Frozen Dozen 2013: Day One

Over the past few years, a cachepedition, normally led by bitbrain and Tiger130, is held on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend in January.  This cacher has missed out on previous cachepedition for one reason or another.  This year, I finally attended and had a great time.  I will post on this blog the experiences of each day as separate posts, so please stayed tuned.

Day One, was my travel day.  Departed Dresden about 45 minutes after my daughter went to school.  My first stop was not actually for a cache but at Outpost Armory located on Exit 89 on I-24.  I stopped in to see the store where the Barrett sniper rifles are sold, even through, I will never purchase or own the rifle.  I did browse for .223 and 9mm ammo, which were sold out....like many other places.  Left the store and hit a few caches on the way and in Chattanooga.  The only cache that required any real hiking was MTCBSA, ER Dist. Adventures of Scouting #5, a cache on the outskirts of Arnold Air Force Base in Manchester, TN.  I picked up some park and grabs along the way.  On top of Monteagle, I found I-24 EB Motel & Swag-Monteagle.  Got back onto I-24 and got off at South Pittsburg, TN and headed into Alabama to grab some caches.  My favorite on that swing was Teary-Eyed Trail.  I wanted to grab some caches in Alabama since I only had one find in that entire state and that was in 2006.  After a stop at Wal-Mart at Kimball, TN, I headed in the direction of Chattanooga.  I intended to stop at Nickajack Lake rest stop, but was closed.  As I traveled closer to Chattanooga, I ran up on another rest stop, that I did not bookmark for caches.  The day prior, I upgraded to a smartphone and using C Geo application, I saw there were two caches nearby.  Not completely understanding how the phone application really works, I brought up the cache page and entered the coordinates by hand to my Garmin 62s and found the caches:  Welcome Expansion and Ya All Come Back, you hear!.  Took a break and waited around, grabbed a couple of Munzee's, an application on a smartphone.

I arrived near the event in Chattanooga about an hour or so early.  I walked around town and did find one cache in the dark without using any lights, Toujours Pret #1.

Settled in at the event and chatted with many local cachers.  After the event, myself and peanutpapa drove to the cabin on the Georgia side of Lookout Mountain.