My Second First-To-Find
One minute I am walking around my house and playing with my little girl.
The next minute, I am scooping up the little one (after uploading data to the GPS and iPod Touch) and heading for the door.
It came after checking my email in passing and receiving notice of another new cache within the region.
Keep in mind that one has to get up very, very, very early in the morning to beat some other area geocachers to become FTF.
But the challenge of being among the first can be almost as exciting.
Decided to take the chance and knowing the outing would be good for the Abi as well as myself, I decided it was worth the effort to try for that ellusive first to find.
Every time I have tried to find one first here in Augusta County, I have been beaten by some of the area’s finest.
The only time I walked away with the early bird discovery was down in Rockbridge County where I only recently began hiding caches of my own.
“Rockbridge History #5″ was down that way which gave me added hope — toss in that I knew the region well as I had just hidden (but not activated at the time) a cache very close to where I would be looking.
Cruising along the windy road that led from Raphine towards Brownsburg, I found my self wondering if those occasional cars passing me might have another cacher who beat me to the punch.
Holding my breath, I parked the car and used the GPS to point me in the right direction.
Making the actual find was relatively easy as the hint made the search that much easier.
I don’t believe I breathed again until after unrolling the log and finding no other names present.
With a smile, I pulled out my new “Coin of Discovery,” a Birka geocoin I now use to mark my First-To-Finds, and placed it with pride next to the cache for a quick photograph.
