For years, people have complimented me and criticized me for racing out for FTF's. My first FTF was after I had been caching for two and a half years and had found over two hundred caches. It was called my Park Cache, Your Park Cache. I only had a little yellow Garmin e-trex, no alerts and no smart phone. In reviewing some of the caches I have found, I got a kick out of some of the logs. "I should have beaten L, and I would have if I didn't finish breakfast first." "LCSM should give other people a three hour head start, it's not fair that they grab all the FTF's." Some of my logs were just bad. "I saw Gloria's tire tracks when I pulled in." Some of the caches brought back memories. Sled Hill was my 43rd first to find. I had messaged EarthSciSD before it published and said something about a new cache in that park. He couldn't understand how I knew, but he had listed one of my tb's in the cache! I couldn't see the coords, but I probably could have followed his footsteps in the snow! My 52nd FTF was a cache by bullseye1 called White Birch Tree Cache. It appears that I beat a few people to it on a rainy day. I got 2 FTF's that day. Another favorite was on the day I found my 75th FTF. It was called Let me Stickley it to You. Hubbye and I each got a couple of FTF's that morning, and then we met to go for the tunnel crawl. Another time, he and I teamed up to find Mike's Falls. It was FTF number 369, and it was an awesome hike and hide. I highly recommend finding it. In September 2014, C and I got three different FTF's in Canada. This year, we got one on a virtual in Russia. Those were all very exciting.
Over the years I have had plenty of competition. Tundra Wolf will tell you on each cache which impressive number he is up to. Prairie Rose, 8bitlion and Captain Scarecrow have been known to race around Ithaca at all hours of the night. When I first started, Hubbye was tough competition. So was the Elm Hill Action Squad. Team Position Police had members in the north and again in the south. MAGoering and wymfatr were especially pleased the first time they beat me to a cache in my neck of the woods. Jenno3, ForeverWildBeerClub and Joey & Tori all seemed to like heading out at night. Cybrhntr and Dslater have joined the fray now too. You never know whether or not you will be victorious when you head out to search, but sometimes the excursion with friends or the party when you meet other cachers at the GZ is the best part of the hunt.
Now get out there and find this one!
