashed and exorcised. The other apparently disappeared into the evil void from which it was spawned. We got in the truck, now VERY low on gas and drove to the other side of the creek, found the correct park and the cache. Story over...not yet! Driving back the way we came, with practically no gas left, we had to stop and wait...and wait...and wait for ONE LAST TRAIN! And as it went, honking ever so loudly, I swear the driver grinned at me and was holding that last shiny penny... Quote
+TeamK-9 Posted March 18, 2004 Posted March 18, 2004 I sense hyperbole, but it was a good story to read nonetheless... Quote
+Team GPSaxophone Posted March 18, 2004 Posted March 18, 2004 So that's what's wrong with Sparky... Quote
+PeachyPA Posted March 18, 2004 Posted March 18, 2004 Great story! I didn't think there was a Friday the 13th in March!?! PeachyPA Quote
+QuickKarl Posted March 18, 2004 Posted March 18, 2004 great story, i think i'll leave any pennys in caches alone. Quote
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