Beads on a Green Necklace aka Take Off Your Shoes
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(other)
Related Web Page
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
Cache is not far from the sign proclaiming this Baxter Creek section one of the "Beads on a Green Necklace". Size is larger than nano and smaller than micro; something like a mini-micro.
Big chain store across the street has 'will work' muggles most of the day facing your direction and others close by in this park. STEALTH is critical to keeping this cache alive! Please re-hide EXACTLY as you found it so it's not visible to passers-by.
This is the end of the Ohlone Greenway Trail, and just across busy San Pablo Avenue is the beginning of the Richmond Greenway Trail. You can continue there for another caching trail.
This cache is for the more adventuresome, not in the typical 'scramble up the hill' kind of way, but more in the ... how to explain it. Do you have time for a short tale?
Near GZ I sat down to settle the GPSr and to turn on the camera GPS feature. It was maybe 4 in the afternoon, bright, sunny, a decent East Bay day. While sitting there, a large, “seasoned-looking” muggle with half-vacant eyes approached out of nowhere and said something unintelligible, as folks sometimes do. I said, “No thanks; not now,” and went back to my putzing. But he stood still and repeated it, this time silently insisting on eye contact. And I still did not understand. So he said, not louder but more clearly, “Take off your shoes.” I said, “What?” He repeated, again not loudly, “Take off your shoes.” To which, dull or thick maybe, I replied, “Why do you want me to take off my shoes?” He only looked at me with a 'king of the cell block' expression that was supposed to mean something, but didn’t, then repeated, matter-of-factly, “Take off your shoes.” So I said, “I don’t understand why you want me to take off my shoes. Did somebody steal your socks and you want to find out if it was me?” At this, he glanced over his shoulder up the street, apparently to see if anyone was watching, and in response I instinctively set out a defensive posture, maintaining eye contact while slightly shifting my body weight and tightening the grip on the camera rope. Then he just walked away, stopping twice to look back over his shoulder, and as I watched him walk away.
I still have my shoes, GPSr, and camera. I’m only telling you this so you thoroughly understand there might be some “serious” or disturbed individuals in this area who may indeed instruct you to “take off your shoes”. And this potential danger factor and the other muggle factor explains why the difficulty level is 2.5 on what would ordinarily be a level 1.5 cache. It is probably best to seek this in the daytime, but you are your own best judge, and your city experience is your own best guide.
Chances are good nothing at all unusual will happen, as my experience was one event in four or five visits. But if it does, please, share your experiences. If you do not understand the above, you probably should not go after this cache.
Most of the time, this would not be considered a 'dangerous area', but, in light of the shoes encounter, this attribute is signified.
Have fun, but be aware.
Note - You must SIGN the log! If you do not sign the log, you have NOT found it and your log will be deleted. BYOP.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Fvg sbe n ovg. Fcbvyre: fxpbe rteny bjg arrjgro