As I drove this road to find geocaches, I came to the posted coordinates and my heart stopped for a second!
Back in 1976, on my 18th birthday, I was home from college for the weekend when my old high school friends came by to celebrate. It was dark, around eleven p.m., when we piled into a car and drove out to the posted coordinates. My friends popped open the car trunk, and there –in honor of me—was a case full of assorted alcohol and a cooler full of beer.
But before we could partake of the liquid refreshments, we saw a bright set of headlights that pulled behind our vehicle. It was a sheriff’s patrol with two deputies.
We hadn’t imbibed any of the contraband yet, so none of us were drunk, but we weren’t of legal age to drink. As the deputies searched the vehicle, I kept thinking: I’m an adult today and I’m going to adult jail.
The deputies found the unopened alcohol in the trunk. They gave the driver a field sobriety test, but he was sober. Instead of arresting all of us, they made us pour the liquor out onto the dirt gravel and then told us to go home.
My one brush with the law is still a sobering memory that scared me straight!
But the times and tolerance for teen stupidity have changed since then. When this happens now, teens face a severe penalty, such as the loss of their provisional license -- just for alcohol posession. So beware!
As a warning and a public service to others, here’s a short test about drinking, teen activities and driving. Answer the questions correctly to find the coordinates to the cache location as follows:
N 37° AB.CDE
W122° FG.HIJ
(All questions are based on California law. In other states, you will never find the cache.)
Q1: Teens with provisional driver’s licenses are restricted from driving between the hours of 11 p.m. and “A” a.m..
Q2: In California, it is unlawful for anyone to drive a vehicle with a blood alcohol level of 0.0B or greater.
Q3: The Cal. Vehicle Code section that bans the possession of alcohol in a car by persons under the age of 21 is: CVC Section 2322C.
Q4: Sale of alcohol to minors under the age of 21 is prohibited by Cal. B&P Code Section 2565D.
Q5: Car and bicycle drivers cannot wear iPod or music player earphones in both ears while driving. The law prohibiting this is Cal. Vehicle Code section: QRSTU. Q+R= E
Q6: Persons under the age of 21 cannot drive with a blood alcohol level of 0.0F or above.
Q7: New teen drivers cannot carry passengers under the age of 20 for a period of XY months. G=X+Y
Q8: All California drivers will be banned from using hands-on cellphones while driving on July 1, 200H.
Q9: Speed contests on a public roadway are prohibited under California Vehicle Code section 2310I.
Q10: The legal age to sign up for the military is RS. J= R+S.
(And signing me up for the military is what my father threatened to do to me when he heard about what happened.)
NOTE: If you hate solving puzzle caches, or hate reading soppy personal stories in cache descriptions or believe that geocaching while intoxicated sounds like a lot of fun, you may brute force search this cache by using the hint below.