Snowy Monday

The March Lion came in the valley last night with loads of the white stuff and a snowday for the kids up here and the first one in NYC in 5 years. Bloomberg blew it by closing the schools last minute pissing off loads of working parents who couldn't find anyone to watch the kids before work. I'm surprised the phone lines didn't fail with all the calls to 1-800 watch my kid this morning. Bloomie said "all you had to do was look out the window to know there was no school". That's pretty nearsighted given the fact that it's been five years if u ask me.

We did a cache hunt on Saturday up at Nana's place in Orange County. Only three recruits participated including me on the blustery day and I put in the wrong coordinates to start and we ended up on some persons private property, having parked on the side of a busy road and a wild goose chase followed to say the least. My wife wisely chose to stay in the car while me and The Noodle foolishly trespassed realizing half way in we were totally off track.

We got back in the warm car and it was then I noticed the wrong coordinates (I really thought I had entered the right ones but this was not the first time) so we decided to continue on to the correct spot.

They took us to a typical residential area complete with ranch houses, McMansions and Muggles eyeing our car as we pulled into a small cul de sac on the banks of a river. We got out of the car and looked around seeing some kids on bikes riding back and forth over a beautiful train trestle that spanned the river. My wife said "hoodlums" under her breath as we walked on what felt like someone else's property and headed toward the arrow on our GPS.

We searched the entire trestle on our side. Every nook and cranny. Every possible hiding place. We kicked leaves revealing little blue dime bags (empty) and chunks of crumbling concrete from the bridge. We saw possible hiding places that would have been ideal had there been something there.

We were on the verge of giving up when i decided to go on the top of the trestle where the bikers had been. It was then that the vertigo I knew I had but rarely had the chance to test came rearing it's ugly head. I began to walk on the old rotting wood rail ties with gaping holes to the river below. I knew my 200+ pounds couldn't fall between them but I was still petrified. The person who hid the cache said the terrain was a 2 but "should be a 4.5". Yes, if your a total chicken.

I yelled to my son "don't come anywhere near me!" and crawled like a baby back to the path that led to the trestle. I looked at my wife and my look said we (I) had failed this hunt.

"Why do they make it so hard?" she asked me.

I wish I knew. Maybe I should have asked the hoodlums to help out.