Speaking of keeping a streak going at all costs. Last summer I was on a business trip in San Francisco and trying to keep a modest 100 day straight streak going. It wasn't too hard since the weather was nice and I had enough evening time to score a cache or two. On my last day I found a magnetic key cache a few feet from the front door of my hotel. In the earlier logs for the cache I found this epic tale of streak extension. I especially enjoy the line 'I persuaded my wife to wait at the hospital and to let me go after it.'
Brewsterjuice
What an adventure! Seriously!
Most adventures happen when a cache is in an unusual and scenic spot or is extremely clever. This cache is neither, but was still quite the adventure.
You see, I've been on a find streak since the beginning of the year.
There were times it almost ended, but I got lucky. For example, I was in Cabo San Lucas for a week and I’d found the easy caches on other visits. I had to climb a mountain after taking a boat to an inaccessible beach to keep my streak alive.
This week I flew to SF for a few days. I'd already found many caches, but there were still plenty to find.
Shortly after arriving, I started feeling very poorly. I went to an urgent care center. The doctor thought I might have pneumonia and wanted me to go to the hospital emergency room for a blood test and ultrasound. I got there around 4:15 pm. They took a first look at 4:45 and admitted me at 5:20.
By 8:15, they had blood test results that said that I had not had a heart attack but might have pneumonia. They also said I might have an embolism. By 9:40 pm, I had had a CAT scan that confirmed pneumonia. They put me on IV antibiotics and released me at 10:20 pm.
I still hadn’t found a cache for the day. Fortunately, I had my GPS with me. It showed a 1.5/1.5 in a park about 4 blocks away. I persuaded my wife to wait at the hospital and to let me go after it.
The park was undergoing renovations and was fenced off.
There was another cache, a 2/2 some 4 blocks in the opposite direction from the hospital. I persuaded my wife to let me try.
It, too, was fenced off for renovation.
I resigned myself to seeing my streak end. We took a taxi back to the condo where we were staying. It was 11:20 pm. My wife asked if there were any nearby caches. The GPS showed one, about half a mile away. We grabbed a taxi and went to GZ. The hint confirmed the cache was hidden pretty much as I expected from other SF hides. It was a quick grab.
My streak continued. What an adventure. I"ll give this a favorite point because its mere existence makes it one of my favorites.
