A shot at redemption

With a bit of time to kill on a Saturday, what do you suppose we turned to?  I will tell you - redeeming ourselves.  We have been unable to find one cache in particular on more than one occasion so we decided to make a quick trip out and try to find it again. This cache is a micro (small but not tiny) that is supposedly hidden in plain sight, but cleverly so.  After a great deal of searching, confusion and walking in circles,we came up empty handed once again.  We will have to take another shot at redeeming ourselves another day, I guess. We didn't want to simply go home with tails tucked in failure, so we decided to attempt another to end on a high note.

On our way out to the car from our failed attempt, Lexi spotted a man hole cover and decided to take her "obligatory" bow.

Then her Daddy had to get in on the action, sans man hole cover. His bow was less ballerina and more "ready to squat in the woods," but equally photo worthy. :-)

Find #56

Since there was another cache located in the cemetery adjacent to the park, we drove to park in the cemetery and search for a smiley to add to our map.  This, our 56th find, was much simpler and was an easy find.  It was located on a hill, so the terrain was a little more challenging that some finds, but not prohibitive.

We swapped SWAG (Stuff We All Get - Usually trinkets and toys, nothing of great value) and logged our find.  The bug had bitten and we decided to grab one more before we headed home.  We had lots of chores to do since we were hosting a little picnic for Lexi's birthday on Sunday (the next day), so we couldn't spend all day out caching, as we so love to do.  She has been very excited about "treasure hunting" and was hoping to teach some guests how to do it on Sunday as well.

location of #57

Shane noticed there was a hide behind a store we frequent often for supplies for our flock, so we headed there for what we thought would be a quick grab.  When we arrived, he almost immediately spotted it, but it was well out of reach.  The cache was attached to a loop of fishing line and was supposed to be hung from and down inside of a bit of rolled wooden fencing.  It appeared to have been dropped, or fallen into, that fencing "tube."  I took a turn trying to snag it and lift it out with a branch, getting it almost to the top to grab before it dropped again.  I passed the stick to Shane and he was ultimately able to pull it out.  Attached to the outside of the cache was a hitchhiker.

Pic from www.geocaching.com

The last person at the cache had left this trackable for someone else to further on its journey. Unfortunately, the size of the container (just a pill bottle), was not suitable for the drop off.  Consequently, the TB was tuck inside the bottle (almost immovable) and the hitchhiker was hanging out and laying in the dirt.  We were really disappointed to see that someone had left such a cool item in such poor condition.

Here is its goal (copied directly from geocaching.com):

"Unit 679's mission is to complete the mission of Ms. Siren 911. (Although Ms. Siren 911 made it to New York City, she was unable to get to ground zero, she went missing in action just a few miles from ground zero.Hopefully someday some kind person will find her and send her home or will see that she completes her mission).

Owner:(Mrs Heyou) I am a Firefighter II with the Gambo Volunteer Fire Dept. in Newfoundland and spent 12 years as an Emergency Medical Responder with the local ambulance service. I would very much like for one of my rescue units to make it to ground zero in New York City to pay my respects to all of the fallen firefighters that lost their lives in the Twin Towers tragedy.

It would be greatly appreciated if you could take pictures of Unit 679 with other Ambulances, Fire Trucks, Firefighters or Fire departments. Thank you."

We will make it a point to try to get a pic or two to satisfy that piece of the request, and then I will pass this along on the east side of Ohio when I go there at the end of this month... moving it East toward its goal.  I wish I knew someone headed further that way, I would  most definitely pass it off to make it happen.  It felt good to end our caching for the day here, as we felt like we were "rescuing" it from where it laid.

If you want to see where Mrs. Heyou's Unit 679 has been so far, follow it here.

So, happy with ending on a high note, we headed home to prep for Lexi's birthday celebration picnic.