12.27.05 Altura Adventure

An experience in brainwork and dealing with violent cats!
By Randy R

When Altura Park Revisited (GCRMV1) was posted on Sunday, December 18th, and no one had logged a visit as of 7 P.M., my wife and I accepted this as a challenge to get our first First-to-Find. Being after dark, I was concerned with our ability to work in the cover of darkness in a park without causing too much commotion. My first task was to decode as much of the description as possible and get to the park as quickly as possible for fear the Plugges were near!

Not knowing a whole lot of Spanish, I turned to the father of my wife, a true Spanish descendant on this country. A call to him for translation of Altura was in order. His recommendations of 'Altitude' or 'height' made for a quicker double-check on Google to verify our thoughts. Jackpot, I thought. We were well on our way. Google was also a valuable tool in getting my head back on straight by giving me the formula for calculating meters into feet. Heaven knows my GPS will spit out distances in feet much faster. The wording in the description was starting to bother me as I was not of clear mind and thought at this impending late hour. But, back to Google for a few more clues and refresher English training. The French word for doll, boreal, arboreal (is this an abnormal boreal?), homophonous and 3-masted sailing vessel all needed to be determined before we left. I got most of them, but was not confident on the meaning of homophonous. I thought I remembered it well enough from school those many years ago, but we will see. We needed to get this over and get to bed, for 5:15 comes awful early on Mondays.

Off to the park. It is only about 3 miles from our house, but driving there makes me realize just how dark it gets at night around this area. After circling the park once, we realized there were two cars already there with people sitting in them. Hummm, 'what cachers are already scoping this out before us' was the first thought. Need to make another pass before we start to get the size and scope of the park anyway, so we chose to approach from another side after circling a couple blocks out. OK, still no one walking around with flashlights in the park, but we are down to one car. We approached the target sign to make our attack of the cache a quick one and fast get away! We sat for a few minutes to see if anyone else was in the park. After about two minutes, another car pulled up about 100 feet behind us and shut off their lights. Nobody got out, so I told the wife to grab her flashlight and let's go. Off we went allowing the GPS to figure out how far away we were from the sign to make our first attempt at finding the second sign. We were in luck, as there were only a couple of spots to check. Hit the first sign on the second attempt, but was still able to start our trek for the third.

Doing all of the calculations from the formulas before we left turned out to be the fatal flaw in our plan. We found what I thought was the final dedication, but as it turned out, it would be the wrong one. Darkness causes disorientation and brain meltdown at nearly 10 P.M. for me… OK, so we knew what we thought was the intended target and hit most in the area, but homophonous crunch time would not allow me to be successful tonight. Back to the car we go to regroup. After reading the description again, we realized I didn't do the calculations correctly and needed to do some more research. Off to home we go. Back to the internet and more searching turned up the correct explanation of homophonous and an understanding of where we needed to look. But, it was too late tonight to return, so we decided I would recalculate as needed and return in the morning for a second shot. We could not let this go.

Oh, someone posted a find late last night! Nuts to us. But, I still had to get it as I had put way too much brain power toward solving this to let it go. So, off to the park I go on the way to work. Boy, it is still very dark at 6 A.M. I had a better clue to location and just needed to settle on finding the third dedication. At the second sign for the doll, I began to second guess my calculations. Do I just use the doll part or the whole first line? Oh my, let me do them both and see where they take me. Neither was successful at getting near another dedicatory tree when I started to wonder if I could be in need of a good compass to make sure West means West. Being 15 degrees off could have another meaning on where I needed to go.

At this point, in the middle of the open part of the park, I heard a strange noise. What was this rattle that was heading my way? A quick turn allowed me to see the approaching 'Garfield' looking beast headed toward me with a rabies or name tag rattling in the morning darkness. What was he doing here this early? Why is he coming at me? As I started to walk off, this 20+ pound cat found his way between my legs and began a quick left turn right between my legs. Causing me to stumble, I was now on the defensive in what was soon turning out to be a kitty cat attack that really bothered me. Picking up my papers, I started heading for the car for more calculations by the dashboard. The cat decided to do his best impression of a tiger and prevent my departure from the area. Did he want to play? Not with me at 6:30 in the morning! Back between my legs, rolling on the ground in front of me, and trying to crawl up my leg were tactics that were beginning to scare me. I was being stalked by a killer fat-cat! I did my best evasive moves and made it safely to the car. When I was safely inside, I realized he was sitting outside my passenger window looking at me. This is getting too spooky.

I turn on the dome light and back to calculating my mistakes. About two minutes later, I felt the back of the car shake slightly. What in the world was going on?!? I looked around and seen nothing. I must still be freaking out from the cat experience. Another minute goes by and the back of the car shakes again. Who is doing that is the only thing on my mind! Another minute and another shake and I turn around to look out the back window and the cat is now sitting on my trunk! He is just sitting there looking in at me! At this point I am thinking this is the feline version of Cujo! I am out of here. I start the car and the cat remains. I start driving down the street and still no movement from the cat. I stop the car and he is still there. I am done for the day and I am driving off to work, cat or no cat! About 100 yards down the road, he jumps for his life and runs back through the park. What a morning.

Three more DNF's were logged in the next 2 days. OK, so I am not the only one. Back out on Thursday after taking off work to get ready for an out-of-town trip. We had to get this today or else! After determining the need to recalculate properly after each step in the process, we discovered the grave errors in our ways. After parking as close as possible to the other end of the park, we discovered what we thought was the right dedication sign for the third segment. All we needed to do was check our distance from the second to verify. There were kids playing soccer on the field today, which helped our confidence in the clues contained in the description. It was darn close this time, so we knew we had the right third sign. Oh, great! I thought. Now which part of the name to use? Do we use the full name, Drop off the part before the name, include what is after the name? Someone tell me what to use! OK, let me read the entire description again to find that missing clue. Thought back to the first night and where we parked and it came to me. Use what will get me closest to where we were. Calculate the meters, convert to feet and lock onto the third sign's coordinates. Off we go. It is either this one or that one. It is two simple choices to make. Since we needed the assistance of the additional hints, we figured it to be the one closest to us. My, that looks unusual. Could it be? Would it be? Jackpot! AlbuquerqueBill did not disappoint with this one. OK, we didn't return to the car watching a tennis match or soccer game, just wondering if the cat would appear again to cause more tension before we left!

Congratulations to cyclegreen for collecting a FTF on this cache. I am sure it was well deserved with the calculating I know you had to do the first night. Some day our ship will come in. Perhaps it will be a schooner!