I hadn't mentioned it before, but on the last geocache trip, my mother lost her wedding ring.

Ever since her new arthritis drugs have been working, her ring has been loose on her finger. It seems that while my dad and I were looking for the cache, my mom dropped her ring while playing with the girls.

She realized the ring was missing when we got back into the car at the trailhead. We searched everywhere nad my dad walked back to the site where we had been looking to no avail.

The next day, I talked to my mom and I could tell she was quite upset. I found out that I could rent a metal detector for $10 in Pasadena. $10 bucks? It's worth a try. I picked up the detector, listened to the brief instructions, and headed home.

I changed out of work clothes and into some hiking clothes, grabbed Zoe, and drove to the park. Zoe and I hiked in to the spot where Mom had been sitting. Along the way, the metal detector had been going off and I thought the chances of finding the ring were low.

At the spot, I started hunting while Zoe played. I dug up a few metal things like part of a soy sauce packet and a bottle cap. The detector went off over a large rock, next to the boulder Mom had been sitting on. I crouched down and started scraping and looking. It was tough to get my fingers between the rock and boulder. I decided to pull up the rock. As I did, I saw a flash of gold roll into the hole created when I lifted the rock.

It was a gold ring. It was THE gold ring. Success.

We then proceed to look for the elusive Geocache. Still no luck. That box is hidden well.

Posted by michael at May 21, 2002 07:44 AM