Alls Well That Ends Well, or, An Interesting Geocaching Day

This has been one of those days that didn't turn out the way it was planned. Jim was getting picked up by his friend early this morning to go to Pueblo to help their other friend with the cows. That part worked fine. I got up and had coffee, walked the dogs and got my day started.

My plan included doing a little shopping for some grooming supplies at Petsmart, combined with some geocaching. I looked up the area around the Petsmart and decided on three caches that looked pretty reasonable.

I took the dogs with me so they could get some fresh air and sniff at Petsmart since that's one of their favorite activities. The first geocache was interesting, it was hidden under a base plate type of device on a lamppost. The coordinates seemed to be a few feet off, but I found it anyway.

The next cache was right in front of Petsmart. I looked for awhile, but didn't find it, so we went on in to the store and did the required shopping. I didn't get a new clipper blade because they didn't have the right size. But I did find the other things I needed. I had the dogs in the shopping cart - sometimes they get rowdy in Petsmart. With two of them I didn't want to have any doggie incidents, so they rode in the cart.

After we loaded the goodies in the car, I looked more for the cache, but never did find it. On to the third one. That one turned out to be the most interesting one I've found so far. It was in the crook of a tree. It was a small log about a foot or 18 inches long and an inch or two in diameter. When I picked it up, I realized it was in two pieces. I pulled them apart and found the cache in a tube, stuck inside a hole that had been drilled in the log. The log was loosely held together with a couple of nails that were driven in one side and small holes drilled into the other half. Very clever!

Time to head home and have my afternoon walk and relaxation time. I drove home, pulled up next to the motorhome and turned off the car. I reached for my purse to get my motorhome keys out - what - no keys! I looked through the car. No Keys. Well, they must have slipped out of my purse at Petsmart. So I drove back to Petsmart, No Keys there either. Hmmm... I just knew I'd walk in and the clerk would hand me my keys. Not. Ok, so next stop was to look in the parking lot where I'd parked for the last cache. I didn't go in to the store since I hadn't taken my purse out of the car, and I'd parked way out from the building. I did drive by and didn't see any keys around.

So, on to plan B. I'd left the windows cracked open just a little, and I thought I might be able to get the ladder and get in through a window. Meantime, Jim had called me from Pueblo to tell me he was going to be delayed because they found one of Steve's cows had died, and they needed to move it's body out to the middle of the property, away from the water and food. So I knew he was going to be getting home later in the afternoon.

When I got back to the motorhome again, I was able to get the ladder down (thank goodness we decided to keep the 6 ft. ladder from storage!) and get a window open far enough for me to climb through. I'm also glad no one was around to take pictures of that adventure.

Once inside, I checked around here to be sure I hadn't accidently left the keys here. Nope. Well, time to take a break, have some lunch and relax until Jim came home. When he got here, he wanted to go through the whole search process again, so he looked all through the car to make sure they weren't in there. We went back over to the shopping center and retraced all my steps, going in to each of the stores near where I'd been. We checked again at Petsmart. Still no keys. Still no geocache, either.

I was beginning to think someone picked up my keys and kept them! We stopped at Burger King so Jim could get something to eat, then I said I'd stop back by the last place one more time, but I'd go in and ask this time. The guy in the store said someone from the business next door had found some keys in the parking lot, and I should go check there. Eureka! My keys!! What a relief. All is well with my world once again.

These pictures are some I've taken recently, showing Spring around the campground. Although the weather today has been more like Summer!