Searching for Nothing

The better J and I had just sat down from a long day away from the house, and had just started to get comfortable when the cell phone started singing that song. There is only one or two times I would have said this, but I sighed, "Darn, another geocache." So, on went the boots, cache got downloaded, coats got zipped up, and out the door we went. I swear we hit every red light in town on the way out there. All five cylinders of the Colorado were pumping fast as we finally got to 177. As we pulled in, another car was already there, and another was just pulling in ahead of us. I put on my pouty face as I knew I had been beat. I still had enough adrenaline flowing through my veins to jump out of the truck and run through the grass, as I exclaimed, "Dang it Travis, I knew you would beat me!" Joykillers were the first on scene, followed by JBnW. Luck had it that nobody had found it yet! THERE WAS HOPE! After a few laughs, we quickly began to disassemble the hillside. Rocks, grass, twigs, nothing could stand between us and a FTF. Rkars soon joined in the search, and 5 flashlights became 6. What was once prairie now looked like a tornado had ripped through it. One by one, we got fed up, each of us having a theory as to where the cache could or couldn't be. Joykillers was the first to throw up the white flag, and then there were four of us left. We searched for another five minutes, then finally called it quits. We said our goodbyes, and pulled out, downhearted. But, as we pulled out, we noticed a black jeep pull in. My wife, who had spent the last portion of the search in the pickup keeping warm, said that the jeep had pulled in before. Interesting. They were obviously up to something, so I pulled out onto the road, drove down a little ways, and hit the ditch trooper style. Back to the overlook we went, and I knew something was going on as there was a flashlight by the tree. Well, it was either some geocachers, or drug dealers. I chose geocachers, and went down to say hello. As I walked down I noticed a pile of rocks that wasn't there before. I said, "How are we doing today?" The response was, "Good, are you a geocacher?" I had a good laugh. Turns out Shark101au had got the cache published just before he got it placed. Oh what a good laugh we had. After we said our goodbyes, I found the cache pretty easy, and signed an FTF. Now I know that the cache hider feels bad, but I feel terrible about this FTF, because there was a lot of good cachers out there in the cold searching quite hard for this one. But, look on the bright side, we all have one heck of a good story to tell!