Abbotsford Night Caching

Got out for one more night of caching in the Abbotsford area; I had 6 easy caches lined up, only found 2! That's the way it goes......

The first cache I found was in Silverdale, a small community just west of Mission, best known for it's cheap gas. I have driven past this cache about a dozen times and finally got around to stopping. The cache is called "Exploration into the Void", so named as there is a void of caches in the Mission area. The cache itself was a quick find, but like most rural areas everyone has a dog and they sure liked me as I walked through the field crunching noisy sticks.

The cache itself was hidden at the base of a Hemlock tree.....say....aren't those trees poisonous! What's the guy trying to do....kill us all!! Well, I guess it's OK as long as I don't pretend I'm Ewell Gibbons, remember him? He was on TV pushing cereal I think and his tag line was "ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible"! Well, needless to say I didn't eat the tree and all is fine and dandy.

The next cache I looked for was stuck on the side of a lacrosse box, and yep, there were a ton of Moms and Dads standing around watching their kids play lacrosse. By my GPS fix they were standing right on top of the cache hide; no way I can get the cache with out them seeing me.

OK, so I'll skip this for now and come back later. So off I go to find a cache called Cedar Springs. This cache is named after a small linear park of which there are many in Abbotsford.

These parks generally follow a ravine or small water way as it flows between subdivisions. In this case the park was the buffer zone between a subdivision on one side and a gated community on the other side.

On the way to the cache I noticed a fun looking tree house in some ones back yard; I bet a lot of childhood memories were made there.

The cache location was another case of "you can hide a cache anywhere", as the cache was hidden in the roots of a cedar tree right beside the trail. A quick sign and grab, and on to the next cache.

From here I headed south east and ended up in a small park by the Trans Canada Highway; the park itself is an old park with a small baseball diamond for the little kids and arrgh, they were playing baseball right by the cache! To make matters worse, it was T-ball; now, I don't know how many of you have had kids in T-ball, but if you have you know that a T-ball game goes on for ever! It's the worst thing to sit through.....or wait to end.....

I parked the car at the corner of the park and waited for 15 minutes while they played in the dwindling light. Finally I decided I couldn't wait any more and they MUST be just about finished, so I headed over and parked in the lot. I got out the camera and sauntered over taking scenery shots as an excuse for being there, but gad, I still had to wait for the parents to quit yakking and move along.

Finally they were on their way and I could start looking around the trees where the cache was hidden. Of course, by now it's pretty dark under the tree, I'm in a hurry to get going and the cache is being difficult to find...another arrrgh! Even my flash light didn't help find the creature; either it's gone or I no longer have the patience for a thorough search . Oh well, put this on the list of ones to come back to some time.

OK, back to the lacrosse box, they should all be gone by now. But wait, back at the lacrosse box...what's this....they are still there! Don't these people ever go home!

I kicked around for 20 minutes waiting for them to pack up and leave, but they showed no signs of skeedaddling, so I skeedaddled instead. I gave up and headed home with only 2 cache finds under my belt....as much as last nights 8 finds had been rewarding, tonight's 2 finds were disappointing.

C'est la vie !