Back to geocaching

All the rain and flooding has had me indoors and not out for my daily walk/geocache adventure.  Now that the weather is better and the worst of the local flooding resolved I decided to go out again.  Over the bad weather I worked on a couple of geocache puzzles.  I don't normally do these as I am among the very puzzle challenged.  But with being confined indoors I tackled a couple of them and went out today to see if I'd solved them.

Reflected S - Found it.  TFTC.  I must admit, this one had me puzzled for a fair bit.  In part because of the cache description which is something of a red herring in that one might assume that the cache is located on one of the three town lines that converge at Tri-Town Junction.  Indeed, there are at least TWO solutions consistent with this assumption, ONE of which is consistent with the clue.  Neither is correct!  While the cache IS on one of the town boundaries for one of the three towns that meet at Tri-Town Junction it is NOT on a boundary that separates two of these towns!  Once this assumption is removed there are a number of possible puzzle solutions.  After looking at the marker photos a bit it occurred to me that the letters must MEAN SOMETHING.  Now since it's a town boundary marker they must be related to the towns that abut Sudbury, Marlborough, or Hudson.  That rules out a number of the town boundaries but still leaves several potential solutions.  So I studied the logs carefully and got the final clue from the entry by Team Widget.  This eliminates all but ONE of the possible solutions so off I went and found it.

Unfortunately, the cache container turns out to be right next to a poison ivy vine.  Now, I'm somewhat allergic to poison ivy and so decided NOT to remove the cache or sign the log.  Notwithstanding the PI, the cache is reasonably winter friendly with the possible exception of parking and finding the marker in deep snow.  


On a side note, there's lots of poison ivy in New England so finding it while caching is not unexpected.  What is unexpected, and more than a little unwelcome is someone placing a cache so that's it's surrounded by poison ivy and is not accessible without getting involved with it.  This is the third or fourth such cache of this sort and I must admit I wonder more than a little about such placements, particularly given geocaching.com's caution about placing caches in dangerous areas.  Just a POV.

Signs, Signs Everywhere There's Signs 3 - Found it.  SL/TNLN/TFTC.  This is a great puzzle for the puzzle challenged such as myself.  A drive through Marlborough and the puzzle is quickly solved.  I parked at the end of Woodland Dr.  From there it's a short walk to GZ over reasonable trails.  I'm often challenged by micros in the woods but this one was a fairly quick find.  A word of caution though, there are a couple of animal dens just below GZ that have been recently active.  While there didn't seem to be anyone home today a bit of caution might be advised. 

With all the recent rain, the stream along the trail is really running and very interesting.  That's one of the things I like about New England - water.  If you've lived in the desert south west as I have you would understand how truly marvelous running water is. 

I managed to solve a third puzzle, Sudbury Garrison, but the solution looks like it might be wet.  I wait a couple of days before trying to find it.

Here are all the photos of today's adventure.  Be warned, there are spoilers.