Delta Heritage Trail - Part 2 - 5/22/2010

I knew this would be a tougher day than the previous Wednesday. The temperature was predicted to be at least 10 degrees warmer. I took a slightly different route this time. I took I-40 west to Forrest City, AR and turned south taking Hwy 1 most of the way to my destination in Lakeview.

[ Lakeview Trailhead ]

I parked at the Lakeview trailhead around 8am. My plan was to hike the remaining 2 miles south to the end of the trail, turn around, hike back to the car and pick up my Gatorade and misc supplies and hike 5 miles north to the 7 mile mark caching all along the way. Upon reaching the 7 mile mark, I would turn around and hike back to the car, hunting for anything I missed along the way.

The first thing I noticed (besides the heat) was that this part of the trail was much less shady than the northern half. The second thing I noticed (and the worst) was the abundance of mosquitoes. My bug spray was useless. I was fine as long as I kept moving. When I reached the end of the trail, I met two geocachers on bikes - Mark S. from AR. and 1/3 of Team Pink. I also saw a boy playing with two horses and an old man changing a tire on his truck. I caught up with the geocachers at the 13 mile mark, where they found a cache that had eluded me earlier. After passing them a cache or two later, I never saw them again. I made it back to the trailhead about 9:30am and drank lots of water, applied more bug spray, put on my Arkansas State Parks hat, and put on my fanny pack with Gatorade.

[ The end of the trail ]

[ Team Pink and Mark S. from AR. ]

I enjoyed the hike north for the most part. I found caches left and right with an occasional miss.
Somewhere between mile 8 and 9, I came across a trailhead/parking lot. I thought about moving my car here, but after looking around I decided not to. Besides, at this point I only had a 1.75 mile hike to my turnaround point. Across from the parking lot was the town of Oneida. What I saw consisted of a small rundown store with a rundown house on one side and the town post office on the other.

[ Turn around point - the backside of the sign I hiked to on my previous trip ]

By the time I reached the 7 mile sign, I had used up all of my Gatorade. I decided that I'd head back to the Lakeview trailhead without stopping to hunt for caches I'd missed. When I made it to Oneida, I decided to check out the store. The windows were boarded up and the door had no windows, so I had no idea what I would find inside.

Inside it was cramped and dimly-lit. An Asian woman was at the register and asked me what I wanted. I told her I wanted some Gatorade. She got up to get me some - asking me questions about what flavor and size I wanted. I got the feeling they didn't get too many strangers around and that she didn't want me touring the tiny store unattended. I paid for the Gatorade and left. There were three pitbulls playing out front. They didn't bother me, though, and I hiked back to the trail.

[ The store in Oneida, AR. ]

A note about the store: It was the only store I saw within walking distance of the entire 14-mile trail.

[ Why did the cacher cross the road? ]

[ a neat view ]

[ not as many bridges on the south half ]

The rest of the hike was uneventful, and the longer the walk, the more I appreciated that little store and its cold Gatorade.

Once I got back to my car and drank some water, I packed up my stuff for the trip home. I was about to leave when I discovered a geocaching pamphlet on my windshield. It was put there by my new friends Mark S. for AR and Team Pink. Team Pink had written a brief note on the bottom that gave me a good hint about #100 (one of my many DNFs). Since that was only 0.3 miles down the trail, I decided to go after it. That gave me an even 40 finds (40 out of 57). Going back over my list, for the two-days of caching I did, I found 77 out of the 114 caches along the entire trail.

37 caches left - sounds like a plan for a future trip. I'm definitely biking next time and hopefully I can talk a friend (or two) into going with me.

[ Where all of the people were ]

I drove home roughly the same way I did last trip. I stopped at Marianna for a late lunch and in Forrest City for two additional caches. This time I also stopped in West Memphis for an Oreo Blizzard.

Delta Heritage Trail - 5/19/2010

I hadn't felt much like caching since the 10th anniversary of Geocaching event, but decided to check out my localized pocket query to see what was new in the area. I noticed a tight string of about 20 caches at the southwest edge of the bounds of my pocket query. When I investigated further, I found out that there was actually a string of 114 caches stretching from Lexa, AR to Lakeview, AR along the Delta Heritage Trail. I had actually found a cache on this trail during my earlier run to Helena, AR so I knew this was a well-maintained trail.

I read the general description of the cache trail and saw that it was fairly new with most caches only having a few finds. Rain forecasts kept me from going after them for at least one weekend. When I saw that Wednesday would be the last relatively cool day for awhile, I made plans to take the day off and head over there. My bike wasn't in good shape, so I considered renting a bike at Delta Heritage Trail State Park, which is 2 miles south of the first trailhead.

I got up early on Wednesday and drove to the Helena Junction Trailhead, near Lexa, AR. It was a nice clean parking lot and I felt comfortable leaving my car there for a while.

[ parking area at north end of trail ]

My new plan was to hike 2 miles south to Barton trailhead at the State Park. I would then hike back and move my car to the park and hike south. My goal was to make it to the 7 mile marker - the halfway point of the trail.

[ mile 0 - the north end of the trail ]

It was cool in the morning, and at first I jogged between caches. As it warmed up a little, I decided to save my energy and just walk. During that first two mile stretch, I had a 60% success rate. It doesn't sound good, but I couldn't take a lot of time to hunt individual caches. Particularly since most of them were camoflagued micros. I enjoyed the hike, though, and I guess that was really what was important.

[ plenty of shade along the 14 mile trail ]

About 9:30am, I moved my car south to the State Park. Being a workday, there were no other cars around except for the park folks. At this point, it would have been smart to rent a bike.

[ State Park located 2 miles south of 1st trailhead ]

I started south, and enjoyed the shade and the caches, and the time passed quickly. The big mistake I made on this day was leaving my Gatorade in the car. I had done no recon on this trail, and thought surely I would come across a business or store somewhere. The wisest thing I did was bring tweezers.

[ looking out to the west of the trail ]

At one point, I came across a church with a nice parking lot that was gated. I assumed that was to keep hikers like me from parking there. 1.6 miles south of the park was the Lick Creek trailhead/parking area. It was the last trailhead I saw that day.

[ looking to the east from the trail ]

[ just past cache #57 of 114 ]

I was very thirsty when I reached mile 7. Of course, I had a 5 mile hike back up the trail to my car. Thie hike back was uneventful. I found one cache that I had missed. I took a couple of rest breaks on nice benches. I made it back to the park around 2pm.

When I got back the the park, I noticed the mosquitoes had suddenly come out. I didn't hang around for long and got back on the road. I stopped in Marianna for a late lunch and Forrest City for a couple of cache finds to round me out at 40 for the day.

The Rules are There for a Reason

[ My geocache! You blew it up! ]

Geocaching (like most aspects of life) has rules. Some rules are hard and fast, others are vague and subject to interpretation. Everyone who geocaches is bound by them. This includes geocache reviewers and soldiers. I point these two examples out because some ill-informed people seem to believe otherwise.

Why do I feel the need to point them out? Because I choose to. No further explanation or justification is required.

Update: 5/10/2010

Here is some interesting news: I have been banned from the GOWT forums. Not only that, but they removed my avatar along with the caption underneath that stated that I was a "GOWT Founding Member". They also blocked my IP address(es), to disallow me the "privilege" of even reading their forums.

10 Years! Collierville, TN - 5/2/2010

10 Years! Collierville, Tennessee by The Disorganization of Midsouth Geocachers (GC25KBZ) was one of a number of events worldwide celebrating the 10th anniversary of Geocaching. At least three of these events were within easy driving distance of my residence.

On the weekend of the event, we were bombarded this weekend by rain, tornadoes, and floods. Some people will travel through any kind of weather to get to a cache or an event. I, however, was prepared to cancel my plans to attend if things got too bad. Sunday (the day of the event) was a beautiful day. Still, I waited until the last minute to hit the road. If you can believe it, I was concerned that not enough people would be able to make it to Collierville. The above picture shows I was wrong. I had no problems until I got the the park. It was largely underwater, including the event spot. After meeting up at a pavilion on dry land, I began to look at and catalog all of the neat coins and TBs on display.

I mingled a little bit and enjoyed some delicious chocolate chip cookies brought by a cacher - acookiegirl. At the end, we posed for the group picture required by the event. We took a second picture with a bunch of us standing in about a foot of water, a bit closer to the event coordinates.

After the event, I stopped by Zaxby's for a nice late lunch before heading back to Memphis.

Geocaching Fundamentals - 4/17/2010

After attending the 6th Annual GOWT Gathering back in January, I promised myself that I would make an effort to attend more local events. When two events were published for this day in Cameron Brown Park in Germantown, TN, including a CITO, I signed up for both.

In spite of the great weather on this day, I didn't give myself much time to cache on the way to the event. Traveling east along Poplar Avenue, I did manage to find a few caches - certainly more than I had expected. My first stop was The Beaver Fever Cache by Bigcachedaddy (GC1QP9K). This was along a typically busy stretch of Poplar, so I parked about 500 feet away in an empty parking lot. I found the cache quickly and confirmed other cache logs that pointed out that the paper log was destroyed. Unfortunately, I left my spare logs back in the car. The container was cool and a picture would be a definite spoiler.

Next, I hunted Loblolly by Berlan Eligab (GC21WDW) at Sea Isle Park, just to the south. I had been here before and couldn't find the cache because I trusted my GPSr. This time, although the GPSr took me to the exact same location, I took a successful guess at what nearby location held the cache. This would have been a great place (and day) to relax, but I had a few more places to go.

[ Walking trail at Sea Isle Park]

ACME-2010 by giardia_boy (GC22GND) was my first cache find by this hider and was an excellent example of a cache blending in an urban environment.

My final cache of the morning was Wolf River Blvd. Extension by ProntoPup (GC25N3B) at Riverwoods State Natural Area. Prontopup had put out several new caches in the area for the event, but I generated my pocket query too early. This cache managed to be on my list, though, and was within a mile of the event.



This is a really nice area and I wished I had more time to thoroughly explore the trails. Alas, I'm not a warm weather cacher, so this might be my last trip into the woods for awhile.

I made it to Cameron Brown Park on time, but the parking lots were packed! Lots of baseball games were going on all over the park. I had to park a good ways away.

[ The event from a distance ]

Prontopup was the host for the Geocaching FUNdamentals by Geocachers of West Tennessee (GC2440D), and does a pretty good job of explaining geocaching and demonstrating different cache containers. He had some of the experienced cachers tell about their favorite caches. I talked about Mingo - GC30, that I had found last summer.

When the event was over, I wrote down tracking numbers of several neat coins. I saw an Arkansas State Parks geocoin and wondered if this was the one that was missing from Robert & Casper's Vacation Travel Bug Hotel when I went to look for it (the coin) on Easter Sunday. I later found out that it was and that 76Stinger had taken it from his own cache without logging it as "retrieved" at the time. One of the things that 76Stinger hopefully learned at the event was the importance of logging coins properly and promptly.


During the hour gap between the two events, I spent some time walking around. I explored the short boardwalk and bought hot dogs from a concession stand while catching the last moments of a baseball game.

CITO in Germantown by Geocachers of West Tennessee (GC253F5) was well organized with plenty of options for areas to pick up trash. I was sent along with Jaybirder to the north wooded side of the park. We both ended up with nearly full bags. I even found 8 or 9 baseballs. Some people were sent to some other nearby parks to pick up trash. It was interesting to learn that Germantown parks are cleaned largely by volunteers.

[ Dalls made it after all! ]

After returning to the pavilion with our trash, I hung around for awhile listening to stories before finally leaving. I had hoped to get an Oreo Blizzard at the Dairy Queen just to the north, but their ice cream machine was broken.

City Treasure - 4/16/2010

CITY TREASURE by MagicRock (GC1YXMY) is another excellent cache by the author. I used instinct, rather than hard work, to figure out where the cache was and invited jbgreer to go along with me on the hunt. Another good friend went along as well. I took lots of great pictures - none of which I can post because they would be spoilers. I can't even say much about the journey.

[ the logbook ]

Upon opening the cache, we found the logbook and the TFTC geocoin I dropped off in a Collierville cache back in January. I added a Pirate geocoin, because I thought it was an appropriate place, as well as to entice future seekers to put in the work necessary (or perhaps unnecessary) to find this cache. Happy hunting!

Southaven - Olive Branch, MS - 4/4/2010

It was a beautiful day for a cache hunt, but because it was Easter, I had other plans for the afternoon. I decided to spend the early part of the day caching in Southaven, MS - which is not far from Whitehaven, where I lived as a college student.

I decided to take Hwy 51 south which meant I would have the opportunity to hunt two South Memphis caches before making my way to Mississippi.

My first find was at a gas station at the corner of Winchester and Elvis Presley Blvd. - BittenApple's Imaginary Lines #1 – Winchester Line by BittenApple (GC22101). I lived in several places near here as a child, and it was "interesting" to see how the area has changed. Not far away was Aerotropolis TB Hotel by GC4EVR (GC1Y1KC). The way to this cache was surprisingly difficult for the last 100 feet, I can only imagine what fun it will be in the summer. For a TB hotel, there is no reason that I can see for it not being closer to the parking area...

I drove south to Shelby Drive and west to Elvis Presley Blvd. and passed by the Southland Mall. I have many fond memories of this place as a child and didn't wish to spoil them by going inside.

Before reaching Southaven, I had one more stop to make. I wanted to see the house I lived in with my Dad and brother while going to college. It is still a relatively nice area, but its heyday appears to be long gone.

[ My home between 1982 and 1987 ]

Onward to Southaven. As I crossed the border into Mississippi, I saw a "Crips" tag on a sign. Nice.

My first stop here was Emerald of Vicksburg by Sea Scout Ship 349 of Southaven, MS (GC1YAHX). It was a nice cache in a children's park. nice, except for this sign...

[ Sorry, I left my dice at home ]

I skipped two caches - one at a busy little church and the other in soneone's yard, but found a few others in the area and pretty much cleaned out this part of North Mississippi.

It ain't easy being green(Wal) by Will&Amy (GC1QPG5) was at a nice Walgreens and even had an interesting view of an old farm.

[ next to Walgreens ]

I ventured south and found May I see your License? by mrjlsmith (GC1FB1B). A well hidden ammo can near a driver's testing station.

Heading back north, I avenged a DNF at Bridge to Terabithia by Jschway901 (GC1Z563)

[ Bridge to Terabitha ]

Back to the north, I found Rutland Place Muggle Compound V2 by accarp04 and the Monkeys (GC1WQGX) under the (possibly) watchful eyes of local law enforcement and Business in Southaven #3 v2 by accarp04 and the monkeys (GC22D5P).

I headed east to Olive Branch and avenged DNFs at Got Groceries? by accarp04 (GC22N88), Catch some zzzzzz by accarp04 (GC22N8B), and You can't see me from here by fzxfazer (GC1WWKH). That last one is at a Chick-Fil-A, so Sunday was definitely the best day to hunt it.

My last cache of the day was Mooney and the Mooniacs by Sprout (GC112EF) back to the north in Memphis. My GPS was still acting flaky, so I used instinct to point me in the right direction.

[ View of the park ]

After this find, I plotted my way north to celebrate Easter with my family. I had to be there at 2pm and made it with 10 minutes to spare.