First to Finds

In the world of geocaching, being the first to find a newly published geocache is special.  It gives you bragging rights.  But finding multiple first to finds in a single day is awesome!

Some of us even create our own special goals, like finding at least one first to find every month or beating our record for the most first to finds in a day.

Crazy Dave’s Crew has been able to find a cache every month since May of 2014.  As of September 30, 2016, we had a streak of 29 months of being the first to find a geocache every month.  The most first to finds in a day was two on May 10, 2014.

All of that was about to change!

My Crazy side started kicking in and there was nothing anyone could do about it!

New Geocaches Published

Sometime late in the afternoon of September 30th, several new geocaches were listed within a fifteen mile radius of our home base.  I placed them in my watch list and waited.  I watched for Flagg2007 to rush out and grab them, but he didn’t.  I watched and waited and waited and watched.

This was a Friday, so my workday didn’t ended until almost 6:30.  I checked on the caches again before leaving work and was surprised to see they still had not been found. I decided to keep waiting…..

I headed home and had some dinner, watched a little television and rested.

At about 8:00pm, I mentioned to Laura that there had been several new geocaches published nearby and thought maybe I would go out to get a few first to finds.  She asked if I wanted her to come with me.(she shouldn’t have done that)  I thought for a few seconds and said yes, but not right now.  She gave me an odd look and we waited…..

I wondered.  Can I convince her to stay up and go “night caching” with me at midnight?  We will find out.

Going Out In the Dark

At about 11:30 pm, Laura and I head out to GZ of the first cache that I planned to find.  We arrived a few minutes before midnight, and we waited.  Finally my clock rolled over to a new day.  I quickly jumped out of the truck and had the geocache container in hand at 12:01 am on October 1.  Wow, our first to find for the month was done in the first sixty seconds of the month.  That’s a first for me!

But wait!  I’m not done yet.  We decided that was so much fun that we would try to find another before heading home.  This one proved to be more difficult.  Not the cache, but getting to it. Ground Zero was behind a hotel, which tends to close off all but one entrance at this time of night.  After trying to get to the cache three different ways, I finally found the right entrance.  We were able to drive within a few feet and made the grab at 12:15 am.

Okay! Cool!  We have matched our record for the most first to finds in a single day.

Wait!  There’s one more nearby.  Let’s go for the record.

And Then There Were Three

No, not three firsts to finds.  That comes later.  There were suddenly three geocachers out searching for a newly published geocache just after midnight in front of a hotel. ( That didn’t cause any suspensions, I’m sure)

Flagg2007 apparently had the same idea I did.  As we pull in to the third location, another car pulled in just two spaces down.  After taking a moment to recognize each other as geocaches and not muggles, we all got out of our vehicles.  Suddenly, we were having an impromptu event in the parking lot after midnight. (I’m surprised we didn’t get the police involved)

He had been watching the geocaches just like me and had planned to run after them after work to get his monthly cache done.  When he was leaving work, he noticed that the one closest to him had been found.  He decided to go after the farthest one.  Half way there, he checked again and saw that we had gotten the second one.  He knew the race was on to get the third one.

We agreed to have a co-FTF.  It was pretty easy to tell it was going to be a simple light pole cache (LPC).  “I lifted the skirt and he grabbed the cache”(His words, not mine)  We logged the find at 12:24 am.  We then visited for a few minutes before we both headed home.

What a great start to the month.  Three first to finds before 12:30 am.  I’m counting on a fabulous caching month!

Do you have any great first to find stories?  Be sure to share them in the comments below.