Johnson Road Park - January 24, 2009

I first stumbled across this park near the end of a long day of hunting caches across Collierville on January 11, 2008. I was avoiding caches labeled as mystery, but figured I'd try for Frisbee Flyway by prontopup (GCZZVY), the one cache in the park listed as traditional. It took me awhile to find the entrance to the park since I was approaching from the east. Interestingly, autorouting was no help in finding the entrance (which is on Johnson Road).

After I got parked, I read the description of Frisbee Flyway and the others and realized they were all tied together. Two of the caches had information needed to find the third. Frisbee Flyway was a fairly easy find after outwaiting a frisbee golf player, and I signed the log and the wrote down the information it contained for Johnson Road Park Cache by prontopup (GCZZVV).

The next cache, A View of a Lake by prontopup (GCZZW1), required me to know the statistical weight of a bale of cotton to determine which of three sets of coordinates I needed to go after. I didn't know the answer and I didn't have time to simply check out all three sets, so I decided to call it a day.

As I was heading back to my car, I met MaximusWilliam, his wife, and baby girl. They had just finished hunting the three caches in the park and excitedly told me how great they were. Oh, well... another day.

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I came back a few weeks later to hunt A View of a Lake (after doing research into the statistical weight of a bale of cotton), prior to meeting up with my buddy jbgreer to catch a movie, but ran out of time to do a thorough search.

In the summer I returned here with jbgreer. He found Frisbee Flyway and then we failed to find A View of a Lake after spending a lot of time looking. I don't remember the date and jbgreer chose not to log Frisbee Flyway online.

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Flashforward to this day (January 24, 2009). I needed to drive out to East Memphis to pick up the trophy and finisher's garment I won as a "Road Warrior" in last year's Road Race Series.

Since I was venturing out anyways, I decided that I would take the opportunity to hunt the remaining 5 caches at Johnson Road Park. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and the temperature was around 41 degrees when I arrived (around 1:30pm). Given the time of year, the tree cover was at a minimum which I figured would help my GPSr reception. Also, I had noticed that prontopup had adjusted the coordinates slightly (about 15 feet) for A View of a Lake and I thought that might help me out.

Once parked, I headed straight for my plotted coordinates for A View of a Lake. I searched a lot of familiar areas before giving up. This location is visible to a house located to the northwest and I really did not want to get spotted trampling around back here.

After emerging from the area I was searching, I decided to tackle the three easy caches in the park. It was a short hike to Waterous by utemi04 (GC1F3V0) and I found it quickly. It was a nanocache and clearly visible (and aptly named), so I basically spent most of my time unrolling and rerolling up the tiny log.

Next, I hiked a relatively short distance west to Grate Experience by Mindless Focus (GC1F2HQ). This was basically a hide-a-key under a curbside gutter. I had to wait a bit for some walkers to get out of sight before getting on my knees and reaching under the gutter. The container was neatly labeled, but one of its two strong magnets had come detached. [Note: I see that this cache apparently fell down in the sewer shortly after I put it back.]

The third cache - Not A Pine... by Mindless Focus (GC1F2H3) was back east almost at the other end of the park. It was an interesting hide except for the soaked log.

I felt better now that I had three finds under my belt, so I decided to get back to my original hunt.

I returned to the coordinates for A View of a Lake and breathed a deep sigh. This was my fourth attempt at searching the area, and while I had plenty of time today, I figured that I had already searched this area pretty thoroughly. This time, though, I got lucky. I searched maybe 20 feet to the west of where I had looked before and spotted the cache. The fact that it was uncovered helped too.

I took a picture of the information in the cache as well as writing it down and now had the information necessary to go after the final cache Johnson Road Park Cache by prontopup (GCZZVV). I got to the spot and found the container quickly. It was uncovered and visible as I approached it. I knew from reading the online logs that this container had some offset information inside that I would need to get to the container with the log.

When I opened the container, my heart sank. There was a puzzle inside that had to be solved in order to retrieve the offset data. The puzzle was frustrating (for me) and it didn't help that the temperature was now dropping. I don't know exactly how long it took me to solve the puzzle, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a hour.

[I took a picture of the puzzle, but am evaluating whether or not to post it.]

Anyways, I retrieved the information and photographed it. I then packed everything up and carefully rehid the cache. I then realized that I had left something out of the container and had to get it back out, put the item in, and rehid the cache. By this point, I had forgotten the distance information for the offset. Aaaaarghhhh!!!! I had no desire to try and solve the puzzle again and fortunately I remembered the direction I needed to go so, I walked a bit and hunted around. Once again, I got lucky and found the final container uncovered. I signed the log, briefly looked at the contents of the container, packed it all up and rehid it.

All in all, I spent about two and a half hours in this park and enjoyed all 5 of my finds for the day. I especially enjoyed prontopup's three caches. Although he is a shiftless weasel and one of the main reasons I left GOWT, prontopup also has some of the best caches I have hunted in west Tennessee.