Up the Down Staircase: GC13Z5Z
Ugh, this was one of the most frustrating caches I have had found. I had to run out to Sears to pick up a weight bench that I had ordered and I decided I would bring my GPS along with so I could do some caching on the way home. I noticed that there was this cache right in the parking lot of the mall so I drove on over and went to pick it up. At the time that I went looking for it, it was listed as a 2 star difficulty, it has since been upped to a 3 star which is a good thing because this definitely wasn’t a 2 star difficulty.
I looked and looked and just wasn’t having any luck. As the name would suggest you are looking around a staircase, so there are plenty of little nooks and crannies to look in. I scoured the area and then, as I was walking up the stairs I noticed something. Relieved that I had finally located it I take the cache and open it up… DAMMIT!! it’s a decoy cache, the first one of those I had ever found.
I had been looking for at least a half hour at this point and decided to call my brother, unfortunately he missed my call. I spent another ten minutes or so looking and then finally gave up and headed to Hey, there’s a park down here!.
When I got to Hey, there’s a park down here! I pulled out my Treo to read the details of the cache and noticed that I had my message from my brother. I called him back and he gave me another hint to find this one. I went and quickly grabbed “Hey, there’s a park down here!” and then turned around and headed back to “Up the Down Staircase”. Armed with my brothers hint I resumed my search. After about twenty minutes I was utterly frustrated. As a two star hide this shouldn’t have been so damn hard. I finally called my brother and asked him for a very blunt “hint” he pretty much told me where it was and I found the damn thing.
I was very happy to finally find it and just move on. This was frustrating.