GEOCACHING--
And the beat goes on; continuing...

Another recent geocaching adventure in the Vero Beach area involved this cache by the name of Godzilla which was being closely guarded by its own version of that very scary creature.

This outing also involved an encounter with a platoon of teen aged warriors heavily armed with toy guns looking amazingly like their real, grown-up counterparts, AR-15s.  The outing also convinced me caching via bicycle is not advised when it involves looking for hides in the jungle-like perimeters of some city parks.

My outing that day involved a run of five caches hidden fairly close to our winter digs on the south side of Vero Beach.  It was my first time out on my bicycle with only the hand-held GPS for guidance--a test of sorts.

The bike is a fine way to travel the city's streets but it is cumbersome to drag along when trying to negotiate the heavy, sub-tropical undergrowth on foot when bushwhacking your way through overgrown pathways.  Even dragging the bike far enough into the undergrowth to hide it while on the search for the sometimes very elusive caches is challenging. 

Encountering the young "warriors" was more humorous than threatening.  I had heard their noisy hi-jinx and saw a few of them scurrying through path intersections so I knew they were in the area.  The pair I encountered I had surprised with my silent bicycle from behind and alarmed them when I announced my presence.

Both whirled around.  One was happy to learn I was not an "enemy".  The other, more serious of the two, seemed confused between being relieved and perhaps, happy to discover he hadn't inadvertantly relieved himself.

I wished them luck as I rolled on my merry way.

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On another recent caching outing Sue and I encountered two very creative hides about 1/4 mile apart in Vero Beach.  The first one was this Master Lock chained to a Cyclone Fence around a city park.  It was hard to verify it was, in fact, the cache we were seeking until Sue discovered the magnetized back would slide off.

When the back slid off a cavity appeared where some guts of the lock had been removed and there was a machined brass tube which unscrewed, revealing the log.   That's it in Sue's hand, not to be confused with her gold ring.

The second dandy hide was a 5 gallon-type, drywall bucket well hidden in a palmetto covered waste area near a series of dry canals.  With the lid off, the contents were revealed to be a plastic bag which contained the trinkets and about 10 "smiley faced" tennis balls.

A slit had been cut in the balls and squeezing the balls revealed each contained a plastic baggie with paper inside.  All but one of them contained the phrase "Keep Looking".  The correct one contained the cache's log.

With Sue's recent experience with a small snake, you would be safe to bet she remained in the car while I scrambled through the undergrowth.  Both of these very creative caches received a "Favorite" award from me--Geocaching's system for rewarding folks for very creative or highly enjoyable hides.