LOCAL CACHING EXCURSION

When is a birdhouse not a birdhouse?

We went geocaching again yesterday – this time locally. We left the agricultural country of the Camas Prairie on the south of the Clearwater River to cross to the north side at Orofino and head easterly into the woods of the Grangemont region – logging territory. We decided to go in spite of road construction on the Grangemont Road. Indeed we were stopped briefly twice in the 14 miles we traveled.

Logging road

We left the pick-up at Band Mill Loop Road, and I climbed on the 4-wheeler behind Mike. You know, geocaching isn't as simple as driving right to the spot indicated by the coordinates. You have to find the route as well as the cache, and there's a lot of "you can't get there from here" in geocaching. We were traveling logging roads, for the most part, and those can come to an abrupt end. Once or twice I got off and walked. Also, sometimes the maps and the GPS don't quite correspond as roads change and are re-named. Some roads are just trails and disappear for one reason or another.

Woops! Road ends! KW walks.

MW maneuvers roadless area.

"My mother just did not raise me for this kind of life," I found myself thinking as I bounced along behind Mike. But of course, that's not true. Both my mother and dad had some sense of adventure and a love of natural beauty, the woods, wildlife, and experience. Growing up, I went with them to explore, to pick huckleberries, to stay at a sister's cabin in the woods. I mean – when you live in Orofino, the wilderness is at your door – front or back. But I never quite knew what to do with myself on these outings. Just being there wasn't enough for me. It's not so much a matter of missing creature comforts as missing what I love to do. And I'm still that way, I realized, but this time instead of feeling guilty I let myself off the hook. It's just not my thing and that's okay. But what I do understand is that people should support one another's interests. So, I do my best to participate in these excursions and keep an open mind. Still, the little girl in me says, "Can I sew now? Can I go to Jo-Ann's?" I thought of the quilt shop in Orofino and would have suggested stopping there had it not been for the trailer.

Circle of Cedars

"The cache is just two-tenths of a mile from here," Mike shouted back to me. "We just have to find the trail."

"Well, the trail isn't here," I yelled back. "This is steep and brushy terrain – no trail!"

"We have to get to the other side then," Mike conceded. I sorta wonder – if I hadn't been there, would he have tried? It's happened a time or two in less extreme circumstances.

So off we went again to locate another logging road off the main graveled route. This is the right route and eventually we came to the "circle of cedars" where the cache was easily found. Mike said this was geocaching at its finest – a real adventure with a "quality cache" (a larger container) as the find. KW