Return to Searcy - 11/15/2009

I decided to make one more trip to Searcy and pick up a bunch of caches I missed last week. I arrived early on Sunday morning to find Searcy enveloped in fog! I had three objectives in mind:

1) cache a 3-mile loop around the airport,

2) pick up some straggler caches in downtown, and

3) cache a series south of Searcy called "The Loop".

I accomplished all three objectives in order, stopping for lunch after item 2.

This trip was much different than my last one. No long hikes around town! I needed to find at least 53 caches and I would not rest until my goal was accomplished. No rest, except for lunch!

[ Discovered somewhere along the way... ]

My 2900th find was The Loop-Ki Ke Acres by woodwalker (GC1XP47). After making this find around 3:30pm, it was time to head home. I picked up three more caches (to make a total of 56) after I left Searcy, in part, to make sure I had reached my milestone.

My last find was in Parkin - Parkin ParkCache by Arkansas State Parks (GC1D41T). The container had recently been replaced and the area was swarming with mosquitoes. The only ones I had run across all day.

Caching in Searcy, AR - 11/7-8, 2009

Wow! A whole week without rain. I had to do a two-day cache run. I was looking forward to another trip to Searcy and when I saw a lunchtime event posted for Saturday, I made up my plans to go.

I got up early on Saturday and made a bee-line for Searcy, with no stops along the way (ok, maybe one). Upon my arrival, I was subjected to cache overload. That happens when your GPSr shows you more caches than your mind can process, and you have to refocus on starting where you planned to start. The southern part of Searcy was rural and empty and I made a big loop, finding 19 caches before heading to the event at 11am at Ryan's Buffet downtown.

I made it to the event - A Fond Farewell by woodwalker9 (GC1ZJYT) right on time. After paying for the meal, I headed to the party room, where the cachers were gathering. The event was hosted by woodwalker, and it was great to see him again. I met lots of really friendly cachers, including the guests of honor, while enjoying an excellent meal. The event marked my 2800th cache find.

[ A Fond Farewell to the ShadowCachers family ]

To be continued...

Jonesboro, AR - 11/1/2009

This was the first really nice weekend in quite a while! Saturday, I participated in Race for the Cure. I was going to hunt a few caches while in the area of the race, but the traffic was too bad afterwards.

Sunday morning I got up bright and early and headed to Jonesboro for a day of caching. My main goal was to hit a cluster of caches in the downtown area and then proceed south to hike around in Craighead Forest Park.

The last time I was out this way was with prontopup in January of 2007. There was a snowstorm on that day so the time we spent in Craighead Forest Park was numbingly cold. This day would prove to be much better!

I made three stops on the way to Jonesboro. One notable stop was The Walkway by golfpt (GCVJZ7). I had been here with prontopup and it was so bitterly cold that we ended up giving up the hunt. Lots of folks DNF this one. One of the online logs (by netinator) gave me the hint I needed to search the correct area. I made the find after several minutes of feeling around.

[ The Walkway ]

It was a great hide - one of the best of the day.

Next stop, Jonesboro....

I picked up three caches on the east end of town and then made my way to the downtown cluster. There were seven caches in a cluster and my plan was to park roughly in the middle and walk around to each one. My parking plan was made a little difficult by the fact that churches were in session - lots of full parking lots. I did find a spot, though and began my walk. Most of them were quick park and grabs, but there were two notable caches in this group.

Downtown Waterfall by golfpt (GCVHGW) was one I DNF'ed one in 2007. It was much less of a problem this time. I was helped by the lack of muggles around.

[ the waterfall ]

The building behind it in the picture is a BBQ shop under renovation. The other interesting cache in this group was City Cemetery by tech_guy and the missus (GC14PM1). It was in a great spot and took a great deal of effort to retrieve from its hiding spot.

[ City Cemetery ]

After this, I basically drove all over north Jonesboro picking up easy finds. My last find of the morning was Tram Law Parker by cajenkins81 (GC1KXA1). It was at a Wal-Mart and I did a little shopping and walked to a nearby KFC for a really quick lunch. By the time I stopped for lunch I already had twenty finds.

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I entered Craighead Forest Park from the west and parked near Bridge Over Troubled Waters - Loop the Lake by Mark S. from AR (GCWYTA) - This cache was a DNF the last time I was here plus I lost a glove. Today it was a quick find. I hiked around the entire park in a clockwise direction and found 12 caches. I also got a chance to visit the Nature Center.

[ Nature Center entrance from Craighead Forest Park ]

One highlight of the Nature Center was displays like in the above picture. You press a button and it plays audio of the wildlife.

[ View of boardwalk from above ]

I think I spent over four hours hiking the park and I was happy to get back to my car since I didn't bother to take water with me. I didn't really need it since the weather was pleasantly cool.

I won't go into much detail, because I don't want to spoil any of the hides, but my favorite caches in the park were (in order):

Touche' WoodWalker! by Mark S from AR (GC1YYD4) - for the overall work put into making it challenging.

Here, There, Everywhere - Loop the Lake by Mark S. from AR (GC110RK) - for the camo job.

Sing me a Sad Song - Loop the Lake by Mark S. from AR (GC110RY) - for the camo job.

What A View! by forayer (GC1XYE5) - for the view, of course!

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I picked up two more caches east of the park before heading to Cracker Barrel for dinner. I got Off Your Rocker in Jonesboro by tech_guy and the missus (GC149WR) before heading inside for dinner. I had meatloaf, okra, and mashed potatoes for dinner followed by blackberry cobbler and ice cream for dessert. It was dark by the time I left the restaurant, so I picked up one more cache on the way out of town and headed home.

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I found 35 caches for the day.
The Cracker Barrel cache was my 500th Arkansas cache.

[ Update: 11/16/2009 - I managed to recover my pictures from the trip and inserted some into this entry. ]

Upcoming Anniversary

11 days from today marks an important anniversary in the history of GOWT. On November 11, 2007, GOWT shut down its discussion forums as it attempted to reorganize into a newer, better organization.

The reorganization committee voted to shut down the forums just prior to WWFM - Disorganized Flash: Collierville, TN by The Disorganization of MidSouth Geocachers (GC16WDF). We chose to do it on that day because WWFM events were simultaneously being held all over and some members of the committee wanted to catch the JAG members of GOWT off-guard. Yeah, more unnecessary drama.

Anyways, the Bluff Boys were very active on the GOWT forums on that last day. I was quietly awaiting the shutdown, however a few members of the Executive Committee of GOWT couldn't resist subtle taunting of the Bluff Boys on a thread related to the local WWFM event.

And then it went silent....

I was reminded of this thread when I was reading another (more recent thread) where JAG buffoon TurndAround announced his "return" to GOWT and its forums.

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Incidentally, I noticed that while there are WWFM VI events being held all over the country on November 14 including 2 in Tennessee, there are no WWFM events organized for West Tennessee this year. GOWT has a 5 member leadership committee plus an advisory committee that doesn't appear to do anything. What's up with that?

Village Creek State Park - 10/18/2009

[more pictures coming soon - and maybe a few more details]

This past weekend had some excellent weather so on Sunday, I took advantage of the cool temps and clear sky to do some hiking in the woods.

Village Creek State Park is roughly between Forrest City, AR and Wynne, AR, so I decided to make a loop from Memphis. I made it to Forrest City around 9am. This was later than I had planned, but not a big deal. There was no traffic to speak of in the the town. I parked across the street from the Chamber of Commerce and walked to An Old-Fashioned Rest by kjw0169 (GC1AKY5) and The Shepherd. by Jason_Paul_Ring (GC1PMKJ). These were both caches I DNF'd the last time I passed through. Both were easy finds on this day in part because of a change in approach. I hunted and found 5 other caches before leaving town. My favorite of those 5 was Between Classes by fcdiva (GC1WQ63). Sunday is a good day for hunting that one.

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It was a short drive up Hwy 284 to Village Creek State Park. Photo Op! by LuckyoneinAR (GC19RAK) was at the entrance of the park and was a good opportunity to get a close up look at a rather intricate entrance sign.


I picked up another cache - We(l)come to Village Creek! by GABBY01 (GCX7FK) before parking at the Visitor's Center. My plan for the day involved hiking around the park while caching, then coming back to the Visitor's Center.

I hiked the length of the Big Ben trail, finding Big Ben by LuckyoneinAR (GCX7FW) along the way. This trail was my first indication of how steep the trails were.

[ Big Ben Trail ]

Show Time at the Creek by LuckyoneinAR & Gabby01 (GCX7G4) was a short distance from the Visitor's Center and an easy find.

[ Arborteum Trail ]

I took the Austell trail to Not Useful! by LuckyoneinAR (GC19XD4). It wen in all sorts of directions, so you just have to trust it. This area - where the cache was - appeared to be abandoned or it didn't get much use. I took the road east to within 400 feet of Village Creek ParkCache by Arkansas State Parks (GC1DR3Y) and then headed cross country to the cache. This hike had everything, creeks and steep terrain. This was a tough find because (I believe) the coords are quite a bit off. One I found it, I signed the log and wrote down the numbers (for a puzzle).

After backtracking out of the woods, I started back to the Visitor's Center, but decided once again to cut across country and hunt Village Creek - Cache in with The Natural State by Ark. Parks & Tourism (GC10VKJ). This was a four-stage cache, and once I found the first stage, the rest of the hunt was easy (but long). There were plenty of obstacles to contend with as well.

[Swinging Bridge]

After finding the final and signing the log, I followed the arrows back to the Visitor's Center.

[Lake Austell]

It was roughly a mile hike back to the Visitor's Center, where I bought a drink and relaxed for a bit. I also bought a cap in the Gift Shop.

After finishing my Coke, I realized I didn't have enough time to hike to the remaining 4 caches, so I drove as close as I could to each of the next three caches.

Swing on By by LuckyoneinAR (GC19XC2) was just a short hike across a grassy field to a wooded area. It was a micro that took some time to spot.

Stargazer by itsmebigd (GC1APZW) was near the cabins area. After finding a close psot to park, I hiked the 0.19 miles to the cache. It was a tough hike, but the kicker was when I got to within 50 feet of the cache, it was straight down the side of a steep hill. I'm gld the container was big because moving around on the side of that hill was tough. If I had dropped anything it would have been gone. After signing the log, I had to make the tough climb up the slick hillside.

Sleepy Hollow by LuckyoneinAR (GCXKG4) was in the area of the horse trails. I parked near the entrance of the corral area and hiked 0.13 miles into the cache area. I ran into a curious guy on a horse who asked me if I was hiking. Yeah, just hiking. The ground was very muddy in this area, but the good news is that I was now on the horse trail and was able to hike out via it.

I was only 0.5 miles from Stars and City Lights by LuckyoneinAR (GCXKGA), but it was getting late and I figured since it was close to a main road outside of the park, I'd drive around to it and save some time. Once I left the park, though, my auto-routing screwed me and I ended up just driving north to Wynne.

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I arrived at Wynne, AR around 5pm. After wasting some time at a caboose cache, I hunted TB Hotel and More by razormarsh (GC1K6NW) and 280 ft... by LuckyoneinAR (GCXRX9). The TB Hotel was outside of a fenced in yard. When I got to the area, there was a vehicle parked next to the cache spot. Normally, I would have driven off - but I took a chance and after finding the cache, the owner's family came out and said hello before driving off. The second cache was outside of a ball field - empty on this day. This turned out to be my last find of the day. I had dinner in an empty KFC before heading home.

Notes about Village Creek State Park:
I had visited the website for the park earlier and had printed maps of the park. They helped a little as most of the caches were along one trail or another. The trails, which included a lot of wooden stairways, were lots of up and down legwork - tough if you aren't in shape. There were benches for resting along the way - if I had started earlier, I would have rested more...

October 18 was a cool day. I carried no water on my hikes and there were practically no bugs!
The south half of the park was almost empty. No people in sight - anywhere - other than the two rangers in the Visitor's Center.

Lichterman Nature Center - 10/3/2009

I did more than just attend an event on this beautiful Saturday. I also hunted caches. I had invited my pal jbgreer to have lunch with me and hunt the caches at the Lichterman Nature Center. We arranged to meet up after the event and headed for a nice lunch at Lenny's Sub Shop.

We arrived at the Nature Center around 1:30 pm and went straight to the Visitor's Center where we paid for admission and got a list of the geocaches in the park. Interestingly, it was 2 for 1 admission day (I don't remember why) so we got in for 3 bucks each.

Once outside, we sat down and entered coordinates for the geocaches into our GPSrs. The park was having a scarecrow exhibition. I tried to make sure I got a good look at each one.

I thought I saw JAG's TurndAround in the park until I got a closer look.

Anyways, the park had five caches with clues that led to a sixth cache.

The picture below was taken at one of the areas I liked the best. One of the caches was located here as well.

For the last couple of caches, we ran into obstacles like the one below, which got to be annoying especially with the mosquitoes chasing us around.

The last cache was the hardest to find, again, especially with the mosquitoes. We were done with the hunt just after 3pm.

Germantown Redux - 10/3/2009

It was a beautiful day for some light caching on Saturday, and as part of the adventure I made a last-minute decision to attend a geocaching event in Cameron Brown Park. Techniques, Tools, and Tips by Geocachers of West Tennessee (GC1XC3T) was intended to (as the name implies) demonstrate some of the techniques and tools popular with geocachers.


I arrived at the coordinates almost exactly at start time (10 am) only to find that the event had been moved to another area - the westernmost ball field area. I knew exactly what to expect in terms of the reception I would get and I wasn't disappointed. ;-) At least the weather was nice.

One thing I missed seeing at this event was the GOWT banner. Titansfan must have it on his bed to help keep his mattress dry.

Prontopup (the host) displayed and discussed a number of useful tools for geocaching. One tool they left out was a"pooper scooper" for picking up Jackson area caches. I enjoyed the demonstration of cache containers, both ordinary as well as the unusual ones.

Bitbrain attempted to demonstrate some rudimentary techniques for solving puzzle caches. This is a difficult concept to try and explain so needless to say I didn't get much out of it.

It was a 2-hour event, and the part I enjoyed the least was sitting on those metal bleachers. They are very uncomfortable for thin people. At the end of the event, a lot of neat door prizes were given out. I didn't get one. I think the door prize drawing was rigged - just like the JAG georace.