Friendly quirks

Living in Southern California, I’ve had the great fortune of caching with some very interesting and entertaining people, some of whom, I’ve developed very good friendships with that will probably last the rest of my life. One such person is 3blackcats.

I met 3blackcats after I goaded her into finding my Size Matters … Especially in California cache. It was a multi-cache that had a little bit of a twist and she and her sister had been out another time already to find the cache and couldn’t find the first waypoint. Trash talking ensued and that was probably enough to get her back out on the trail to find this one, which she did. For some reason, I had given her my phone number in case she needed a lifeline on it, but instead she called to brag and a friendship developed. A couple of days later, she, her sister 1bigdodgerfan, another cacher Lostlad, and I went out to conquer a well conceived mystery cache entitled Curiouser and Curiouser. We found it and 19 other caches that day and the next thing I knew, 3blackcats and I were caching together on a regular basis.

As you get to know people, you learn more and more of their personality, their quirks and what makes them tick. One of 3blackcats’ quirks is she doesn’t like to show her face when getting her picture taken. Well, not really, but it seems like that’s the case. I heard her tell it once that it was because of a witness protection program that had gone sour, but I’m not sure I believe that one.

It actually started out as a joke when she and Lostlad were caching near the Devil’s Punchbowl and she ended up getting one of her milestone caches out there. Lostlad wanted to take a picture, so she posed for the picture, with just her hand sticking out from behind a huge boulder. Her next milestone cache, I happened to be present and the traditional picture was taken, from behind her, looking over her shoulder at the view from the cache site. A legend was born.

As you can see from some of the pictures posted, she will go to great lengths to make sure she’s unidentifiable in the picture. Her sister, 1bigdodgerfan even got involved with this as well. The event picture was the best in my opinion. I didn’t even realize that she’d turned her head to make it look like she was reading the menu until after I got home and downloaded the picture to my computer. I busted a gut laughing at that one.

We’ve actually started making a game of it. How many clues can we reveal about 3blackcats before we finally show everyone who she really is? It’s just one of those diversions that keeps us entertained on the trail when we’re trudging along a steep part, or when we’ve ended up sort of bleary eyed from one too many lamp post caches. The last time I cached with her was right after Christmas, on a 4x4 trail up in the Cajon Pass. The wind chill that day was close to 20 degrees and most of the day was spent in a heated car as we bumped along a dirt road. Once we got near ground zero, we didn’t mess around taking pictures, but worked on finding the cache and moving along. It was that cold.

Our latest plans are to go out on next Monday afternoon. We may end up in an area that is ripe for another picture, but then again we may not. The one thing that I do know is, we’ll have fun.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:

Chelsea & Ginger's Favorite Walk #1 - by Chelsea & Ginger
Devil's Punchbowl by Yosemite John and Debbie
Crossroads - by fontanabill
Cache Addicts Meet & Greet #10 - by CacheAddicts.org