UTAG Magazine, Issue 9, "Yes, Officer, ..."

Both Damenace and Gazelem often work the graveyard shift and consequently do their caching in the early morning hours while the rest of us are sleeping. Here are some of their stories...

Damenace #1:
One evening when returning home from a Geocaching event in Utah County with my daughter and my caching friend, Roadstr, I decided to stop at a TB Hotel to drop of some bugs. This was a rather popular cache and had been frequented by many cachers. The original cache location was being improved by the city so the cache needed to be moved. The new location was great and served the purpose well until the state decided to develop the area to the West. The new building going in was to be the future office of the Highway Patrol. I just knew there was going to be some interesting stories result from this cache location.

When I arrived at the cache site I parked on the side of the road. We all got out of the car and traipsed into the bushes in search of the elusive ammo can. The cache was located with ease. Bugs where dropped off, the log was signed and the cache returned to its proper location. As the three of us walked out of the bushes, I looked toward my car only to find a highway patrol car parked behind me. As you can imagine, my heart stopped and I lost my breath trying to figure out how I was going to explain this one. What would you do if you saw two full-grown men and a little five year old girl walking out from the bushes?? I really had all these thoughts running through my head: how do I explain that this little girl was my daughter and that we where carrying around GPS units because we were geocaching?

As we approached the car, the officer's only question was “Is this your car?”. I answered “Yes”, and then proceeded to ask him if there was a problem. He stated that he was merely checking on the car since it was parked on the side of the road. After checking to make sure that everything was OK, he left with no further questions.

It wasn't until that moment that I started to breathe again, what a relief!!.

Gazelem:
Oh boy! Two new caches in the park just down the street from my house. They are just calling for FTFs. So, shortly after work (I work graveyards), I sport my warm coat for the winter weather and my GPSr and head home with a minor detour in mind.

The first one I go for is Plane Jane? (GCRJJ3-Archived). The GPS takes me to exactly where I thought it would. It's located in a set of trees just behind the fire station next the Centennial Park in Riverton. Alas, this is a micro with three spruce trees in the area. Which tree could it be?

So the search commences. After several minutes of becoming too intimate with a spruce, I notice a truck pulling into the fire station. I also notice that he noticed me because he had slowed to a near stand-still and was at an angle so he could look at me. Dang! I have been spotted.

Being spotted always makes me nervous which makes finding a micro even harder. I try for a few more minutes, and then head on over to the other possible FTF, Littering the Park (GCRJJZ-Archived). After a few minutes there, the cache "pines" out to me, and I am able to snag the FTF.

But I can't be satisfied with just one, so I head on back to Plane Jane and restart my search. I have settled on the tree closest to the fire station, and I continue my groping of the tree looking for that nasty terrible micro.

Then out of the corner of my eye, I spy the automobile of the Salt Lake County Sheriff. And he, too, is driving slow as he passes me. So the nervousness sets in again.

I decide to continue my search in hopes of not increasing the officers suspicion. He eventually parks his car behing my van. He asks me, "Can I help you there?"

I respond with a smile on my face, "Yes, you can help me find this geocache."

"Oh, is that what you are doing? We got a call from someone who thought that you might be cutting this tree down."

Unfortunately, I got so nervous, that I had to abandon the FTF to another cacher, because I couldn't concentrate on the cache. Alas, I was never able to log this cache, because I never made it back.

Damenace Says:
When I first started working graveyard shifts, I was working from 7:00 in the evening until 3:30 in the morning. What better time than 3:30am to do cache maintenance and place new caches without any muggles being around? Caching at this time of the morning doesn’t happen with out you being questioned about your intent by the local authorities.
Getting pulled over and questioned in the wee hours of the morning became so routine that I actually started to have fun toying around with the police. This was usually just done by actually pulling over and stopping before the officer has a chance to turn around and turn his lights on.

I got into my car and with all intentions of doing nothing out of the ordinary I turned right. Of course this was the opposite direction he was facing. Without turning on any of his lights, he proceeded to turn around to come get me. Before he had completed turning the car around I pulled over next to Crown Burger waiting for him. I just love pulling over waiting for them to catch up! He finally caught up to me and proceeded to ask me what I was doing at the park at 3:30 in the morning. Well, I gave the whole story about Geocaching, showed him the GPS and explained what I was doing there. Since I was doing nothing wrong, the officer just ran my information and let me go.



The Official E-Zine of the Utah Association of Geocachers Issue 9 -- Sept 2006 Table of Contents Cover Page The World of Geocoins Confessions of an Addict "Yes, Officer, ..." An Interview with Baad Daata Regular Features Chuckles Credits UTAG Home Back Issues of the UTAG Magazine		"Yes, Officer, ..." Contributors: Damenace, Gazelem Compilation and Introduction by SirGerald If you've done much cache hunting, particularly in the wee hours of the morning, then you've more than likely had an opportunity (or two) to discuss geocaching with a member of law enforcement. This semi-regular feature will allow us to share our experiences with all other geocachers in Utah. Perhaps we'll all learn what we should, or shouldn't, do when it's our turn to say, "Yes, Officer, ...". Both Damenace and Gazelem often work the graveyard shift and consequently do their caching in the early morning hours while the rest of us are sleeping. Here are some of their stories... Damenace #1: One evening when returning home from a Geocaching event in Utah County with my daughter and my caching friend, Roadstr, I decided to stop at a TB Hotel to drop of some bugs. This was a rather popular cache and had been frequented by many cachers. The original cache location was being improved by the city so the cache needed to be moved. The new location was great and served the purpose well until the state decided to develop the area to the West. The new building going in was to be the future office of the Highway Patrol. I just knew there was going to be some interesting stories result from this cache location. When I arrived at the cache site I parked on the side of the road. We all got out of the car and traipsed into the bushes in search of the elusive ammo can. The cache was located with ease. Bugs where dropped off, the log was signed and the cache returned to its proper location. As the three of us walked out of the bushes, I looked toward my car only to find a highway patrol car parked behind me. As you can imagine, my heart stopped and I lost my breath trying to figure out how I was going to explain this one. What would you do if you saw two full-grown men and a little five year old girl walking out from the bushes?? I really had all these thoughts running through my head: how do I explain that this little girl was my daughter and that we where carrying around GPS units because we were geocaching? As we approached the car, the officer's only question was “Is this your car?”. I answered “Yes”, and then proceeded to ask him if there was a problem. He stated that he was merely checking on the car since it was parked on the side of the road. After checking to make sure that everything was OK, he left with no further questions. It wasn't until that moment that I started to breathe again, what a relief!!. Gazelem: Oh boy! Two new caches in the park just down the street from my house. They are just calling for FTFs. So, shortly after work (I work graveyards), I sport my warm coat for the winter weather and my GPSr and head home with a minor detour in mind. The first one I go for is Plane Jane? (GCRJJ3-Archived). The GPS takes me to exactly where I thought it would. It's located in a set of trees just behind the fire station next the Centennial Park in Riverton. Alas, this is a micro with three spruce trees in the area. Which tree could it be? So the search commences. After several minutes of becoming too intimate with a spruce, I notice a truck pulling into the fire station. I also notice that he noticed me because he had slowed to a near stand-still and was at an angle so he could look at me. Dang! I have been spotted. Being spotted always makes me nervous which makes finding a micro even harder. I try for a few more minutes, and then head on over to the other possible FTF, Littering the Park (GCRJJZ-Archived). After a few minutes there, the cache "pines" out to me, and I am able to snag the FTF. But I can't be satisfied with just one, so I head on back to Plane Jane and restart my search. I have settled on the tree closest to the fire station, and I continue my groping of the tree looking for that nasty terrible micro. Then out of the corner of my eye, I spy the automobile of the Salt Lake County Sheriff. And he, too, is driving slow as he passes me. So the nervousness sets in again. I decide to continue my search in hopes of not increasing the officers suspicion. He eventually parks his car behing my van. He asks me, "Can I help you there?" I respond with a smile on my face, "Yes, you can help me find this geocache." "Oh, is that what you are doing? We got a call from someone who thought that you might be cutting this tree down." "Nope. Just geocaching." Unfortunately, I got so nervous, that I had to abandon the FTF to another cacher, because I couldn't concentrate on the cache. Alas, I was never able to log this cache, because I never made it back. Damenace Says: When I first started working graveyard shifts, I was working from 7:00 in the evening until 3:30 in the morning. What better time than 3:30am to do cache maintenance and place new caches without any muggles being around? Caching at this time of the morning doesn’t happen with out you being questioned about your intent by the local authorities. Getting pulled over and questioned in the wee hours of the morning became so routine that I actually started to have fun toying around with the police. This was usually just done by actually pulling over and stopping before the officer has a chance to turn around and turn his lights on. Damenace #2: One morning I decided I was going to stop at Liberty Park when I got off work to go and find some micro that was placed by LyonDen_Ut. It's scary enough being in Liberty Park at that time in the morning. Once I arrived at the park, I entered the parking area with no problem. One would think that if you are not supposed to be there then they would close the gate. Right?? I parked my car in one of the first few stalls, grabbed my flashlight and was off to find the cache. I found it with little to no problem and returned to the car. For those who aren’t familiar Liberty Park, it is all one-way driving around the park. So if you park in the first few stalls then you still have to drive all the way around the park just to get out. Well, I got in my car and started driving towards the exit. However, as I was driving, I saw that there was a car parked on the left hand side of the road parallel to the sidewalk. I thought to myself, "Well this is odd. Another crazy person like me in Liberty Park?" Well he wasn’t nearly as crazy as that. Indeed it was a police officer just waiting for me with all his lights off. As I drive by him, I noticed his car starting to move. He never turned his headlights or his bubblegum machine lights on. Well, since I knew what I was in for, I decided to beat him to the punch and just pulled over. I think I caught him off guard while he was calling me in becauze he still hadn’t turned on any lights. He pulled up behind me and then turned on all his lights. I turned my car off and rolled down my window waiting for his approach. He greeted me at the window and went on to tell me that he had stopped at my car when he first entered the park to see what it was doing there. Since there was no one in the car he basically waited for me to leave the park. I told him what I was doing there, showed him my GPS, some signature items, a nano container and gave him a brief explanation of what Geocaching is. The coast was clear. He told me that the park closes at 11:00pm and insisted I leave and "have a great morning". Damenace #3: At 3:30 in the morning I was on my way to do maintenance on one of my caches. As I made a right-hand turn off of 3200 West I noticed the only other set of headlights on the road. They where some distance away from me and I knew that they where up near the Bangerter Highway, so I made my left-hand turn into the park. I noticed that the car was still headed in my direction, so to avoid being seen, I hopped out of my car and jogged over to the location of the cache. As I am disguised by the tree, I watched the car drive by. To my surprise it was a cop car. The officer had seen my headlights pull into the park so I guessed that he continued to drive down the road to see what my intent was. Since I was already at the cache location I continued to replace the log in the cache. I was totally surprised that he never once turned on his spot lights to see what was going on. While I was standing at the tree I had noticed that the car that he was driving had parked on the side of the road facing west. I proceeded to my car knowing what I was in for. Once I got into my car I purposely left the door open so the dome light would stay on for a few more seconds. I wanted the officer to kind of see what was going on, which of course was nothing. I got into my car and with all intentions of doing nothing out of the ordinary I turned right. Of course this was the opposite direction he was facing. Without turning on any of his lights, he proceeded to turn around to come get me. Before he had completed turning the car around I pulled over next to Crown Burger waiting for him. I just love pulling over waiting for them to catch up! He finally caught up to me and proceeded to ask me what I was doing at the park at 3:30 in the morning. Well, I gave the whole story about Geocaching, showed him the GPS and explained what I was doing there. Since I was doing nothing wrong, the officer just ran my information and let me go. If you have an interesting story to tell about your unplanned encounter with local authorities, please send it to SirGerald for use in this column in an upcoming issue. Send it by email or PM via Geocaching.com or the UTAG Forums.
		UTAG Magazine Feedback: All questions, comments, cash awards, ideas, suggestions, salary increases, constructive criticisms, perks, and bonuses pertaining to or resulting from reading this issue of the UTAG Magazine should be promptly sent to SirGerald.