The Pervasiveness of Muggles Mystery Cache

The Pervasiveness of Muggles

This is a puzzle cache.  It is not at the listed coordinates.  To obtain the cache coordinates, please solve the following puzzle.  Everything needed to solve the puzzle is on the cache page.  Nothing is hidden and no outside references are required.  If you need a clue to get started, don't hesitate to ask!

Update:  Added some progressive hints for the puzzle.  Start with the first line and add more if needed.  Decode (ROT13) at a site such as this one.

Fcryyrq ahzoref fhpu nf 'Bar'

Rnpu ahzore cebivqrf bar yrggre

Gur svefg 'Bar' cebivqrf 'u'

Pbhag sbejneq gung ahzore bs jbeqf

Jngpu sbe gjb ahzore jbeqf bs n qvssrerag glcr

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One helpful thing my geocaching experiences have taught me is the universal law that applies to all caching.  I think of it as "The Pervasiveness of Muggles Law".  It goes something like this:  If you are geocaching in the remotest of areas and there is only a single person within ten miles in any direction at all, that person will undoubtedly be sitting on the exact log under which you wish to begin your search for a cache.  And they will NOT be there in search of the cache.

On several occasions, I have been on long hikes on empty trails only to find a muggle having lunch a few feet away from where my GPS wants me to go.  No viewpoint.  No picnic table.  No particular reason at all for them to be sitting right THERE.  But there they sit.  No problem, I'll get it on the way back, I think.  Well, the muggle is still sitting in the exact spot an hour later!

This applies to rural and urban areas as well as wilderness, but on a smaller scale.  There are only a dozen or so people in the entire huge park, but a whole group of them are sitting at the very table where I need to check on a cache of mine, even though the table is in the most unlikely corner of the park.

I recently pursued a cache in a gigantic event center parking lot on a quiet Sunday morning.  There were countless light poles of the skirted variety and not a car or person in sight.  Should be a piece of cake, right?  Darn...I missed seeing that - a car parked not four feet away from a pole the cache had to be hidden at.  With a muggle sitting inside.  Just sitting there.  Obviously not a cacher, either.  The ENTIRE enormous parking lot empty and he sits right there next to the cache for an astounding length of time.

Most prolific geocachers will experience this muggle muddle occasionally during their careers.  In my case, it originally happened at a cache near a truck stop in Reno.  Appropriately titled, "Ten Four Back Door (the Ultimate Truckers' Tribute to the Mighty White Knight)", the cache was obviously hidden under a picnic table amongst some trees.  I approached the table prepared to poke around underneath it for something magnetic, but stopped when I noticed a muggle hanging around on the other side.  Another waiting game.  How much time do we spend attempting to outwait muggles?  Well, this guy was not going away, and even though he seemed to be watching me, I nonchalantly began reaching under the table.  That brought him right over.  "Geocaching are you?" 

I confirmed this, and he introduced himself as a cacher from Houston. Thus we both discovered that our fifteen minutes of waiting for the other guy to leave was wasted time, but also good for a laugh, which we gladly shared before locating the cache.

And of course it happens the other way around.  What we assume is a geocacher is actually a muggle.  I was geocaching deep in the Chuckanut Mountains of northwest Washington many miles into a very remote trail.  I had seen not a soul until my GPS gave a proximity beep about twenty feet away from the cache site.  Aha!  There's a guy poking around amongst the bushes right at that location. 

"Greetings!  Any luck?" I asked, thinking how extraordinary it was to encounter another cacher here. 

"You betcha!" he replied.  "I've found thirteen so far!" 

"Wow!  Are they throwdowns?" 

"Well, no.  Chanterelles!"  And, he proudly showed off his basket full of mushrooms!

Muggles can be the source of great humiliation for us, perhaps the ultimate of which is the geocacher with years of experience who has spent a ridiculous amount of time searching in the rocks and bushes for a cache.  A muggle walks up and asks what she is doing.  The cacher explains the whole concept.  The muggle looks down and picks up the cache.  "Is this it?"

The Massive Medical Muggle Muddle Up:  Our geocacher, SillySearcher, enters a huge conference center to attend a geocaching event.  Excited and a bit distracted, she walks into the wrong conference room where a huge annual seminar of the country's top cardiovascular surgeons is in session.  The head of the surgery department at Harborview Medical Center is just wrapping up a thirty minute presentation far beyond the comprehension of laymen...

"Thus the interaction of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors and paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia revascularizing transcatheter aortic valve implementation is incidental to any one chorioallantoic occlusion of commissurotomy pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconoid degeneration proximal to the superior vena commissurotomy."

Just then SillySearcher walks in and catches just the speaker's final words...

"Colleagues, we MUST solve the puzzle of the Central Arterial Bypass!"

Hearing this, our geocacher's excitement is amplified many times over and she rushes up to the podium waving excitedly and addresses the massive gathering of surgeons in attendance.

"Ooh!  Ooh!  Guys, I solved that puzzle a loooong time ago!  It's in this cute little plastic bunny just off the freeway bypass behind McDonald's!"

Then there is the ex-muggle, freshly introduced to the sport and still learning the ropes.  A cache of mine was logged by a cacher with just two finds in all.  The newbie's log:

"I found it!!  It's right here on my kitchen table with the other two!"

Further, every new cacher must deal with puzzles that are usually "not at the posted coordinates" which is exactly where a beginner is likely to search.  A puzzle cache dealing with various world currencies had posted coordinates, appropriately, at a bank.  The hapless newbie cacher arrives and his device clearly indicates the destination is eighteen feet inside the front entrance, so in he goes and not seeing anything obvious, decides to ask the teller.

Cacher:  Hi!  Um, where is the cache?

Teller:  Well, do you have an account?

Cacher:  (Thinking the teller needed his caching account name) Yes: GimmeTheCache.

Although confused by the teller's panicky response, the cacher was very excited about finding his introductory puzzle cache, in particular the swag...four grand in cash!  Yes!

As cachers, we frequently have the need to explain geocaching to curious bystanders.  A while back, I trotted out my usual explanation to a muggle, being careful to call it a "sport" rather than a "game" and definitely not using terms such as "treasure hunt", preserving at least a bit of dignity as I crawled out from under the bushes, covered with leaves and dirt.  I'm sure he thought I was six kinds of crazy! 

"Hi," I obligingly greeted him, holding out my Garmin for inspection.  "It's a sport that uses satellites to locate hidden containers."

The muggle, seeming a bit bewildered, looked around the area.  "Okaaaay.  But where's the satellite, dude?"

Occasionally, our strange behavior can be alarming to muggles, and many of us have had encounters with police officers, the vast majority of which are benign, fortunately.  Perhaps my all-time favorite muggle encounter was reported by lesdubois who was visiting the Oregon Coast from Salt Lake City.  Short on time, his goal was to find all of my Oregon caches in a big all-day, all-night expedition, a somewhat conceivable goal back then when there were fewer of them, but still a formidable challenge.  His arrival at the Astoria Riverwalk was late at night, after a day full of hiking in mud and sustaining a few injuries.  He describes his trepidation about walking in what would appear to anybody unfamiliar with the area to be potentially dangerous after dark.  His log, paraphrased here, is a classic:

I'm afraid we can also appear disgusting to muggles.  For example, I was pursuing a cache in Park City, Utah, on a frigidly cold winter evening.  The cache was outside a proctologist's clinic and was obviously hidden on a large bronze moose statue just outside the entrance.  The listing invites the finder to don a rubber glove and play doctor.  Well, there I was, closely examining the area of the moose's anatomy suggested by the listing when a muggle came by and gave me a disgusted look, adding, "Hey, you are just sick, dude!"  I still think that encounter should have been worth more than one point!

A helpful muggle offered me some advice while searching for a cache in the bushes just outside a Seven Eleven store.  He obviously was not onto geocaching, which I briefly reviewed, adding that I was searching for a small Tupperware box.  He offered me a "duh!" sort of look and asked if it wouldn't be a lot easier to just go inside and buy one.  That was just about what I was ready to do after a very prolonged and futile search.

Wrapping up with a return to the Pervasiveness of Muggles theme, it's incredible to me how much time folks spend just sitting in cars.  I wasn't aware of this until becoming a geocacher.  Now, I see it over and over.  It's a hot day and a crowded parking lot outside a restaurant.  All the parked cars are empty EXCEPT for the car eight feet from the planter where the cache likely awaits.  Okay, he's probably just waiting for a friend to come out.  I'll stop by later and grab the cache.  Returning two hours after was all for naught.  The same guy is sitting in the same hot car next to the same cache calling out for me to find it.  Darn!

So, the next time you get caught poking about the nether regions of a bronze moose statue on a minus-twenty degree evening, just tell that muggle Seawind sent you!

Enjoy the hike - it's a good one!  If you see a guy skulking about in the Salal with two wild animals on a leash, they aren't muggles!

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