Team Markwell's GPS Adventures
Non omnes vagi perditi sunt
In chronological order
Back Home
Team Markwell's GPS Adventures
Non omnes vagi perditi sunt
In chronological order
Back Home
December 2002
 Click on Dash Icon to see the MapGD18-BYYN Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 41.2888° W 088.0903° Date Found: 12/1/2002 2:06 pm Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry South of Wilmington, SW of Chicago, Illinois 25.52 miles from home | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint. |
Dashpoint Name: Always Bring a SpareWe were out running errands, and knew the littlest one would be falling asleep, so we opted for the long drive - down I-55 to the Wilmington area. Some of you may remember from my earlier dashes that Wilmington is my “ancestral home” - well, at least my parents graduated high school there. I went through Wilmington the first time on the way to GD07-03968 and almost dashed with Bob!! For GD14-BYVI. In fact, we actually hit GD14-BYVI again on the way to this point.
The dashpoint itself was a driveby on a piece of farmland to the southwest of Wilmington along Indian Trail Road - a gravel road about 2 miles south of the Peotone Blacktop (so named because of it's straight line E/W path between Wilmington and Peotone). I was able to get within 56 meters from the main road. Only other thing of interest is the nearby Will County Forest Preserve that doesn't contain any Geocaches. Yet. 
And the title “Always Bring a Spare?” - I had installed the beta test 2.04 firmware for my GPS76S and this morning loaded a total of 507 waypoints into the GPS (the first time over 500). It crapped out on me - unable to acquire satellites, even though my spare little yellow had no problem. Finally had to unload the software and reload the 2.01 version while back at home. I scored this one with the little yellow - my spare. |  |
| Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD18-BYXY Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 41.8856° W 088.2464° Date Tried: 12/2/2002 12:20 pm Hunters: Kelly West Chicago, IL - On DuPage Airport Property 16.78 miles from home | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint. |
| Dashpoint Name: Airport Snow FailureAs I left my office for lunch, I was met with the current dusting of 2 inches (5cm) of snow that had fallen this morning. This made the driving a little slick, but HEY - it's winter in Chicago. In May of this year, a pilot buddy and I decided to take a little joy flight. We flew from West Chicago to DeKalb, did a few touch-and-go landings and returned before 11 am. The Piper Cherokee we were flying was a nice aircraft, and it was an exhilarating flight (especially with taking the GPS76S along and tracking our movements). The dashpoint lies on the property of the airport from which we departed and returned on our flight in May. The DuPage Airport has a large perimeter of the area sectioned off with 6 foot chain link fence and prominent No Trespassing signs posted about every 100 meters. The closest I got to this dashpoint was by pulling on to the shoulder of a N/S road about 244 meters east of the dashpoint, and about 10 meters east of the fence. Unfortunately, without a special permit from the DuPage Airport (my brother DID work there as an Air Traffic Controller in the early 80s), this point will be unscorable for December. And for those of you playing at home, this point is only 1.37 km from GD10-BYWO - reported in message 3038. |   |
| Greenback Cache #1 by Greenback N 41° 47.969 W 088° 02.970 Difficulty:   Terrain:   Date Tried: 12/11/2002 Hunters: Kelly | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| I went out on my lunch hour to try and find this micro pill-bottle cache. Normally I avoid these, as this really isn't my "thing," but since Greenback is doing a Christmas Charity (donating $10 for every one of his caches found up to $200 ($5 each his and his business matching), I thought I'd do my part and cache on this lovely day. I found a great parking spot about 300 feet from the cache, got there and encountered a bulldozer and its driver clearing away the undergrowth. That hampered my searching ability, as I looked mighty suspicious, so I decided to call it quits for the day. I'll be back to find it again soon, but probably not before the December 15 expiration of the donations. | | |
| Greenback Cache #10 by Greenback N 41° 51.825 W 088° 18.760 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/14/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| So my wife says to me, "I'd like to head up to St. Charles to the Scout Store. You have any Geodashes in the area?" What a nice wife I have. Unforunately, the dash in the area is unreachable: GD18-BYXY on the grounds of the DuPage Airport. But are there caches in the area? You bet. Since I missed Greenback #1 in Downers Grove, I figured I could hit Greenback #10 prior to the December 15 deadline for his donations to charity. A quick parking job along Route 31 at the Fabyan estate and I was on my way across the path. My wife endured a couple of - um - gentlemen? sitting in an SUV smoking, burning incense, and wearing Groucho glasses. My wife then says a wonderful statement for a Saturday noon time: "I think they're smoking a dooby." I found the cache in short order with magnificent coordinates (others could take a lesson from Greenback). The wife was drowsy, the youngest was in the back with the oldest, and they communicated the entire hunt with the FRS. What fun! |  | |
| Bring your Fishin Pole. by Spyderuser N 41° 49.418 W 088° 19.301 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Tried: 12/14/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| A quick lesson in caching on a whim. I pulled into the parking on Route 25 that gave me access to Ya Don’t See One of These Everyday and Dr. Spyro's Challenge. I hiked the trail only to get to the river's edge and discover that I was 356 feet away - roughly the distance across the river to the far shore. Had I done more research, I would have known that. Duh. I'll be back another time. | | |
| Kendall’s Highpoint by Two Campers & Bspeng N 41° 36.840 W 088° 27.350 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/8/2001 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam |
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 Fred Lynn, "Take me out to the ballgame..." |
Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| Revisited cache to pick up travel bug. Since this is only 165 feet from the new Washout cache, I easily walked right up to the cache that I found in December of 2001 and grabbed the bug. |  | |
| Washout by smith N 41° 36.818 W 088° 27.371 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/15/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew |
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 Jocko Flocko |
Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| When my wife and I were childless, we went to the Annoyance Theater in Chicago and saw the production "Someone Left Their Dog in the Dryer." The most memorable line: "Your proximity is mocking me!!!" That seems to be this cache's theme. Only 165 feet from the currently active Kendall’s Highpoint, I was able to simply walk to the cache from the older cache's location. I found it with only a minimum of trouble (a first finder on this cache!) and logged everything in and out. I did place my as of yet unnamed bug in the box. | | |
| Forever Young by Ron Schmars N 41° 38.029 W 088° 24.764 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/15/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew |
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 Kates' Bug |
Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| OK - I got burned on Saturday with a cache on a whim. But this one I had seen before on the maps, and I knew how to get there, having found Young Lyon almost a year ago in January of 2002. We picked the right trail and quickly (almost ran) got to the cache and took care of business (getting a surprise Travel Bug out of the cache). My son had just gotten a lame Rabbit (from Winney the Pooh) at McDonald's, and he eagerly traded the unwrapped toy for a computer game. | |  For Mud |
| Herrick Lake Audio Exchange by Markwell N 41° 49.607 W 088° 08.739 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Placed: 12/19/2002 Hiders: Kelly
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 Mitsuko |
Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
Eighteen months.
On or about June 12, 2001, a ranger of the DuPage County Forest Preserve District found Toy Stash by Bryan Midgley, one of the first Geocaches I ever found (and/or not found). The ranger indicated that this was done without permission and that it would fall under the "litter" policy: No abandoned property for more than (48 hours?). Bryan and I met with a ranger to discuss the matter, but they said they would "take it under advisement" and get back to us. Nothing happens.
Fast forward through the fall and winter. Several "neo-cachers" (inexperienced geocachers) place well meaning caches on DuPage County FPD land. I dutifully contact them (as I said I would to the ranger) and let them know that this is currently off-limits. Most are removed. Some are not.
Near a Catalog giant was placed in the Hidden Lake FPD on 3/24/2002. I contacted Geoff and he indicated "What are they going to do? Arrest me?" OK - you role the dice and take your chances.
Fast forward again to March 31, 2002. Photojon (a long standing cacher in the area) posted the following log to the Catalog Giant Cache:
Long story short: Cache was replaced and the door was opened for negotiations with the FPD. I restarted talking with them and got an agreement that they would take it to their board in June. In August, I got approval and needed to fill out a permit - AFTER I found the locations and talked to the rangers about it. I submitted the Special Permit Request on October 30, and finally heard back from the FPD in early December. They finally placed the box early in the second week of December and I finally placed the first markers on December 19. Eighteen months later - we have an official cache in the preserve. | |
| Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD18-BYYL Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 40.1644° W 088.1483° Date Tried: 12/21/2002 12:15 am Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry Near Champaign, IL 102.26 miles from home | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint. |
| Dashpoint Name: But it's right over there in that fieldI could have gotten it. Really, I could have. The dashpoint was 250 meters into a farm field on a cold December day, and a 150 meter run along a property fence line would not have taken nearly as much time as my wife thought. This was the first dashpoint attempt on our Christmas trip to Tennessee, but I decided to be the nice husband and go ahead and take the loss - even though I could clearly see the point from the spot we stopped: just 250 meters east of the point. (sigh) Score 0 points for Markwell and Trailblazers | |
| I love the smell of hydraulic fluid in the Morning by Silly Dilly Duo N 40° 17.106 W 088° 09.163 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/21/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| With one dashpoint (albeit unscored) under our belts, we hit this first cache of the trip. It was a quick find with Sam and me taking a 200 yard stroll onto the old location of the Air Force Base. The cache was well hidden among the cut tree stumps, and Sam had a blast sitting on this one, no - that one, no - this one. And our prize treasure for Sam for the whole trip was a pink rubber ball with a light-up mechanism that was the hit of the entire vacation. | | |
| R.R. Bridge Cache by Martin67 and Trenton96 N 38° 59.361 W 088° 35.247 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/21/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| A real nice cache, even though I think it's probably illegal. The parking specifically says authorized vehicles only, so we had Sherry and Sam drop Drew and me off by the side of the road and clicked on the FRS radios. My son and I hike over the hill and found the fort mentioned and pictured on the cache page, and eventually the cache. Unfortunately, if I understand the railroad right-of-way laws, placing a cache this close to a railroad (20-30 feet?) is considered trespassing. It was fun, but a little unnerving as well. The cache was basically empty, so we took nothing and left nothing, and just signed the log.By the way, I learned something at the last cache (Hydraulic Fluid). I let Drew know that if he didn't go on the cache hunt, he wouldn't get a toy from the cache - but since Sam did, he got a toy. Drew was more than willing to accompany me on this hike. | | |
| The floodwall by j3ff N 37° 05.224 W 088° 35.607 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/22/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| I very nicely done virtual. This was the first one we've found in downtown Paducah. I remember our first drive out to Tennessee with the GPS, the only cache I could find on the way down was "All Keyed Up" in the Land Between the Lakes. | | |
| Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD18-CAIR Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 36.2108° W 086.8588° Date Found: 12/22/2002 11:17 am Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry Nashville, TN 382.50 miles from home | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint. |
| Dashpoint Name: That retching sound you hear is my sonWell, great. My son is sick on our road trip. Gonna have to hammer down and bypass many of the dashpoints we were originally going to try. Maybe we'll get them on the way back. But wait - a drive-by that is ON THE WAY. Surely that can't cause any problems. So, I decide to take the 155 bypass around Nashville to pick up 18CAIR. Just as we're getting to the exit that would take us the 0.30 miles into the subdivision, my son exclaims, “Dad - I need to pull over!” He takes care of his flu-business, and we leave a hotel towel along the roadside (sorry you environmentalists, but there was no putting THAT thing back in my car). I take the quick trip off the bypass to turn around, and do get the score of the dashpoint, since it took less than 5 minutes and no one had to exit the car. Score 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers | |
| Rocky Mountain High by Markwell N 35° 10.557 W 085° 20.658 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Placed: 12/23/2002 Hiders: Kelly, Sherry and Kay |
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 Rad Man |
Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| I had visions of The Giving Tree being missing. There were many reports of problems. So I prepared for setting up a new cache in the spot I had intended The Giving Tree to go. When I placed it back in July of 2001, my son and I were covered in ticks by the time we got to the spot where we placed the cache, but it was my intention to go further in to place the Giving Tree.So, I went with my mother-in-law to check and found The Giving Tree, but not in its location. We replaced it and got it all set with new coordinates and no significant change in location.But now I had another cache ready to place. Luckily, when we went up the hill to the originally intended location, it was 0.12 miles from The Giving Tree - success! A new cache location. I took the readings and came back with my wife later in the week day. This would be her first cache placement! Woo-hoo!!!The ammo box is hidden well and the coordinates are good. I LIKE this cache. I fussed over the cache name for a little bit, but with my mother-in-law (the John Denver lover) I HAD to name it "Rocky Mountain High." This will be a nice cache to look after. | |
| The Mushroom by Hikenit N 35° 09.656 W 085° 23.222 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/26/2002 Hunters: Kelly, GSFun, Mtn-Man |
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Kates' Bug |
Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| The first of five caches hit with friends that I've known only from e-mails. I had mentioned in the Geocaching Chat Room that I would be heading down to Chattanooga over Christmas with the idea of finding a few caches, and was almost immediately contacted by Mtn-Man (Greg - although for the first half of the day, I kept calling him Mike?) and GPSFun (Brad). We all agreed on caching together, and I also contacted a caching friend of mine from the Signal Mountain area: Hikenit (Shawn). Hikenit had to work the day after Christmas, so we agreed that we would meet around 11:00 on the mountain to start off with the Mushroom Cache, and then hit Tribute to the Cumberland Trail prior to hitting the new Rainbow Falls cache. We started the hike promptly at 11:15 with access to the trail being exactly as Hikenit planned. The walk was invigorating, and the find was fun. Score this one for the trio! | | |
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 Waycrazy's - where we met |
 The First Obstacle Crossed! |
 On the trail |
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 Mushroom Markwell |
 Mushroom GPSFun |
 Mushroom Mtn-Man |
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| The Giving Tree by Markwell N 35° 10.475 W 085° 20.593 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Visted: 12/26/2002 Hunters: GPSFun, Mtn-Man | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| After refinding and replacing my cache, I did some mental calculations on time on the way back from the Mushroom. We were supposed to meet Hikenit after the Tribute to the Cumberland Trail at 2:30. That meant a 60 minute hike out, and roughly 45 minutes back to the meeting spot. We had a half-hour - just enough time for The Giving Tree. It's a whole lot of fun to watch people's expressions when they find this cache. | | |
| Tribute to Cumberland Trail by Markwell N 35° 08.073 W 085° 21.505 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Visited: 12/26/2002 Hunters: GPSFun, Mtn-Man, Hikenit | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| As we approached the bottom of the Rainbow Lake trail to the swinging bridge on the way out to the cache, our pre-arranged FRS radio frequency went off with the phrase “Calling All Geocachers!!!” With a distinctive southern drawl, I knew it was Shawn. It was only 1:10, and he was able to get out of work early enough to meet us. On the way down the path, we had encountered a freshly fallen pine tree blocking the path. It was so fresh that it smelled like a Christmas Tree, and the sap was still running. The needles were lush and green, and this was a LARGE portion of the tree that had fallen. We warned Hikenit of the obstacle, and waited for him at the camping area within sight of the bridge. I swear - he must have RAN down the path, as he was there in about a quarter of the time it had taken us to get down. We all walked together on the path to the cache, and as Hikenit had first placed the cache, and then was first to find the Tribute, we let them find it for the most part. The cache was more exposed than I had originally left it, but it still was a fun find. The cachers went through the loot having a grand time marking up the container and leaving their signature items. We munched a granola bar (thanks GPSFun!) and headed back to the bridge. Somewhere around where I had originally fallen and bruised my tailbone (and my dignity) back in July of 2001, I took my digital camera out of my pocket to snap the photo of the three hikers on the trail. Unbeknownst to me at the time, my magnetic clip-on sunglasses slipped out of my pocket. | | |
| Rainbow Falls/Velcro Pygmies Tribute Cache by fohdude N 35° 07.608 W 085° 21.920 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Tried: 12/26/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Mtn-Man, GPSFun, Hikenit | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
OK. I'll admit it. I know my limits.
 So when the sign says "Steep Slopes, No Access to Falls, Keep on Trail," my first instinct is "Ye-hes - you betcha!" But such was NOT the case with my hiking buddies. Hikenit and Mtn-Man were all for going down the 300 foot gorge (three hundred horizontal feet as well) to try and score the cache. GPSFun was more reluctant, but not as reluctant as I. He hesitated slightly, then went after the intrepid hikers. Meanwhile, I kept my ears pealed to FRS Channel 2, since we had pre-determined that this would be the frequency of choice.There were other hikers on the trail that day as well. A 20-something couple (very cute girl and her obviously lucky boyfriend) who went down a separate direction to the falls as well. Again, I stayed at the top - monitoring the frequencies should it become necessary to call in the rescue squads.After about 30 minutes, I started to get a little worried, so I paged them on the FRS. No answer. Again. No answer. Now I'm worried. Turns out though that the FRS wouldn't go around the corners of the gorge. The climbers eventually came back in sight, and I was elated that they would not be going the full distance tonight. Eeek.
So - no score for any of us, but they get more points than this petrified flat-lander does. Now we just have to get back to the cars.
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 Ice on the Trail |
 The Falls |
 Cachers! |
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| Cypher Point Cache by fohdude N 35° 07.173 W 085° 22.013 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/26/2002 Hunters: Kelly, GPSFun, Mtn-Man, Hikenit |
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Fred Lynn, "Take me out to the ballgame..." |
Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| With only minutes to go before sunset (my promised return time), Hikenit suggested that we go to Cypher Point - since it's just the Signal Mountain's Signal Point. We could then decrypt the clue and score his only new find for the day. We did. We were standing there freezing our tokhes' off when we finally had the inspiration to take a digital shot of the encryption process. Then we could decode in the warmth of our own computer rooms. Success. At the end of the hike, Hikenit presented us each with a very nice poster, inscribed with "I Survived the Cumberland Trail Geocache Hunt 2002." That poster now proudly hangs in my office. Now - about the Fred Lynn Travel Bug: He specifically wanted to hit baseball games and parks. Knowing that there was a great one in Chattanooga, I took a picture of him outside Bellsouth Park, home of the Chattanooga Lookouts, a AA minor league affiliate to the Cincinnati Reds. I also took a picture of him on the large baseballs outside the park. But we didn't actually place him into a cache until we were on the way back to Nashville. He was in my backpack the whole hike of the Cumberland Trail, so I decided to place him in and out of the Cypher Point Cache - in order to show his mileage to Chattanooga. | |  |
| Modern Stonehedge by Yellow Jacket N 35° 02.225 W 085° 35.614 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/28/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| OK - why did I come here? The spot's a house - nothing spectacular - even though it resides in the middle of the interstate division, about 300 yards to the east and to the west. Is this something significant? | | |
| Hap by JoGpS & Family N 35° 26.168 W 086° 00.598 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/28/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| A very nice quick virtual. We didn't even really stop but a short time - long enough to take a picture of the historical marker for future reference. The best part of the cache was its proximity to a Geodash point: 3.28 miles! | | |
| Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD18-CAOP Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 35.3971° W 085.9767° Date Found: 12/28/2002 10:44 am Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry Near Hillsboro, TN 448.39 miles from home | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint. |
| Dashpoint Name: Just pull over here, we'll scoreAh, a nice quick stop along the route to hit a dashpoint. Gotta love those. This dashpoint couldn't have been easier. We were actually already on our way to find a virtual Geocache (GC8214) and marked that one as found at 10:38 on 12/28, and were able to mark within 100 meters on this dashpoint from the road at 10:44. This was just along side a bridge in a gravel pull out. Nothing too remarkable other than being very close to I-24. | |
| Dive Bomber by JoGPS & family N 35° 59.776 W 086° 37.207 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/28/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry |
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Fred Lynn, "Take me out to the ballgame..." |
Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| This is one of those GREAT caches. You know the kind - a nice hike through an open area. Then at the last couple of hundred feet it turns difficult, and you spot the hiding spot. With its HUGE park with a model airplane field, this cache was probably one of the most fun and traditional cache finds of the whole vacation. The wife and kids all participated with our hiking boots on. | | |
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 Sherry and Drew fording a stream |
 The Markwell Men |
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| Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD18-CAKO Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 35.9815° W 086.6593° Date Tried: 12/28/2002 1:40 pm Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry South of Nashville, TN 400.21 miles from home | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint. |
| Dashpoint Name: So close you could taste itJust 30 meters - c'mon! Nope. Wasn't going to happen. We were off the main roads near Nashville, already hunting for Dive Bomber (GC1C2B) and we decided to go for this one. We drove completely around it in a square, and the topo map showed it near the top of a hill. I kept seeing a weather radar (like a small dodecahedron or golf ball) where the GPS pointed. That was promising. As we wound our way around closer and closer, we found a little dirt road that lead almost right to it, ending in a driveway. We pulled in to turn around, and the Mrs. said, “Scored yet?” I looked down: 133 meters. Nope. The farmer was obviously home. It was a matter of just getting out and walking behind his barn. But the wife would not hear of it. So we remained scoreless and went off in search of the nearest Cracker Barrel for lunch. (sigh). | |
| SOLDIER’S TRIBUTE by Feros Family N 36° 40.691 W 087° 26.660 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/28/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
End of daylight - and time for one quick cache...or so I thought. We hopped right off the interstate and drive to the park in Kentucky. Drew and I hopped out and started down the path. We had come to an understanding at I love the smell of hydraulic fluid in the Morning - only those who go out to find the cache get cache toys. Drew was more than willing! We walked the path and found a memorial stone for each war from the French-Indian War on. When we got to about WWII, we left the path, but were deterred by the swamp mentioned by other hunters.We decided to try walking around, but ended up at the same spot. We gently skirted around the edge and found the cache. There was a large rubber snake on the outside of the ammo box that I tried to convince Drew was part of the cache, but that was exactly what he wanted to trade! Shoot. I unfastened it and he traded it.OK - back to the car as the sun was setting at around 16:35. We decided to gas up, eat at McDonald's and move on. I must say - this was the absolute SLOWEST McDonald's to which I have ever gone. It was about 45 minutes after returning to the car from the cache hunt until we were all fed and on our way. 
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| Kickasola Falls Cache by Myotis, Red Start, and Burke Brambler N 37° 12.308 W 088° 29.576 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Tried: 12/29/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| Another cache in close proximity to a dashpoint. We worked long and hard at getting over to the far east side of Illinois from Paducah, and even found a great lake with a beautiful vista. On this cold Sunday morning, no one was out (including the fish) - so the lake was a perfect reflection of the sky above. Drew and I found the cache site, and the intended spot (as told by the encrypted clues) but no cache. Bummer. Good hike and great spot, though. | | |
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 Lake on the way: Smooth as Glass |
 Same lake, different view |
 The Falls |
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| Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD18-BYUZ Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 37.2106° W 088.4623° Date Tried: 12/29/2002 8:37 am Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry Shawnee National Forest, near Paducah on the Ohio River 306.52 miles from home | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint. |
| Dashpoint Name: A dream that was dashedThis was to be the dashpoint that was to make this trip grand. A dashpoint in a National Forest. But it was not to be. I had convinced the Mrs that even though the dashpoint was 0.5 miles from any road, in looking at the topo map it was flat, and in looking at the satellite pics, it was lightly forested land near the Ohio River. Unfortunately, the road that left the main road (see mapquest maps for clarification) was a forest road, which was gated complete with "no motorized vehicles" signs. We were supposed to take that road a half-mile in to make my trek only a half-mile. That made for a mile trek in, which was not to my wife's liking, considering we had just spent an hour at the nearby Kickasola Falls Cache (GC34C8) and turned up empty handed (cache was gone). So, no points for Team Markwell or Trailblazers However, on the way to the dashpoint, we were driving around a lake that had many trailers and cabins along the shore. The lake was like glass on a Sunday morning early in the winter. Not even a ripple from a fish. The two uploaded pics for this point showing the lake are great candidates for front page news. Too bad the point wasn't found, but as we've all said, Getting There is All the Fun! | |
Mirrored Lake I
Mirrored Lake II
Gated Fence - no admittance| Slap Shot by Miatamatt N 37° 53.446 W 088° 54.873 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Tried: 12/29/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| Having found Kenny Lazzeri field cache back in June of 2002, we knew this park well, but it certainly looks different 6˝ months later. The fresh snowfall of the storm that went through Chicago while we were in Tennessee blanketed the area with fresh white. I'm pretty sure I found the hiding spot, but there was no micro cache to be found. Bummer. The good news is that we dressed for the weather and played out in the snow on the playground - a great chance for snowball fights and romping around. | |  |
| The Medicinal Cache by milosmycat & xd_1999 N 37° 54.024 W 088° 55.969 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/29/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| Found this one pretty quickly on the way out of town. I almost gave up as I was getting stuck pretty hard by the needles, but my wife's suggestion of looking uvture (ROT13 encrypted spoiler) paid off with success. Took nothing, left nothing, signed the log book. | | |
| Rest Cache by Myotis N 38° 01.805 W 088° 55.390 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/29/2002 Hunters: Kelly |
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BugBait (no official picture) |
Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache. |
| The last cache on the list for the trip. Just a couple miles north of West Frankfort is a rest stop cache. I decided to go for it since I never found a suitable bathroom at the last stop. The cache was pretty much where I expected it to be, but a bonus: the BugBait Travel Bug was there. Ironic that I found it, and it had just been placed there by Fallenfaery a couple days prior on her way down to Florida. That means that she left the interstate and turned around to hit this northbound cache and placed the bug there. I'll see what kind of fun we can have before we place the bug in another spot. | | |
| Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD18-BYVY Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 38.8355° W 088.3279° Date Found: 12/29/2002 2:18 pm Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry Ingraham, Illinois - southeast of Effingham 194.07 miles from home | Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint. |
| Dashpoint Name: The little white church in the little townAll right - I've been skunked on 3 of 5 dash hunts this trip. No way am I passing up a drive-by. Even if it means that we'll be going some 40 miles out of our way. With Mrs and the youngest asleep, I venture off the highway. 36 crow-miles to go. I hammer down on the country road that takes us closest. 30 minutes into the trip the wife stirs. “Where are we?” “Pretty much in the middle of nowhere on the way to our last dashpoint for the trip. Want to stop at the Dairy Queen?” Whew.We pulled up to the little town of Ingraham, Illinois without much fanfare. It's a small farming community, but the fields outside of town have the pumps that resemble birds pecking at the ground. I presume they're pulling up water, but there are an awful lot of them, and they've obviously been there for quite some time if the weathering is any indication. The dashpoint itself lies behind the parking lot of the Ingraham Baptist Church - established 1894 as a little one-room church.We marked the spot 66 meters away and started to drive back out of town to the bustling metropolis of Effingham to pick up the interstate highway home, but one other thing caught our eye: At one of the larger homes on the way out of town, two domestic turkeys were wandering the driveway. We looked and looked at them (they were REALLY good sized birds), and their look seemed to state: "Well that's one MORE holiday season we've missed." (no llamas this trip - as hard as we tried). | |
Little White Church
Turkeys!|
jombbl contacting you from Geocaching.com
Date: 12/30/2002 11:49:47 AM User jombbl has contacted you with the following message: Hello, mtn-man, gpsfun, Hikenit, and Markwell - Blair and I logged a visit to the Tribute to Cumberland Trail cache on December 28th, after your visit to the cache on December 26th. We found a pair of sunglasses on the trail, somewhere after we crossed the suspension bridge and started up the hill, and before we got to the small cascade flowing down to the creek. The glasses were clean and on top of the leaves and obviously recently lost. They have a dark pewter color frame, and small rectangular dark grey lenses. The frame is only the front bridge piece, without temples, and looks to be a magnetic insert for prescription glasses (or ???). If the sunglasses belong to you or one of your group, or if you know anyone else (of the many hikers) who was on that trail recently, you can contact us by e-mail...Thanks. happy caching - jombbl |
| This Month | Cumulative | ||
| Tried Caches | 19 | 185 | |
| Found Caches | 14 | 141 | Not counting the return to Kendall's Highpoint for a Travel Bug or Revisits to my own caches |
| Dashes | 8 | 74 | |
| Placed Caches | 2 | 22 | |
| Hitchhikers Released | 2 | 10 | |
| Hitchhikers Transported | 4 | 9 |
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Last Updated:
Saturday, January 11, 2002 16:15 CST
March 31, 2002 by photojon