Queen of the Wilderness

It's 4 am. What the heck am I doing up?

I think I have poison ivy, or some sort of bizarre reaction to a plant. I have small rashes all over my body, mainly on my left bicep, a couple patches on my neck, on the tops of my feet and several other places. I suppose I should stay out of the woods during the summer, or at least protect myself from unidentified plants! I was looking for a cache by myself last week one day after work. I was wearing jeans, a t-shirt and flip flops (my usual uniform!) I thought the cache would be a simple one since it was off of a bike path. When my GPS brought me close the the cache location I was like, WTF! it was still 20 feet into the woods! I debated on whether to wander into the wooded area since I was wearing flip-flops. If I had tennis shoes on it would be no problem. The snakes can't really bite through Nike's, you see. However, bare flesh in flip flops probably looks pretty enticing to a hungry reptile.

Being the determined person that I am, I decided to venture further to look for the cache. The coordinates brought me to the place most overgrown with vines, weeds and God knows what else. When I walked the "path" (covered in overgrown vines) I did my "snake walk:" which consists of me stomping on the ground chanting "snakes go away!, snakes go away!"... I'm so not joking about this! I ended up finding a snake/walking/poking stick to assist in my search. I used it to lift vines and hit the ground in front of me as I walked (you know... to ward off those snakes). I looked and looked for the cache to no avail. While looking, I also had to dodge the biggest bumble bees that I have ever seen... not so much fun, really. I was getting irritated so I decided to leave the woods.

On the way out, I was accosted by one of the killer bees and in my mini freak-out decided to run through the trees. It was like that scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and the gang get attacked by the trees in the woods. The branches kept scratching me and grabbing on to my clothing. I was poked all over but managed to escape with just a little blood shed (again, not joking!) I called Kat since this was her cache to ask her where the hell it was. She gave me basic directions the same spot where I had searched before. I hung up with her and sat in the cool AC of my car (that would be factory installed AC, and NOT a window unit). I fought back and forth with myself about whether or not to go back to the woods to look again. Again, being a glutton for punishment, and armed with my snake stick, I went back in for a second look.

This time I was a little more bold with my search. I was determined to not let my fear of what lies beneath the vines hinder my search. I tore through the vines like a crazy woman. I still didn't find the damn thing. So, instead of getting an insignificant small trinket as my reward for finding the cache, I now have an itchy rash instead. Kat later told me that another cacher was stung twice when looking for the cache. Having been stung recently I have decided to not look again until Fall. I really need to stick with urban micro's, but I think I have done them all in Dayton!

Sharon is naming a cache in my honor. She sent me a text today asking if she could use my name in her cache title. Of course I was totally curious about why she would want to do that so I called her. Apparently she put her first cache together - an ambitious multi, at that! She wanted to call it "Pero's Pesky Po-Po Park". She's putting it near where I was pulled over for speeding in Centerville - I was laughing my ass off!

Nothing much else happening these days. I'm making new and interesting friends, so that's fun. I will be meeting one in particular this week and am really looking forward to it! I need to remember to keep my freak in my pocket because I normally tend to let my freak flag fly and that gets me in trouble most of the time. I'm trying to not be too optimistic because that would go against my newly embraced cynicism and bitterness towards relationships and we can't let that happen... now can we?