Iowa Tom: [brown][b] It is with great sadness that I am giving up on this magnum opus of a geocache. I put a good 35 hours or more into the first version. Took it home and repaired some roof damage - done by a geocacher - then placed it back better and stronger than ever. That added another 5+ hours of work.
I suppose I should write a story about it, explaining how it worked with images. It's in someone else's hands now. I hope they enjoy it. Man at least they could trade me 100 bucks for it.
When I saw that Squeamish couldn't find it I supposed that it really was gone after all. I read his post tonight, grabbed my coat and a flashlight and took off. The park closes at 11 PM. It was just after 10 PM. I found the tree by memory right away. The place where it had been was detectable. Trust me, it did not take off on its own.
I have had another cache disappear in a Greenbelt area where I think someone hunts deer. In fact it was the first cache, its replacement then another replacement! The second two were a lot of work to make. That spot is too hot for me. Never been back.
An ammo box [[[with a bible inside]]] took off once. I think that was a deer hunter too. Then another birdhouse - gone. Deer hunter I'm sure. Probably the same dude.
I suspect the person who took the Collaboration had found it already. Reason being, he would have had to have known exactly what to bring to remove it.
This will go down in my history as one of two of my magnum opuses to vanish. The other one I spent a couple years designing and making. It was what I called my ray-gun. It was a complex rig I used to photograph bugs. It walked off after I showed it to a class I was teaching at Kaplan University. I'll never get over that.