Naughty or nice?

The choice I had to make when trying to find a letterbox hybrid geocache this afternoon. Had a half day off work and the weather was beautiful - not so hot as it was a few weeks ago. So you know what I'm going to do, right? Geocaching.

I had made two previous attempts at this particular letterbox hybrid cache. A letterbox hybrid differs from a regular geocache in that, once you arrive at the starting coordinates, you have to follow specific directions to find the cache. This LBH was located in Prairie Wolf Park, a nice park with lots of acreage and some developed paths. In my first attempt, I followed the directions as far as I could. They included finding three other caches in the park, none of which I had previously found. That went well. The next direction was to find a fourth cache. Unfortunately for me I had already found this cache. Which meant that I didn't have the coordinates with me and my memory of where it was wasn't too good. So I was done for that day.

Came back a few weeks later with the coords to that cache so that I could continue on. Now the directions involved projecting waypoints from a particular spot indicated from the directions. It was one of March's record setting heat wave days - 87 degrees, way too hot for caching. The heat fried my brains, methinks, because I just could not remember how to project a waypoint with my etrex! And of course I didn't have a regular compass with me, either. So strike two.

Today I came back. I had refreshed my memory on how to project a waypoint, and I also brought a regular compass for backup. Worked my way down from Gilda's Club, found 5 caches along the way (along with 3 DNFs) and finally made it to the park.

Came back to the tree that I thought was the right spot, and after a few false starts I had projected waypoints for both "naughty" and "nice." You see, once you got to this point, you had to decide whether the cache was hidden in a naughty spot or a nice spot. And once you find it, you can switch them so you never know for sure which way to search.

The waypoints didn't work. And while I was trying them out, a couple came down the trail with equipment that sure looked like they were geocaching! I greeted them with "Naughty or nice?" I'm sure they thought I was strange but then I explained that I thought they were geocaching. They were measuring a trail, apparently.

I continued to struggle with the waypoints as there were a lot of thorny branches and dead wood blocking really quality access to the woods beyond the trail. As I ventured back and forth, the woman of the previously mentioned couple was standing on the trail talking to another woman who appeared out of nowhere. They proceeded to stand there and discuss something for about 20 minutes.

I finally decided that I might not have used the right spot to project my waypoints. Looked over everything again and chose a new spot. Projected naughty and nice again, decided to try "nice" first. After searching for a bit, I finally found the wooden plaque with the "nice" symbol. No cache. Ok, at least that means that I probably have the right projections at least! So went for "naughty." It really was a naughty hide as I got scratched up under my pants from the thorny branches in the area. Finally spotted the "naughty" symbol on another plaque, and this time there was a cache behind it!

Good to finally have this one done - definitely more of a challenge than a lot of the ones I've done over the winter!