First Cache Short Changed

Does one have to fail to succeed. Is there a silver lining in the clouds. Do you have to know how to toot the tin horn to play on the bandwagon. Which came first the chicken or the egg. Did the Wright Brothers get their plane off the ground the first time.

Well I went out to find my first cache. Location was N 42° 05.625 W 071° 38.251. I followed the instructions closely. The additional clue said "focus the search where the 2 walls meet".

I climbed, I clamored, I stood on my toes, got down on my knees, jumped off walls, got poked in the eye by a tree branch, brushed leaves away, walked in circles. Gave up and decided I just didn't look hard enough. Repeated everything 2 or 3 times and finally

I CAME UP EMPTY HANDED

Happens sometimes. So what did I gain from the experience. GeoCaching may not be just going to the coordinates and viola you find the gold. As in motorcycling, it is not always the destination but the journey to get there. If I had not tried finding the cache I would have missed out on this.

I did learn that it is not uncommon for caches to be muggled

Verb

to muggle (third-person singular simple present muggles, present participle muggling, simple past and past participle muggled)
(transitive) (in geocaching) To remove, deface or destroy a geocache.

Whitin Pond cache is now under investigation for the muggling event.