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Knight Who Says Ni and wvhunter74, a little jealous because the Northern MAGPI were always having so much fun, set out to show us who put the “S” in sMAGPI!

It was a bright, hot and beautiful day down in the Charleston area. Perfect for a little Meat, a little Greet, a few caches, some ammo can tossing and t-shirt bludgeoning. What more could a person want? Not a whole lot it turns out. First event of the day, after signing in of course, was to play Caching Feats Bingo. Person who gets the most squares filled wins. Sounds easy right? Well you can only use each cacher once. So who would admit to using a Magellan as their primary GPSr? Surely someone out there has DNF’d the same cache 3 times and admitted it. Cached in Europe? What about found an aquacache (not the person)….or who out there has a dedicated cachemobile? And then there were a few cachers who clearly had to fill in one specific square that could pertain only to them….Needless to say, people got to know each other really fast!

Next on the schedule (the very rough schedule to be certain) was the Ammo Can Toss. Those cachers that had attended the MEAT-n-Greet at Cooper’s Rock back in July knew what it was all about. Not one to make things easy, Knight Who Says Ni had upgraded to a 50 cal ammo can. Now that’s some serious weight to go tossing around. The crowd was a little unsure about this seemingly sacrilegious abuse of an ammo can, so wvhunter74 stepped up to the plate to demonstrate. Oh his throw was mighty alright, but the landing not so much. The can took a half roll, the lid exploded and rocks flew everywhere. Oops. After that demonstration and pretty much figuring things couldn’t get worse than that, cachers lined up to give it a go.

Things were going smoothly with Beaver Crew in the lead. A few of the little cachers even stepped up to give the can a toss. And then from the back of the pack emerged the winner of the 3rd Great MEAT-n-Greet Ammo Can Toss 89SC. Without sidekick Little Wooden Boy around 89SC was the unspoken favorite (at least for those of us who’d attended the earlier competition in Morgantown). With a little experience behind him 89SC demonstrated the fine can tossing form that sent the can hurtling and then rolling, rolling, rolling….Winning distance was a hair over 50 feet.  

Saving the best for last, the sMAGPI crew unveiled as yet untried game in the geocaching community (thanks to ScoutingWV for give us the how-to)…..FROZEN T-SHIRT. What? Yes, you read right. Frozen t-shirts. All nicely folded, rolled, soaked and stuck in the freezer by Spotty Spotty Pony Girl on Thursday night. Even after transportation from Morgantown to Charleston early in the morning they were still a mass of ice.

  The crowd was a bit dubious at first. How could you do anything with that? And were they really shirts? Not possible….but curiosity was too much and so soon all 14 shirts were handed out and the chaos began. First and foremost, how could you even get the frozen cylinders to open up even a little? Several methods were tried. Mashing was a good first option, until the rock that was being used started to crumble. Resources were limited and there was not exactly a good selection of large rocks laying about, so other options had to be sought out.  Since we had a water fountain on site some of the clever cachers headed over there hoping the luke warm water would speed up the thawing process maybe just a little. A few thought perhaps lemonade might aid in the melting process. Others (pbump) used the x-ray vision method which just didn’t do much at all. There was talk of using flames, but that was quickly put to rest by being declared illegal in the game. Eventually one of the younger cachers hit upon a brilliant plan….beat the shirts against the rocks. Soon others were joining it. It looked like a group of angry laundry men. Victory came to the cacher that first hit upon the beating the shirt on the rocks method . Oddly enough, cachers continued to work on the remaining shirts with some determination and it wasn’t too long before there were additional cachers wearing shredded, dripping, dirty shirts.

So, kudos to Knight Who Says Ni and wvhunter74 for putting on a good show, stuffing us full of yummy food and letting us be ridiculous. You guys did good!  

It was a bright, muggy West Virginia morning when we set out to rendezvous with some cachers at Prickett’s Fort. We drove up in the mighty Vue only to see our road blocked by the Law. Aw man, what has wvhunter done this time?

Apparently nothing….nothing except schedule CACA during the Morgan Family Reunion. You would think he’d check the calendar, particularly since parking is a bit of a squeeze on a slow day….but no! Fortunately we knew the secret pass code, “No we aren’t with the Morgan Family Reunion” so we got in. Disaster averted.

Since we were running a little behind (my fault….mine, mine, mine) there was already a good crowd assembled and lots of shouting. Well I think it was shouting, but it could have been wvhunter talking. I dunno. We managed to squish the vehicle into what I thought was the last parking spot – 89SC arrived shortly thereafter in his one-eyed MR2 and proved me wrong.

Good thing this wasn’t an all day event or the law enforcement of the People’s Republik of Bridgeport would be on his trail.

More talking, shouting, wild gesticulations and general chaos ensued. Also there was voting on the name of the cache that was being placed, which resulted in more shouting and general chaos followed by the passing around of a voting sheet. Somewhere in there we started making pithy comments about CACA and the woods. Ok, so maybe they weren’t all the pithy, but we were trying. It’s hard to be uppity when you’re talking about CACA for goodness sakes!

After coming up with the name Wanna Go C.A.C.A. in the Can in the Woods? we headed out to place the cache. This presented us with a slight problem. You see geocachers are accustom to wandering around in the woods, sometimes even in large groups. But what we aren’t used to is not having a destination. We go out trying to get to a thing. Oh sure, some of us may follow the arrow blindly. Others may stay on the path and be deliberate, but the point is….we have a PLACE that we are trying to reach. That was not the case here. Had it not been for pbump who finally veered off the path and then 89SC who found a nice spot further up the trail we may still be out there, talking and walking with no end in sight.

When I heard the glorious words, “reminds me of Berry in the Woods” echoing across the rail trail I perked up. Ah, now that is a cache to be proud of! Of course I came scrambling up through the shrubbery and onto the trail and there, in blinding glory was the spot 89SC and sidekick were describing. The rest of the group were inclined to agree that the spot was a winner.

Captain OCD however refused to go place the cache as he was having flashbacks to BitW. 89SC grabbed the ammo can while Frank, 60Cent, Tee, sidekick and I followed. We were slightly disappointed that the trip up wasn’t as difficult as BitW, but the trip down was a little challenging. Not for 89SC though, who stuck his landing and was given a solid 8.5 by sidekick. I could be heard to say, “Wait ’till fall and six inches of leaves…” as we headed back down the trail.

Back at the parking coords (whew, someone marked the cars) we debriefed and rehydrated. And then there was your typical “we don’t have anything else to do, let’s stand out in the heat and talk caching” which always happens after a group outing. I was all ready to pull up a chair and join in for the rest of the afternoon, but Loyal sidekick had been patient and was clearly hungry, so we left first and went to Mamaw’s where delicious lasagna was awaiting….mmmmm. Sadly I missed the bagpiper due to our early exit,  although one of my fellow cachers was kind enough to call me on the phone so I could listen.

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