First and Third

For the longest time it didn't appear that it would happen, but when we opened our email one last time last night, at 10:50, we knew that the day might become memorable in the annals of our caching history. And lo and behold, it did...
The email showed that a new cache had been placed just west of the airport. "Shall we?" one of us asked. The other did not even bother replying but ran out of the study and began dressing. What choice did the other have but to follow?
So, a couple of minutes later we are on the road, in utter darkness and pouring rain. It is hard to see the road at times, and even though speed is of the essence, it is deemed that safety must take priority: I keep my speed down to levels that do not interfere with the regular breathing of my companion. Not a mean feat, I have been told on more than one occasion...
We reach the spot where we can park our car (corner of Echo Rd. and Peardonville, for those who think they need this bit of info. for the biography (The Caching Crazies) they are thinking of writing some day in the future).
Out of the car and into the rain. We are only 75 m. from the cache the Garmin says. We have two puny flashlights. The Garmin has very little in the way of backlighting. The rain makes it very hard to read the Garmin. No use putting on glasses because they will soon resemble the 'droplet' appearance of the Garmin. But we kind of find ground zero, on the road. Now for the tree at whose base the cache resides. One large cottonwood is close enough for thorough scrutiny. I crawl around its mighty trunk on my knees, the undergrowth and branches preventing me from doing it in the upright position.
I find no cache. Around and around the tree I go. Was its base ever ploughed up more thoroughly in its long life? One doubts it. And not with sticks either! Bare hands for you!!
No cache. Try smaller trees. Deeper and deeper we venture into the swampy area to make the acquaintance of smaller and smaller trees, and some stinging nettles, until we feel we have wondered far enough to have to admit defeat.
Back on the road. Peering at the other side of the road. A fairly substantial ditch tells us: no, not here. Nobody would place a cache on the other side, forcing people to jump this one. (But then very few people know about the ditch jumping feats of one of us...) But no jumping tonight. Instead: 'I am wet enough, I want to go home."
Anyway, to keep this a short story, because somebody wants to go home, I tried another way into the dark and unwelcoming bush, and what do you know...I found the cache!!! It was a flashlight with the battery section used for the log. Covered up by stick approximately the same thickness, so that I still almost missed it.
No prize for the FTF (First to Find, for the biographer's benefit), but that is okay. The feeling of victory was sweet enough to make the need for a prize very secondary...(does that make it tertiary, kind of?). What was important too was that we were home before the Sunday.
So, that was our first 'night caching' experience and our third FTF! What a day it turned out to be!
I hope the reader will bear with the fact that we took no picture...instead I am attaching an earlier picture of Stoney Creek.