Treasure Hunting - Our Second Geocaching Adventure

From Wikipedia:

Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and "treasure," usually toys or trinkets of little value. Today, well over 800,000 geocaches are registered on various websites devoted to the pastime. Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica.^[1]

Our second geocaching adventure started yesterday about 11 a.m.  Our first stop was Flower City Park in Palmyra, a town about 12 miles north of Hannibal.  To find the cache, we had to hike about 1/2 mile down a brand new pathway at one end of the park.  To find the cache, we had to do a bit of "bush whacking," which entails stomping through forest primeval, watching the needle on the GPS system while spitting foxtails out of your mouth and flicking ticks off your legs.  But aha!  In a hollow tree, we found our first cache attempt of the day!

I spotted the first cache, in a hollow locust tree, but I couldn't reach it.  Van to the rescue.  He retrieved the box, but was gentlemanly enough to give me credit.  When I find a cache first, we leave a tiny troll with pink hair in the cache.  When he finds a cache first, we leave a troll with red hair.

This is our first find of one of these "official" cache boxes.

We took this tiny pig and signed the logbook.  Our "caching name" is HomerHeadbangers" -long story involving the Army.

This was our first caching wound.  Remember I said the box was in a locust tree?  Well, locust trees have humongous thorns, and my gallant man got thorned retrieving the box from the tree.

 We left Palmyra and headed for Quincy, Illinois, on the Mississippi River.  Here's just a small bit of the flood.

This "cache" was a bit different.  No box of little treasures here.  The challenge was to find this particular grave and send Henry and Bertha's birth and death dates to a guy's website to claim a find.  We found Bertha and Henry and they were in a fantastically interesting Civil War era cemetery that we want to go back and visit just because it's really cool.

This was also a "cache" that didn't involve a treasure box.  Here you were to find this landmark, the Villa Katrine, and take your photo and send it to the guy's website to claim the find.

Our next challenge was in Quincy's Waverly Park.  We had to be subtle looking for this one, for many "Muggles" (non-cachers) were about.  This cache was a peanut butter jar wrapped in camo duct tape.  This one was all Van's find.  He had to do some heavy duty bush whacking to get it.  We left a red-headed troll and took a kazoo shaped like lips, and of course, signed the logbook.

We took a picnic lunch to the site of our next cache hunt, The Illinois Veterans' Home, a beautiful place in Quincy with deer, buffalo, llamas and many military weapons around the grounds.  We had a hint that the cache was tiny and around the water fountain.  We looked and looked, felt behind, under and every which way we could search that fountain, but could find nothing.  While we were eating I decided to give it one more shot - and there it was, a tiny metal container with only one piece of paper inside as a log.   It  was hanging by a boot string from the back of the steel plate.

There were several caches we bombed out on.  Two were just not there, removed by someone - probably one of you "Muggles"!  But we ended on a high note in the Mount Zion Cemetery just a bit north of Hannibal, on our way home.  This was 100% Van's find.  I was getting too pooped out to stomp through the woods.  He found this in a cedar tree.  He looks happy, eh?

The red-headed troll we left is in the upper left corner of this cache, which was a sandwich-size lock-n-lock.

We had another wonderful day geocaching.  We are seeing things in our own area that we've never seen before, getting exercise we wouldn't be getting, and sharing a hobby that we both enjoy.  We're already planning where to search next.

Van and Vicky - The Homer Headbangers!