Sometimes You Feel Like a Spot--Sometimes You Don't!!!

"The Spot" is a geocache. It was hidden September 1, 2003 along the meandering creek that parallels Twin Oaks Avenue in Citrus Heights. Larry spent his high school years on the family 10 acre ranch at the other end of Twin Oaks. You can consider this area as his old stomping grounds.

We became Geocachers on December 27, 2003 and this cache has been on our list of caches near our home ever since. We tried to find this cache early on but we approached from Twin Oaks and found ourselves on the wrong side of the creek. We tried a couple more times but we could never quite find the right way in to the cache. It is in a preserve area with road and creek on one side and houses on the other. We just could not find a way in short of knocking on someone's door to ask if we could jump their backyard fence to get into the preserve. We just weren't willing to do that.

We have the ability to put a geocache on an ignore list. That means we can pretend it doesn't exist and it will not show up on our official nearby list. That is exactly where this cache went after the third try! Normally that would mean we could forget it and move on. Unfortunately, we were unable to do that!

Larry wouldn't let go of this cache. It is, afterall, his old stomping grounds (minus all the houses). We had the printouts in a special folder and we kept talking about it. I think we moved it from the ignore list and then moved it back several times. We considered it our geocaching nemesis! It was always there, challenging, threatening, smiling, mocking, daring, etc. We talked about it incessantly!!!

At some point we went so far as to look up the location on GoogleEarth (a program that shows us aerial shots of an area). There it was --right where we knew it should be. But, more importantly, there was the way in to the cache!!! We could actually see a vacant lot with public access to the preserve. How did we miss that before!

We talked about it again this past weekend. Something had to be done! This was becoming an obsession and it was very annoying! So, in preparation, we took it off the ignore list one more time, printed out the maps we needed, and placed them right next to our GPS receivers. We managed to geocache a couple of times but we avoided any mention of The Spot!

Yesterday, Larry made the big decision! We are going to find this geocache if it takes us all day. After breakfast with some friends, we drove over and found the access point. Then we found a trail that would take us behind the houses and along the correct side of the creek. We followed the coordinates on our GPS receivers and we arrived at "The Spot"! Larry had the cache in his hands within minutes! It was a plastic gallon jar filled with trinkets hidden in the berry bushes!

At last! At last! We never have to worry about this cache again. It only took us 3 years, 3 months, and 30 days, but we found it!!! We won't mention, too loudly, that it only took us a few minutes to find it once we actually got to The Spot! Sometimes you feel like a spot, sometimes you don't!