Going South...

I had talked with Wendy about going after all the 2001 caches in one day on Saturday night knowing that it really wouldn't be possible as they are scattered all over the state and it would mean a real solid day of hard driving time. I didn't sleep well Saturday night and ended up waking up at what would be 4am but because of the time change, was really 3am. I started playing with GSAK, updated it with all my PQ's that were sitting in my inbox and loaded the whole state of Maine into my GPS as points of interest. I wanted to make sure I had everything I could loaded so I could just meander around after getting the one that I was really after. The southern most 2001 cache was at Fort Mclarey that was my main target. I finally left the house at at 6 and was at the York rest area by 7:30. Luckily I had remembered to hit an ATM in Augusta to cover the tolls as I forget about that some times where as I almost never go that way. Once at the rest area, I used my current coords and loaded a 50 mile radius of caches as waypoints so I could see them without having to be zoomed to the 800ft view on the GPS. The first cache I attempted was a DNF. It was a cache called "The Way Life Should Be" which stinks because you hate to log a DNF on a cache with a name like that. I finally gave up after about 30 minutes of searching. Next was down the road a piece to "Farbucks 13 MMMMMM" which I was able to find. Farbucks was the name of "Starbucks" in the movie Shrek and I was thankful that the cache wasn't actually at a Starbucks location.
My next location was another DNF. It #97 of the 101 Dalmations series and was missing. There were a lot of DNF's before mine so I'm not sure why I wasted 10 minutes looking. You just never know whether those folks were missing something or not I guess.

Being only 1 for 3, I didn't have a good feeling for how the rest of the day was going to go. It's different caching in an area where you don't know any of the cachers or their hides so I felt like my geosenses were off a little. I decided to go right to the fort next as I was sure that might be something other than a micro. On the way, I traded texts with Chadd Roper (CARoperPhotography on the site) and we decided to meet at a cache when I was done with the fort. I arrived at the grounds and ended up running into another cacher and his son while I was searching. He had seen a GPS in my hand and asked if I was caching. His name was Jackmatt on the site and we had a quick chat about caching, numbers, and things that limit caching time. They walked off and I found the cache only to discover a full log. I found a page with some space and left my mark. Here are some of the views...




After finding this one, Chad was going for Nubble Trouble and that's where we planned on meeting. Getting there was a little slow as I had to go through a detour as well as getting behind some Mass people who were out for what appeared to be a nice slow coastal drive. When I pulled in Chad was parked right in front of the cache which was barely hidden so it was quite the easy find. We signed the log, chatted for couple minutes and I met his girlfriend Emily and their new dog Teddy. They took off and I grabbed some pictures before heading out myself.



I wasn't aware that you couldn't actually get to the lighthouse itself as its on an island. The only way across is restricted for care takers and involves riding in this little single person cable car...Not sure I'd want to take that ride.




This is the view from the "Beach Call". The cache was hidden near a payphone but that's all I'm saying.


After doing a bunch of Chadd's caches in Kennebunk, I went to this final one of his for the day. It was a DNF primarily because I got tired of looking while everyone was watching me. It's located at a very busy intersection but pretty cool to stop and look at. Apparently it had actually seen some action at one point or another as it has some bullet holes in it.


On my way back, I had to make sure I stopped in Scarborough to get the Centrum Challenge cache. Having completed the challenge using the Stud Mill Road series on July 3rd, I figured I had better get this now as I don't know when I'll get down this way again anytime soon. After logging that, I hopped on the turnpike and kept on trucking until I got home. I very rarely do this, but with not another car on the road, I thought I'd do it just quickly...I love my car, even if with the stupid check engine light on. It's just an emissions sensor but has no effect on performace so no worries.