UMR Stonehenge Benchmark Geocoin

Woohoo! We got the FTF! We saw this notice go out while we were still at work, so we figured that it would have been found by the time we got home. When ClickChik got home from class, and we had finished dinner, we were quite surprised to see that no one had logged this cache yet, so we decided to go look for it. As we parked at the shopping center across the road, I saw a police car head past. We crossed the road and got to the right general area quickly. My Magellan kept pushing me back to a more exposed location, and I figured that it really couldn't be here, and had to be "on the other side". I kept searching, and noticed a police car cross a couple more times (or a couple of police cars passing once). Since it was late and no one else was really around, I got brave and took a more bold searching approach. It paid-off and I located the cache, although I think that ClickChik would have found it since she was also searching in the right area, she just hadn't located it yet. We pulled the log out and while shivering, we were quite surprised to find that no one else had signed the log yet, so we got the FTF! As we replaced the cache container, I could see the reflection of police lights off nearby store front windows. Before we got back to our car, we saw at least one more police car pass. We managed to get this one and not draw enough attention from the police, so we got out without any great fuss. Now it's time to get some sleep, but I am a bit concerned. Where was Mr Charlie? and bluesquirtles? They were also challenging us for the FTF at Beetle Bailey, so I was surprised to not see their signatures on the log when we finally got there. I do hope it was anything serious keeping them away...

Well, When we left GWS TRAIL #3, we had to decide where next. When we got to the fork in the path, we chose #2 over #5, even though we also realized that it was about 20 minutes to sunset (we forgot about sunset coming at 4:40 PM since the time change). In our typical style, we appear to have found the path with the most bushwhacking, but we did find the cache right where it was supposed to be. We even found our way back to the trail with little visible impact to the plants, other than the large collection of burrs we had hanging from our clothes.

On our walk back to our car (we decided that we didn't have enough time to try to find #5), we heard a noise in the tall grass and ClickChik made a comment about "they sure make a lot of noise in this grass" thinking it was a squirrel. When we saw what was making the noise, I jokingly said "Yeah, but I won't argue with it." I wasn't able to get a clear look, but that buck had at least 8 points on his antlers.

By the time we got back to our car, it was getting pretty dark, and it was just about half an hour after sunset, but we had no signs of a forest preserve ranger, so we didn't have to worry about tickets or fines. We probably could have tried for #5, if we could have seen anything there. 🙂

Well, since the last log book said it was for "GWS TRAIL #3" and it was the next cache in the sequence for us, off we went to find that cache (for real). We got to the area and our GPSr's (both of them) wanted us to go off on the wrong side of the trail. I took a walk a little further down the trial and returned. Once I got back, I could tell by the track on the GPSr that we were looking on the wrong side of the trail (and ClickChik realized this at the same time). Once we started looking in the right area, she found it right away. TNLNSL. TFTC!

ClickChik was on her way home from a CPE Agility trial when she called to ask if we had time to go caching before I had to leave for bowling league. We decided that we would try to get the GWS TRAIL series of caches. When we arrived at the forest preserve, it looked like every muggle in the area was walking their dogs on the paths today (and few of them seemed to be picking up after their dogs too 😟). We found this first cache fairly easily, but I did get a little confused when the log book said it was for GWS TRAIL #4 (not GWS TRAIL #3). We actually managed to log the cache with little attention from the muggles and were off on our way to the real "GWS TRAIL #3".

It was dark, it was getting on time for dinner, it was cold, and ClickChik decided that she wanted to try to go get an FTF on a new cache that came up in Grayslake. We printed out the cache sheet (since my Palm was still acting up) and headed out for the hunt. After we had been there 4-5 minutes, another car pulled in. It was dwasifar and knabino announcing themselves as "Grayslake Police". Even with their help it took several more minutes of chatting and looking before knabino finally found the cache "hidden in plain sight". After siging the log, we all went to Hillside where dwasifar bought a round of hot chocolate for the 4 of us. The conversation and cocoa warmed us right up.