EASTER GEOCACHING

Our Easter was a quiet day. In the morning Mike went off on his motorcycle to pick up a few geocaches in the area while I pursued my morning study. After lunch, we set off to find more geocaches, this time in the car and with the dog. I forgot the camera.

The first geocache was actually at Hellsgate State Park. We found it easily after a hike of about half a mile from the Tammany side. Then we drove to Bennett Lumber and filled two dog food sacks with wood shavings to freshen Nellie’s doghouse. From there we drove to a site across Highway 12 from Chief Timothy State Park where a multi-cache was located. We had the cords to the first cache, which if found, would provide cords to the second cache and the second cache to the third and final cache.

There was a vehicle already at the parking spot and we assumed we would meet a fisherman there, but when we reached the first cache (half a mile from the parking site), we came upon I-Splash and Ogeo, two well-known local geocachers, who had just found the first cache, a little heart-shaped box containing the second set of cords. The cords were evidently off and they had searched a long time to find the little box. They kindly welcomed us to continue the search with them. (Hallie would just love this, I thought to myself in sarcasm.) The cords to the second hide were back toward the parking spot.

Coming to the second site, we all four searched for ten minutes before I-Splash lifted a big rock and found another little heart-shaped box containing the cords to the final site. What Hallie said kept running through my mind – “There you are out there where everyone can see you and you’re looking for something.” Probably the people in all those cars whizzing by didn’t even notice us, I thought hopefully. The three of them punched the third set of cords into their GPS units, and we set off to find the final cache – the mother lode, as it were.

Surprisingly, the last cache, a bright pink plastic box, was easy to find, poorly hidden amongst some rocks. “Here – you open it,” said Mike to Ogeo. “No no, you saw it first; you should do the honors,” Ogeo responded politely. Back and forth they went – and when I think of it now I want to laugh. Finally Ogeo lifted the lid – and to our disgust the box had been contaminated with manure and the logbook stolen. “Oh, Hallie would have loved this,” went the sarcastic inner voice. We cleaned it up the best we could and found fresh paper to log our visit. I-Splash re-hid it, and Ogeo said she would contact the owner of the cache to report the vandalism and recommend maintenance for the box.

Such contamination would be sad in any event, but the man who hid this cache has evidently just moved here and used the hearts theme in honor of his two little girls who like to geocache with him. They were undoubtedly involved. The box was filled with heart-shaped items and trinkets.