I started caching September 1, 2003 and was quickly hooked. Since I live in western North Carolina, I happened upon the GC.com listing for Tube Torcher (TT) and was intrigued by a 5/5 rated cache. After reading the cache description I knew that I would have to do this cache!

As I approached my 200th find I advertised on the western NC cachers yahoo bulletin board that I needed a partner (or two or three) to do TT. I received 3 responses— Nuwati, (who was ready to go at the drop of the hat) Pur24karet, (who needed a week or two lead-time to arrange things) and Shava4 (who offered his assistance as guide, having already completed TT).

I happened to have the next Monday off and was rearing to go, as was Nuwati. We arranged to meet at the starting coordinates at 10AM Monday morning. It was interesting to know that Nuwati and I had never met and had only exchanged a few e-mails in setting this up. (My wife kept on joking that Nuwati was probably a homicidal maniac; I let her know that the insurance premiums had been paid.) I did read a number of Nuwati's logs and figured if he spent that much time on his logs he probably wasn't a homicidal maniac...

When I arrived at the coordinates Nuwati was waiting, dressed in hiking shorts, boots, and a light jacket. It was in the low 40s, so I was dressed to keep the chill out. We talked for a short while and then decided to get going.

We started toward the first task, and then went back to the vehicles--needed a notepad and pen. Back toward the start. And then back to the vehicles--digital camera. We figured that the reason people take so long on this cache was because they kept forgetting stuff!

The first task let us know that this was not going to be your everyday cache. The two of us (Nuwati, 30-ish and myself, almost 40) were grinning from ear to ear as we completed the first task. We stopped to take photos continually along the way and swapped on and off with who took the lead. (I should point out that I did make a request of Nuwati: If he *was* a homicidal killer could he wait to dispatch me until I had signed the TT logbook? He agreed to wait.)

The first task completed, and with our paperback instruction manual in hand, we strode back to the vehicles knowing we were in for a great few hours! We decided which vehicle to take (both of us had brought 4WDs) and raced off to the next location.

I was doing the driving and Nuwati took navigational control and succeeded in getting us to stop 2. We could tell where we were going from a distance and the grins just got wider and wider!

We were amazed at the amount of preparation required by the owners, and we had already begun to think about offering to help with the maintenance. We both would do the entire cache over again if someone else needed a guide.

The next few stops brought us to even more amazing locales, and we were happier than kids on Christmas. As my log mentions, Nuwati and I continually said, "This is cool!"

It is hard to explain how much fun we were having! And we were constantly impressed by how much work designing the cache must have been.

We finished this cache in less than 3 hours, which is a little on the fast side. But we pushed on pretty mercilessly as we tried to discover more information that would lead us to the final physical cache.

We found ourselves in places that I had never wanted to go (at least before I discovered geocaching) and the grins just kept on getting bigger!

When Nuwati found the final cache we were amazed that it was so large and held so much. It was appropriate that for a larger-than-life cache experience the physical cache itself be very large.

The contents were also way above average, as were the items we left. (How many other logs do you see where someone leaves a hardback copy of Homer's Iliad and a magic 8 ball?)

As I said before, I would do this cache again at the drop of a hat. (Assuming my wife lets me…) It will be a long time before I find another cache experience to top this one!

Nuwati and I will probably cache again in the future, maybe with both families along. I definitely made a friend.

P.S. Nuwati was so happy at completing TT he forgot to kill me!