Hiding from Summer, and trying to get a First To Find

I've been incapacitated by Summer weather the last 3 days. I just did the conversion and it's "only" 88F but whenever I go outside I feel sick. Of course it's also extremely humid so that might be it.

I've got my AC unit going fulltime (horrors!) and I've got our house a comfortable 73.4F.

I had to cancel my riding lesson today, actually KT did. I didn't want to be the one to cancel, so I said if it's below 25C, I'll be there, if  not, I have to reschedule. She wrote me back, "Let's reschedule then." Which kind of let me down because I was hoping for a lesson and being terribly optimistic about the weather changing, but alas, it's blistering hot again today.

Yesterday J said there is a potential First To Find (Geocache) we could try to get. Geocachers are always reaching for the goal of being FTF. It means you are carefully watching for caches to be published and you get in the car immediately when one comes up in your area. I've never had a FTF. I tried once, breaking into Camp Long in West Seattle and stumbling around in the dark, but I was so new at caching I had no instincts back then, so I missed it.

I was curious why J wasn't already in the car. He said, "Cuz it's likely we are some of the very few people who meet the criteria for solving this cache." HM?

He explained that it's a Challenge Cache, and the condition for being able to log it is simply, "Must have found 5 caches placed by Charter Geocaching.com members." (Charter members being people who signed up with Geocaching.com when they began in 2000.)

"Do we have that?"

"Yes, thanks to you being from Seattle, and us taking our honeymoon on the East Coast."

I was trying to figure out the probability of local Germans having met the criteria, but we needed to just go.

However, it was gonna be another hot day, so I asked J, "Can you just give me 30 minutes to clean up my pasture so I won't be scooping poop in unbearable weather?"

"Sure." It was 8:30 AM.

I didn't think I could do it, after I got started, it was so bloody hot out. But I just wiped the rivers of sweat from my face and kept going, and at 9 AM we took off for a FTF.

I kept sucking on a water bottle half full of frozen water and half full of grape Kool Aid, and that is how I made it.

J pulled the cache out of a tree and said, "Moment of truth..." I said a prayer for him, because I know how important it is to him. Please God let him get an FTF.

To my disappointment, the logbook had one log entry already. Signed and dated, with the time of day, 10:15AM. I looked at my watch - it was 10:45. NO! Just cuz I can't handle hot weather, I had to do my chores early, and J lost out on his FTF. He was not too upset, I was more upset than he was. SO SORRY!

Back at the house my husband wrote in the Challenge Cache's log page, "We were late cuz my better half had to remove the horse apples from the field. The sacrifices one makes for being wed!" He wasn't being mean, he was light-hearted about it, and then he posed a question for the FTF'r, "Did you actually meet the criteria? It seems to me you found 5 Charter member caches, but two were hidden by the same person."

I was dying to know the result, because if this guy screwed up, we would get it.

Every hour I would ask, "So? Any news?"

Finally we got a reply, and the FTF geocacher wrote in the log, "Oops, you were right, J and Lytha, you got the FTF, I did not meet the requirements."

Yah, we got it. Or, J did. He says we can share it cuz we were there together, but he actually found it first, and he deserves it.

I thought it was a clever Challenge, giving tribute to the original cachers from so long ago. I'm curious how fast its log book will fill up, how many Germans in our area will meet the requirement.

***

When we were there, the woods were FULL of people. Entire families hiking around, dogs panting like crazy. I asked J, "Why are these crazy Germans outside today?" and he said, "For many people the woods are actually cooler than their homes." No kidding.


I just went outside to clean up more poop and immediately felt ill - I am glad I did not try to do anything today besides lots of housework.

***

Last night was an amazing thunder/lightning storm, I took video of it. I'll post it soon. I can't believe these amazing Summer storms. They are terrifying. I was so worried about my animals, but actually scared to go out and look for them. I said, "I love this storm but I don't know where my animals are." J said, "Well you know where your fish are." : )

I eventually braved the storm, and opened up the barn for my equines. I was too scared to stay out there with them for long. There are such amazing storms in Germany, something really special for this Seattleite.

***

Geocaching trivia I did not know until now:

In 2008, two lost hikers on Mt. Hood, after spending the night in a snow cave, stumbled across a geocache and were able to phone this information out to rescuers, resulting in their timely rescue.