Stuff Happens

Sometimes when you're out caching, nothing happens you have a great time and everything is good when you get home. Other times, you can get injuries. Usually, they aren't life threatening, more annoying than anything else. But why does it always seem to happen all at once? I usually have a code about geocaching. It really hasn't been a good day geocaching, unless you bleed. Obviously, that's said tongue in cheek, so when I do scratch myself up, I can always say that and still have a good time. Today I didn't bleed, but I did get banged up and I still had a good time.

I took my younger son out to play with the GPSr today. The first thing we did was capture the flag of Bermuda. I wasn't sure whether it was actually going to happen or not, since I'd pretty much realized before we went that the flag was going to be behind a gate, but I figured that we'd get close enough that we'd score the point, which we did. We also waymarked a water tower today. I've mentioned that particular water tower at the bottom of this post, and we finally were able to get back to get it today.

The caching was fun. There was a neat puzzle that I'd solved about a year ago that I finally got around to finding. The rest were small caches, a couple of which had geocoins in them, another was large enough to place a travel bug in. But what happened to me at some of the caches makes me wonder whether I just should have stayed home. Let's see, let me count the injuries.

Injury one happened when I didn't heed the warning on the cache page. The warning stated,

"A note of warning, it seems many people are getting whacked on the head with this cache so please be carefull (sic) and watch your noggin."

Now, my thought process was that the cache could fall on you. I really didn't have a clue other than that until about 15 seconds after I made the grab and suggested to my son that we sign the log back in the car, since we were standing under a staircase and I didn't want us to look so suspicious. That's when it hit me, literally. I smacked my head into the underside of the support beam of the staircase, the one I'd just ducked under when I went in to find the cache. My son volunteered to replace the cache when we were done signing the log, which I gladly accepted.

Two caches later I bumped my head looking for a cache under a bridge. After I came up for air, I noticed that the GPSr was now pointing 40 feet away from where I'd been looking under the bridge. Yep, that's where it was, but now I had matching bruises on each side of my head. The very next cache, although there was a good amount of time in between the two since we'd made a stop for lunch, I ended up slipping on a slope of grass and landed on my rear, rather unceremoniously. I have to give my son credit. Had I been in that position as a youngster, I probably would have enjoyed a good belly laugh with that pratfall, but his main concern was whether I was all right. Not bad for a 12 year old.

Two caches later, in a parking lot no less, I apparently brushed my hand up against some stinging nettles. Now I've touched stinging nettles in the past and they really do sting. This felt exactly like it, but it was really in an odd place, in a parking lot, on one of the many landscaped islands that you can find in any local Big Box parking lot. Very strange, but over three hours later and my finger was still feeling the effects of it.

Fortunately, that cache was the last cache of the day, otherwise who knows where I'd be if I'd continued caching today, perhaps in traction? I guess this is more of a public service announcement more than anything. Injuries do happen. The slip could have been avoided, the head bumps as well. The stinging nettles was unexpected, but at least to protect myself in the future I need to remember to use glove whenever I'm working around plants of unknown origin. There's a lot worse things out there than just stinging nettles.

Pictures were taken at the following waymark:
Placentia Water Tower - by Webfoot

Our Sport’s Dreadful, Hidden Disability

Geocaching doesn’t have any couth, it seems. Really.

To be with-it or in, it seems you ought to have some obligatory disease or disability. Tennis folk have “Tennis Elbow”, skiers have “Skier’s Thumb” and for heaven’s sake, there’s “Runner’s Knee”! Meh. We need a disease or injury of our own.

And I have a likely candidate: “Cacher’s Hand”. Symptoms: multiple laceration of the dominant hand, including scuffing of the skin on the knuckles, cuts ranging from nearly invisible to gashes requiring bandages, general swelling and tenderness.

My own experience bears out this horrible disability.

While I am a sporadic cacher, I am an avid one when I’m out. No hill too high, no swamp too deep, yada, yada… My best beloved will tell you that I will climb the tree, swing over the creek and (here’s the segue) be willing to search in hidden spots with my ungloved hand. (I just cannot tell what I have unless my skin is in contact with the object of my search.)Thorns? To laugh, sez I! Moldering leaves with sticks, sharp and pointed? No problem! Rocks with ragged edges? Phoof! Small, unlikely hiding places with hidden dangers like broken glass? Give it not a thought! Poison ivy? Contact allergies? Nary a consideration!

The tragic and inevitable result, wise readers, is Cacher’s Hand: abraded, wounded, swollen and bruised. And I know, deep in my cacher’s soul, I am not the only zestful, thoughtless participant in this sport. There must be hundreds of broken and bleeding hands pressed back into the Monday morning world of work out there.

I’m willing to spread the word. How about you?