Caching in Jackson, TN - 12/20/2009

[I'm writing this blog entry several weeks after this hunt so my memories are a bit foggy. I'll flesh it out a bit more as I get time.]

I left early on Sunday. Not as early as I would like, but early enough. My goal was to hunt a bunch of caches just west of Jackson, then see what I could get to in town.

My first find of the morning was Welcome to Denmark, TN by dalls (GC1PDR2). This cache is actually behind the cemetery, but my autorouting took me to the entrance road to the cemetery.

[ A new cemetery cache in Tennessee? In 2009? ]

I found two of the three caches in this area before moving on eastward.

Upon my arrival in Jackson, I noticed the traffic was lighter than expected so I headed north instead of south as I had planned. I hunted a few caches along Hwy 45 West before ending the morning at Ole #382 by Bluff Boys (GC216FG). This was in Casey Jones Village not far from one of the first caches I hunted in Jackson nearly 4 years ago. After finding the cache I met hdrider55, a husband and wife caching team from Memphis that had been quietly watching me find it. I decided to have lunch at the country buffet nearby.

After a nice meal, I headed east, picking up a few caches on my way to Kate Campbell Memorial Park.

I made a quick detour to Large Oak Tree by dalls (GC1AK23) which was near the Old Salem Cemetery and found a cool guard rail cache.

[ Large Oak Tree ]

Kate Campbell Memorial Park has a lot of caches and on this day no muggles, so imagine my distress upon find next to nothing here.

I did find Tornado Alley by TurndAround (GC10ZCG) after almost giving up so that was some comfort.

I decided to leave and approach Otter Crossing by dalls (GC192AP) from the east side of the park. I parked at a golf course and found the boardwalk that takes you to within feet of the cache. The growth here was thick and I barely had room to climb in. Somehow, I slipped and busted open my forehead on a fallen tree. I looked around for the cache, but the bleeding was a major distraction. I ended up abandoning the hunt and heading back to the car to clean up.

[ Otter Crossing - its in there somewhere...]

After leaving the park, my luck improved and I found a few caches to the south before heading downtown.

I hunted a few caches downtown including General Grant Headquarters by Bluff Boys (GC1Z24V) and Jackson Pioneers Are Nearby by dalls (GC18BPD). I struck out on Mystery of a Legend by Bluff Boys (GC1YAPA) partly because of the line of homeless across the street from where the cache should have been.

[ Near a mural with information needed to find a cache.]

At the fairgrounds I made quick work of At The Fair by dalls (GC1C1B8). I struck out at a nearby cache and made a stop at the nearby train museum to hunt an earthcache nearby.

I took this picture at Jackson Artesian Well Earthcache by dalls (GC17RPJ). After looking at the picture on the camera, I noticed my wound had reopened. [I failed to get the rest of the information necessary to log this cache.] At this point, although I was hungry and daylight was fading, I headed out of town to the westbound rest stop on I-40. Once there, I cleaned up my forehead and hands, applied a nice big bandage and hit the road for home.

I had a high number of DNF's here (almost 25%). I'm not sure if it is because the hides were so good, I just couldn't find them, or if some of them were missing, or even some may have been inappropriate hides. Some of them hadn't been found since the georace, so I'll monitor them and when they start getting found, maybe I'll go back.

What Happened to the Iphone Geocoin?

Back in August, I posted about a trip to Osceola, AR where I dropped off a cool Iphone geocoin that I had picked up in Nebraska. I had jokingly mentioned that I didn't want a JAG or GOWT member picking up the coin because it might "disappear".


JAG members jimmylogan and b@shful jumped on the coin and eventually took it to the JAG georace where they got a good laugh about how they acquired the coin. It then got passed to GOWT member tiger130 who held onto it for a while before giving it to GOWT member prontopup who held onto it for a while before finally passing it off to GOWT member abiectio, who took it across the country to ORIGINAL STASH TRIBUTE PLAQUE by TEAM 360 (GCGV0P) in Oregon.

A short time later, it was declared missing. Nice.

Night Caches in Cameron Brown Park - 12/1/2009

I don't like to cache in groups, but when I saw a post on the GOWT forums regarding a group hunt for night caches, I decided to go. I even bought a new flashlight for the occasion. I laughed when I saw a post that suggested that my old friend dalls from JAG would be coming.

I am seasoned enough to know that it would be impractical to hunt all 4 caches on the proposed list in one night, so I was glad that we were starting with the two short ones in Cameron Brown Park.

Because I don't like to drive in rush hour traffic, I left work early on the day of the hunt and headed out to Germantown. I hunted three caches in or near Shelby Farms Park before having dinner at Chick-Fil-A. I still managed to get to the arranged meeting spot in Cameron Brown Park an hour early. I used the extra time to walk laps around the lake while taking a few pictures.

As it got close to 5:30, I was beginning to think that no one would show up. Jackthebear arrived just before 5:30, but stayed in his truck. Jeffbouldin arrived right on time. We made the introductions and waited for more people to show up. When no one else did (including my old friend dalls), we began the hunt - sometime around 5:45pm. The weather had been nice lately and there were only a few spots of water on the ground. I avoided the water I saw, and only hit a few of the wet spots - enough to cool my feet.

Our first cache to hunt was Bats-R-Up by ProntoPup (GC1MGVK). This was a relatively straight forward cache - until the end. The light of the nearby tennis courts didn't do us any favors.

Cameron Brown Park's Easy Night Cache by bitbrain & pippin98 (GC1M3MF) proved to be a little more difficult. At one point, we had a great deal of trouble spotting the next set of tacks. Once we did, however, all was good. After finding the cache, we walked with jeffbouldin to find Decay by Canadian Bear adopted by Tiger130 (GCKE0X). That cache had one of the National Treasure keys in it.

Since it took us two hours just to find these caches, we decided to call it a night.

As we walked back to our cars, we tentatively made plans to do more night caches in January. I look forward to it. Maybe dalls will show up.

Harrisburg-Wynne, AR - 11/22/2009

The plan on this day was to cache in a few small towns in northeast Arkansas and visit a couple of State Parks as well.

My first stop of the morning was Marion, AR. There was a cluster of recently placed caches that were easy hunting on a Sunday morning. While in town, I got the car gassed up, scraped off the bugs from the last trip, and got some liquid refreshment for the trip.

Heading north, I made a stop at Hampson Archeological State Park in Wilson, AR. The was the place that I had two DNF's and a nicely cut finger the last time I was here. This time my visit was short and sweet. Two finds. One had bad coords - Hampson Archeological Museum ParkCache by Arkansas State Parks (GC1CFDK), but the logs told me this information ahead of time.

[ small state park]

While in the area, I detoured to 120 miles out of the way by fluffy&itchy (GC109YD). This cache has been here for a while, and today was a great day to go after it - dry dirt roads. The cache, itself, was in the only area that had mosquitoes. While here I also saw a big pumpkin lying on the ground.


My next destination was Lake Poinsett State Park, but on the way I stopped at The Painted House by Lambertstudios (GC1P962). A local tourist attraction and the setting for a John Gresham novel, on this day it was just a scenic stop on the way to more caches. Since I was there, I decided to walk around and take pictures of the house and barn. A sign on the front said admission was $10 for Adults. Wow.

[ The Painted House ]

Lake Poinsett State Park was a nice park. The only muggles I saw were near the fishing area. One cache - Lake Poinsett ParkCache by Arkansas State Parks (GC1DR1D) - was part of the State Park Challenge. I think I've been to 4 of the 53 state parks now. The second was near an empty picnic area. Good thing it was empty, as it took me forever to find the cache.

I hunted a few more caches before heading into Harrisburg, a tiny town northwest of the park. I picked up four caches here.

Next, I headed south to Wynne. Most of the caches I found there were new "Red Man" caches. I found a couple of neat cemetery caches as well.

Since I had a little bit of daylight left, I headed after Stars and City Lights by LuckyoneinAR (GCXKGA) - a cache at the north end of Village Creek State Park that I had missed before. I tried taking the roads instead of going through the park and hiking the horse trails. Big mistake - the map doesn't show these roads as private (or mud and rocks). No muggles, no worries though, I found the cache and made it out before sunset. I headed back to Marion, picked up a cache I missed earlier and had a nice dinner at Zaxby's before heading home.

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.

---


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!

---

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.

---
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. ]