Team Markwell's GPS Adventures
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May 2001

I had seen enough caches to know that I wanted to place one. I thought long and hard, and I knew that I wanted it to be a multi-leg stash, so I found three area landmarks that have something in common (two of which I had intimate knowledge). Once I took the readings, it really became a challenge to figure out how to implement the clues, and the last stage was very difficult for placement because of how public it was. I ended up with a microcache in a 35mm film canister.

I didn't say anything to my wife, but in the interim time between our hunts at Saw Wee Kee and Accelerator, I found a tick crawling on the floor of our house. I was not being careful enough. Accellerator confirmed my insectual stupidity. We ventured off on a Saturday afternoon to find a fairly simple Geocache. The Terra Server satellite photo was extremely helpful with this one, as there's a large body of water nearby. We found the cache and did our obligatory trades and on the way back I swatted at a bug crawling on my neck. When the bug didn't fly away, I realized it was an unembedded tick. Flicked it off, and flicked off two from my son's shirt. Eeeew! When we got back to the car (I was completely freaked by now). I made my son take off his shirt at the parking area while I checked him over completely and shook out his shirt and hat. Next trip: Deep Woods Insect Spray.

Drew at the Lake with Fermilab in the distance

We were a little better prepared insectually for this cache. We both had long sleeve shirts on and bandanas, along with our Deep Woods Cutter's insect spray. No ticks would get us today. A great cache hunt: beautiful grove, great little walk along a rippling stream and a final leg of the cache hunt that made it completely worthy of a level 3 hunt. I was also able to snap one of my favorite Geocaching pictures to date. I have this as my desktop wallpaper.

I decided to do a real out-in-the-woods Geocache. I got all the materials together, and went out in a local park. I hiked with my son Drew for nearly an hour looking for just the right spot. After I found it, I stumbled across a footpath very nearby. Turns out that the cache placement was only about 500 feet from the car and about 20 feet off the main trail. Needless to say, the cache was plundered within two weeks. I have since used this park ( but a better location) for a leg of a multi-cache, which is why the coordinates are classified.

Our first full rain Geocache. I really wanted to take my mom out on one, but it started to rainas we got in the parking lot. It wasn't realloy a problem since the area had mostly tree cover, but it became evident that we were on the wrong path. We tried on Memorial Day Monday again, but with the same results - wrong path, only further down the road (surely it turns the right way eventually). Finally came back on next Saturday only to find a totally separate path (with the help of the nature center). Once we did that path, the cache was not all that difficult. Although in hearing from cachers later in the summer, I'm glad we went when we did. The minimal growth that we tromped through evidently sprouted quite a bit during the summer. The last 500 feet are off trail, which is not a problem when the grass is only ankle high. Shoulder high grass for 500 feet is a little intimidating. Also of note, this was the most inspirational cache container I have ever seen. PVC tubing sealed with an expandable O-ring. Very clever. My son became quite the photographer as well.

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Last Updated: Thursday, February 21, 2002 15:00 CST