We had been caching for almost two years now, it's brought us a lot of fun, quality time as a family together, and closer to nature and the beauty it holds. We had been lacking however with the coveted honor of being the First to Find for a cache. We had tried on several new caches in the area, but were beat each time to the finish. We were starting to get discouraged, especially when friends of ours that we introduced to caching were able to secure a first to find within just a few months of caching.

However, our luck would change on Friday, October 28, 2008 when a new puzzle cache, Very Technical (GC1HF7T), popped up late on a Thursday night. I saw it Friday morning during my daily cache check and made a first attempt at solving it over my lunch hour, but couldn't get the right set of data to get a Success! from Geochecker.com. Later that afternoon, my wife, Faith, called me to say that there was a new cache posted and that although people had searched for it, they were unable to make the first to find. After some programming that afternoon, I decided to take a five minute break and give it another crack. This time luck was on my side and I was able to get the actual coordinates.

I called Faith and let her know that I had "cracked the code" and would be making an attempt after work that day. I showed up on sight and almost ran the quarter mile to the GZ, we had been in that location just a few short weeks before to grab another cache. While heading to the GZ, I saw a tree that looked like a sure thing for a cache hide, but then, some really good previous cachers weren't able to find it. Turns out my instincts were right and it was setup as a decoy. I spent 45 minutes searching the entire area finding many locations for hiding a cache, but all of them empty. I decided to work further with my GPSr to get to the point where I was just one or two feet away. Turns out the coordinates were right on and the cache owner managed to hide the cache right out in the open. As I opened the logbook I saw a wonderfully blank log sheet and was the first one to sign it.