How Did We Miss That?

We searched for probably 30 minutes for this cache, in the rain! One of the things in the description totally threw us off, but it was right where the GPSr said it was. There was a neat little free museum near this cache, and we took some time to browse through it. Turns out this waterwheel is from a steamboat called the Henderson, and it was beached right along the coast of our little town!

The Original Stash & No. 100!

Geocaching started back in 2000 when President Clinton declassified the use of GPS technology. Geocaching.com on the page for The Original Stash says,

On May 3, 2000, a five-gallon bucket was placed right at this very spot by Dave Ulmer, containing Delorme Topo USA and 2 CD Roms, a cassette recorder, a "George of the Jungle" VHS tape, a Ross Perot book, 4 $1 bills, a slingshot handle, and a very famous can of beans (now the O.C.B. T.B.!) The coordinates were then listed on the Internet and modern-day Geocaching was born.

We have been wanting to go find this cache ever since, especially since it's right in our backyard, relatively speaking. We decided this would be a great cache to mak our 100th find! It was a bit anticlimactic since it is right next to the road with no hunting involved. There was an ammo can hidden nearby for trading items, but it was gone when we were there. We were bummed to find out they replaced the log and the ammo can the day we were there, so we must have just missed it! Oh well, we will want to take the kids there one day anyway, so I'm sure we'll make our way back over there again. This is definitely one every geocacher should make a point to find!

I have seen the sign that there was a historical marker, but I had never seen exactly where the marker was. Geocaching is great for making you slow down and actually see things in your own backyard!

Another History Cache

This was the second cache we did in a series based on the Native American history of the area. This tree is called the Wedding Tree, and when they would get married they would split the tree. If it survived, they believed their marriage would survive as well. Clearly it did survive and looks pretty peculiar now.


In addition to the tree, there was an old train bridge we had to cross to get to the cache site, and while crossing the bridge we got a look at yet another covered bridge a little way down the river. As an added bonus we got to play with a teeny little lizard that my hubby caught climbing over the cache site.


The kids get a little impatient with caches where there is only a log and nothing to trade, but even they enjoyed this one with the walk over the train bridge and river and the little lizard.

Neat Native American History Cache

This was the first of two caches we did based on the Native American history of the area. It was interesting to learn how the tribe used this particular spot to resuce their women from another raiding tribe. I love learning history and seeing the neat areas that caching takes us!

Who Knew?

This cache ended up being really interesting. It was a fairly easy find (with the hint, that is), but the history was what was the best thing. I guess when they expanded Highway 30, they took it right through a cemetary. They must have had to exume some bodies, I assume, but when they did for some reason they didn't relocate 11 of the graves. They are still on the other side of the highway across from the cemetary.


The ground slopes here, and from the highway you'd never know these people were here. Who knows why they left just the eleven and didn't move them along with the rest, but here they lie almost forgotten. I'm glad I now know they're here, though it's sad that the road just ran right through the cemetary.

Local History

We decided to make a quick stop on our way home to see if we could cross this cache off of our To Find list. It really took us much longer to find than it should have. The hint through me off a bit, but hubby made the find just as we were about to give up. It was nice to stop and read this sign about the local history that I have been driving by for almost two years.