Caching in Germantown, TN - 9/26/2009

This was the first weekend in a long while without rain, so I wanted to go on a nice caching trip. Saturday was a bit overcast in the morning so I decided to drive to the WalMart in Cordova and pick up a few of life's necessities and see how the day played out. Before stopping in, I picked up two caches: Ballerina by Berlan Eligab (GC1KCTH) and Just Slick and Tired by mgrommet (GC1W0XM). Both were park and grabs - the first one was behind Ballet Memphis and the second was behind WalMart. Easy grabs, but the WalMart one needed some stealth.

After leaving WalMart, I headed to Shelby Farms and hunted a cache near the dog park: Tour de Wolf by Berlan Eligab (GC1DW55). The cache was in a white container inside a dirty ziplock bag and I thought it was trash at first. I hid it a little better before leaving.

At this point, 11am, it was time to eat so I drove south a bit to Chik-Fil-A. There were a couple of caches near there, but I saved them for later. I decided instead to drive to Cameron Brown Park in Germantown. This is a really nice park with lots of activity going on. I parked on the west side of the park and hunted West Side of Cameron Brown by prontopup (GC1AE27) first. Once I got into the woods, it was a short hike, but the terrain was tough in spots. Not muddy, though, as I thought it would be. The cache was in a nice ammo can tucked in a good spot.

After emerging from the woods, I decided to walk the roughly half a mile to the next cache: East Side of Bob Hailey Complex by Prontopup (GC1AE25).

I found a new baseball just inside the entrance to the woods and tossed it out towards the nearest ball field. The cache was in another slightly rough terrain area, but easy to get to. I don't think I'd recommend the container as it held a little moisture. After leaving the woods and on the way back to the car, I decided to hike on the boardwalk.

It came out at a football field where two kids teams were battling it out. They had a concession stand, so I bought a drink and watched the game for a few minutes.

One notable thing about the previous two caches: The coords were dead on, but my GPSr insisted on leading me in a circular route (counter-clockwise) to both caches. Both caches were also fairly close to the Wolf River.

After driving a short distance east to Grove Park, I headed out to find Grove Park by ProntoPup (GC1BJDZ). Although the paved path takes you pretty close to the cache, I heeded the advice on the cache page and paid attention to all possible entrances to the woods.

This is the correct path into the woods. It is approximately 0.13 miles east of the cache. It winds up and down and around, taking you next to the Wolf River before leaving you just downhill from the cache location.

This area is very thorny for those who do not find the path. The cache had mosquito wipes, which I could have used, but I left them and just signed the log.

After coming out of the woods, I took a short break and sat on a bench facing the water.

My last stop of the day was a nearby Dairy Queen for a Blizzard, but on the way I stopped and found Germantown Greenway #2 by prontopup (GC1AHBX). It was the only spot on the trip where I had to be careful of the damp ground.

I had a great day. It was a little unusual for me to spend so much time relaxing and taking in the sights, though. Part of the reason was that I didn't have my route mapped out so I just hunted whatever I felt like. Another reason was that many of the area caches are puzzle caches and I forgot to bring my list of solved puzzles with me.