Team Markwell's GPS Adventures
Non omnes vagi perditi sunt
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August 2001

The first new set of dashpoints yielded an urban dashpoint only 10 miles from my office. I hit it at lunch. Not much of a challenge, but hey - it's a dashpoint!

OK - I said I hated night-time caching, but this one showed up and it looked like I could be the first one there. I pleaded with my wife, and we were soon on the road to Oak Brook. The cache itself wasn't hard to find, but the interesting insects were pretty cool. I traded quite a few things, and picked up a hitchhiker from California. Tuna is evidently quite the traveller, and was in town on business at the Drury Lane Oakbrook. As part of the package, they gave him two free tickets to "I Hate Hamlet" at the Theatre, and those were among the original contents of the cache. Drew and I snagged the tickets. Two days later I went back and put an unused Kane County Cougars ticket for the next couple of cachers. Since then, I've adopted this cache as the cache nanny, since Tuna is 1000+ miles away!

Back in the end of July, I received an e-mail from Jeremy Irish, the webmaster for Geocaching.com. He indicated that the world-wide promotion of the Planet of the Apes movie wanted to place a cache in the Chicago area. Jeremy thought of me, and I was very honored to accept. But this could not be the fiasco of Soccer Mom's revenge. It needed some planning. Sarah at Fox was very supportive and liked all my ideas, and she eventually FedEx'd the 50 gallon drum ammo box (really just over 3 feet tall, but it felt like 50 gallons). I received it and hid it in the McKinley Woods FP near Channahon. The only stipulation - I couldn't tell anyone I hid it, at least not for a while. If you're reading this, you know I did, but you have to be pretty determined to get a glimpse into the life of Kelly Markwell and clan - just don't tell anyone else. A good hide, if I do say so myself, and I did go out on Sunday night to place Shaggy and Scooby back in there.

Hey, Honey. Let's try that Row Boat cache, huh? Waddaya say? Drew was an angel, Sam wanted to swim and my arms got REALLY tired. Sherry was a good sport though, and we even saw Team Spyro's leader on the lake - making us look really bad. Nice change of pace from a standard cache hunt.

Drew and I were going out to the Rock Cut Cache (see report below) when we noticed a dashpoint on the way. We exited I-88 in DeKalb, and took Route 38 west. The dashpoint was right along side of the road in the middle of a very green bean field (yawn).

I wanted to try to help Puff along on the Puff and Stinky's Great Race (archived), and he was in the Rock Cut Cache. We had turned back on this one in July, so I had the general idea of where it was. Drew and I headed out on the trail, and I eventually bushwacked my way to what should have been the site. I even went off the trail and back on - to the other side of the trail - all to no avail. I must have actually been sitting on the cache at one point. In retrospect, I know which fallen tree it was under, but I couldn't find ANYTHING there. The next day, a neocacher found it without any problem.

Well, I needed to make an appearance, or everyone would know that I placed the cache. So after dropping off Drew so Sherry could work on her studies, I picked up Sammy and went out to the cache. The coordinates were good and I walked right to it, placing a Donkey Kong figurine and a Pink Spider Monkey (I wanted people to have SOMETHING simeon left over). I also placed Shaggy and Scooby, hoping the APE cache would springboard them into lofty movements. Much to my chagrin, they stayed there for over two weeks!

Friday, August 17, 2001
Markwell's Geocaching Frenzy

• Recently hit (So I know it's still there)
  
• Can be incorporated into a loop that ends in Naperville, so I can pick up the boys at daycare at 16:30
  
• Easy difficulty and hikes

The Adventures of the Madcap Team Markwell Leader in his quest for the Markwell Cache Frenzy 2001. Episode I: Bright and Early After much preparation, and much printing the previous night, I set out very early at 5:50 a.m. to try to keep my schedule of eight caches between 5:45 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. The first stop was the Semper Fi cache in Geneva, Illinois. I parked the car in the wrong area and wandered around quite a bit at first. Soon, however, I found the intended route and made it to the cache with very little trouble. Only comment is that the grass that looks so pleasant in the photo was over my shoulders. Beware the ticks and spiders. I found this cache precisely at 7:15 a.m., took the phonics flash cards (oldest boy starts Kindergarten on August 28) and left the stuffed blue bug. On to the next cache: Dutch Clog!

Episode II: What Was So Hard About That? A short drive through Elgin allowed me the opportunity to hit the First Anniversary of Geocaching Commemorative Cache so prominently featured in the USA Today article of July 27. After triple checking my coordinates against the cache page, I set out with a little trepidation of crossing Route 58 - knowing how busy it can be over by Woodfield Mall. All fears were quickly put to rest as I meandered across with no great urgency or fear for my life. After some quick encounters with three separate deer (three separate times), I found the spot. All I can say is HOW DO YOU PEOPLE FIND THESE PATHS?!?!? At 8:22 a.m., I quickly exchanged the Seat Belt cover with my own addition of a little monkey (a possible escapee from some APE cache?). The trek back was quick, but allowed me to enjoy the scenary a little more than the way in. Still on time, I was ready to move on to the next site: Heron's Crossing.

Episode III: The Wrong Turn I'm on time - I'm hitting all my marks. A short delay of construction on Route 59 at Lake-Cook Road didn't set me too far off of schedule. I arrived at Heron's Crossing, greatly looking forward to the short walk on gravel paths. I ran into many other walkers with their dogs on the path and can see why Mac must love this area. I did come to a crucial junction on the path, and took what I thought to be the right path. I seem to have this great knack of finding the most round-about path that still gets me to my destination, and then finding the quicker path back. I utulized this knack to it's fullest on this cache. I eventually found the cache at 9:45 a.m. and exchanged a stuffed turtle for ONE MILLION DOLLARS! (Pinky in mouth - evil laugh). My return trip was half the distance of my trek out. On to Shine, Little Glow Worm to conquer the other April Family Cache.

Episode IV: Another Wrong Turn This one ate up a lot of time just in the driving aspect. Don't you people around Barrington and Lake Zurick know that roads can in fact be laid out in a nice pattern of north and south? I found the area in which to park, and ventured first down a sled hill (which made it so that I was no closer to the cache, and then had to climb back up the sled hill). I also made a drastically incorrect turn, which made me cross some restricted areas (oops) to make it to the cache. Once I got back on a main path, I looked at my GPS and found much the same story I had a Heron's Crossing - a very round about path to get to the cache, with the parking area much closer on the return trip. The actual cache location was fabulous, and the trading of the glow-in-the-dark items made it even more fun. I took the Brontosaurus and a Glow Ball, and left three chemical glow sticks of various colors and a Glow Frisbee. The return trip also left my hiking boots a muddy mess. It appears that they are getting ready to pave most of the trails in the area for Cross-Country Skiers, but ley've left the paths good and muddy for today. I'm still happy about my time schedule, as I found the cache at 11:00 a.m. - and I'm ready to move onto the next challenge: Moving Target.

for mud

Episode V: Seek and Hide Having just been up to Row, Row, Row Your Boat on Saturday, August 11 (previous Saturday), I thought this would be a piece of cake. I drove around most of the forest preserve and saw the herd of Elk (and wondered if that was the closest entrance - but decided against it. After entering in the correct entrance, I trekked the short hike to the spot hidden by Geomancers - a good spot, indeed. However, I was running short on time to maintain my schedule (I knew that this one would take a little longer with the hide portion). I traded the Chimpanzee Puzzle for Little Nutbrown Hair from Guess How Much I Love You. The new coordinates aren't all that far away from the previous, but should still prove to be quite a challenge. They are N 42° 02.449 W 087° 59.507. I rehid the cache at 12:52 p.m., putting me a little behind schedule, but I'm confident I'll make it up in the later caches. On to Island Refuge.

Episode Va: Aborted Mission This one actually doesn't show up on the frenzy, because I aborted it 5 minutes into the search. I parked at the church and cemetary parking lot and went headlong into the brush, only to get hopelessly mired down in weeds and overgrowth taller than me. If I had kept on this path, I would have never kept on schedule. Abort the mission and tag on Take a Ride at the end.

Episode VI: A Compromise The hardest part of this cache was finding the entrance to the Forest Preserve - literally. This cache is a perfect one to teach my five-year-old how to Geocache, with a prize that he could really appreciate. Having hit this cache, I'm not very impressed with Virtual Caches, as it can be difficult to know that you've actually hit the spot. I was also disappointed that the cache box was strictly outgoing prizes instead of trading material. Oh well - in and out in less than five minutes, I hit this cache at 2:00 p.m., putting me not only back on schedule, but ahead of schedule! On to Burlington Creek.

Episode VII: Redemption When I first started Geocaching in March of 2001, I was very leery of going off trail. Hence, when I tried to find this cache in April, I gave up far too early. With a renewed sense of adventure and six previous caches of the day, no little undergrowth would keep me from this cache. Now a seasoned cacher, I found this far too easily for the work-up I had of this experience in my memory. Nothing against the cache; I just can't believe I didn't find it before. In and out quickly, hitting this cache at 3:00 p.m., leaves me far ahead of schedule, and with plenty of time to hit the next cache: Take a Ride.

Episode VIII: A Grand Finale I got to the park at 3:40 after hitting the Burlington Creek cache, and sweet-talked my way into the Twighlight cost of parking - $4 instead of the normal $7. A very public place, this cache is, and the trick is of course, descretion. I found the correct spot with very little difficulty, thanks mostly to a satellite constellation that gave me less than 14 feet of error. I played with quite a few kids and teenages in the area while descreetly searching in vain for the cache. Once found, I had quite a challenge obtaining the container. Finally, I got the box, and made my exchange at 4:00 p.m. quite a distance away from the actual hiding spot. Exchange included a deck of cards for me, and items too numerous to mention for the box, but that included a Pooh Bear Toy (I think it was Owl) and a Honey Nut Cheerio Bee Pez Dispenser (sans candy - yummm). The challenge then was to replace the cache with literally 7 children under the age of 10, 3 teenagers, and their various parents and grandparents enjoying the grounds. All in all, a fabulous ending to eight caches in an 11 hour period. Thanks to the placers of all of the caches for one of the most memorable days of this summer. I can only hope that there's eight more new caches in the suburbs this time next year.

End of Geocaching Frenzy

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On To September 2001

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