#200!

This Presidents' Day morning I woke up and thought, "three more to 200, lets go do 'em" so I looked through some log sheets I had ready for caches in the area that I was looking at. I decided I'd try for The Whistling Tree (GC10B1t) and Clamming on the Branch River (GC107QV), both of which were along the trail system behind Burrillville Middle School in Burrillville, Rhode Island. I had been to this area before with BomberJohn will visiting The Mustang Cache.

I headed behind the school equipt with my winter gear, a telescopic pole, my 60cs, my cache-pack and cache print-outs. As I reached the woods I passed kids sliding down a hill, happy to not be in school for the week. I traversed the icy trails, which happened to spiral toward the cache, by the route I ended up taking. When I reached the area of The Whistling Tree, which was named for the nearby tree that looked as if it was actually belting a tune, I had to look for a little bit, but not to long, as it it had been uncovered the previous day by a local cacher. As I signed the log, a noise grew closer and louder, and then I saw it in the air; a huge military helicopter just above to the south. I then replaced the cache and continued on with my goal to reach 200. Carefully hiking across sheets of icy snow, I began to appreciate my decision to bring along my telescopic hiking pole. When I got to the cache area for Clamming on the Branch River, I noticed tracks and spots where some cacher had obviously searched aroung, but failed. I too was near giving up, when I spotted a small bit of something that looked out of place for the area, which much have been slightly uncovered by the recent DNFer. After 5 minutes of digging, the unusual container was clammed out of the snow and I was just one cache away from the milestone I was looking for.

For the final cache of the day and #200, I thought I'd check out Chargoggagoggmanchauggauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg (GCCC88) on the shore of Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg in Webster, Massachusetts. This is actually the longest official name given to any body of water in the enitre world and I thought it would be perfect for the big one. As I searched for it, a muggle came by and seemed like he thought I was up to no good. He actually walked back to his truck and sat there watching for a few minutes to make sure I was harmless. After he passed by, the uncertain hint became clear and I found it with little no problem. There it was in my hands #200! I signed the log, made a sig card swap, and left with the pride of reaching my milestone.