RM Jones’ Adventure

It’s getting warmer I’m very happy to say and my mind is turning more to geocaching every day. I have been out a couple of times in the last couple of weeks, as you know from previous post. I was sitting back and watching the weather forecast and my mind slipped back to the first cache my Lovely Wife, Veronika (known as Pulltabs in the Geocaching world), and I (I’m DigMaster) found. It wasn’t the first one we tried to find, that was Glasford and it had been removed by someone so it wasn’t available. The actual first find was the “Samurai Cat” which we found on March 29, 2001.

I wasn’t smart enough to look at the Difficulty and Terrain values so I almost bit off more than we could chew. At the time I was only 60 years old, just a kid yet, and I asked a friend of mine, Dick who must have been about 70 years old, if he would like to go find a Geocache. After I explained what a Geocache was he thought it sounded like fun so off the three of us went.

The Samurai Cat has been archived so I won’t worry about hiding the location in the photos. The three of us started out and headed for “Wildcat Den” state park which must be about 30 miles South of our home. It is a rugged park with some roads and paths winding through it. All in all it is a beautiful place to visit so we were bound to have a fun day even if we didn’t find the Samurai Cat.

On arriving at the park we drove around and around trying to find a parking lot close to the location our GPS was pointing to and finally decided on one on top of a hill. We started out on a path that didn’t look to steep and away we went. I was in the lead with my GPS held firmly so it wouldn’t have a chance to escape and leave us to the mercies of the Iowa wilds where we might be lost forever. After all, the park covers a full 417 acres . My Beautiful and Usually Charming wife was next with Dick protecting our rear from whatever Wild animals might be in the area. Of course that was for my wife’s benefit since she is a city girl from Germany and the woods aren’t her favorite playground.

After winding down steep paths, over logs, across bridges and a few other minor obstacles we found it necessary to leave the path. I wasn’t sure just what I was doing so I “cheated” and had printed off the additional hints but had them covered by folding the paper. It was now time to cheat because the trees were so thick my GPS was pointing in different directions depending on where I stood. OK, lets cheat. First we were told to follow the low trail toward the “Devil’s Punch Bowl”. Well that didn’t do us much good since we hadn’t started on the Low Trail and I had no idea what a “Devil’s Punch Bowl” was. Next hint was to follow the creek to the left at a bridge. OK here’s a bridge and there is a creek. Their left is my right. Sounds good to me.

About now is the time for my Lovely wife to decide that she didn’t like fighting her way through the weeds and stickers. Soooooo, “Honey, I think I’ll just stay here and wait for you.” she said. I told her it was fine with me but I wasn’t sure I would be coming back this way (which we didn’t) so does she know the way back. She was sure she did so Dick and I climbed down off the bridge and started up the creek. We hadn’t gotten over five steps and I heard her yell. “Bob, are there really any Wildcats in this park?”. Now this was a real opportunity I couldn’t pass up . As you may have guessed, I have a rather interesting sense of humor. Of course my reply was “No Sweetheart, I don’t think they have seen any wildcats down here in four or five years. I think I may have heard that a bear was sited a month or two ago.” and I started walking on up the creek. I hadn’t gone over three paces and I heard the brush crashing behind me. Yep, you guessed it, Pulltabs had decided to go with us.

The next hint was to take the left fork a short way up the creek and find a “bowl/waterfall that isn’t on the normal tour”. That little waterfall made the trip worth while. It wasn’t very big but for this area it was beautiful. OK, we had found the waterfall and now had to look for two trees that had fallen from the top of the left embankment and follow those dead trees up the hill “they point to a standing tree with the cache at the base”. That sounds easy. Let’s look for a dead tree that fell over the bank. There’s one, and another and another and another. Ya, sure, pick two trees. Well there were two close together so now all we have to do is hire a mountain climbing team to get us up there. I’m telling you it was very steep. To make matters worse, Dick walks with a bad limp from an accident when he was very young. We, Dick and I, not only have to get up the hill ourselves but we have to figure a way to get Pulltabs up the hill. Off we go. I didn’t tell Dick but I got WAY over to the side so when he came tumbling down I would get caught in the landslide. Veronika started up last and picked her own path, Dick was in the center and I was off to the right. Good thing Dick and I were out of her way because Pulltabs wasn’t about to be last up the hill. You would have thought she was part mountain goat the way that gal can climb. She was first to the top and Dick came in a close second with me trailing way back. That was embarrassing.

Now that we are at the top I am sure that my GPS is going to lead me right to it. It’s right over there, no, there, no back the other way. The trees were really thick. While I was stumbling around trying to do it right the other two were just searching the old fashioned way. You guessed it. Veronika almost walked right up to it. “Look what I found.” she proudly said with that “I did good” smile of hers. Hurray, WE had found a real Geocache. Took a couple of photos and took a string of “Tibetan Beads” and left some polished Montana agates, a Gold colored dollar coin (everyone likes to find Gold in a treasure) and some change. After we put the cache back where it was, Pulltabs found it so she got to put it back, we tried to find an easier way back down.

We came to the far edge of the hill. It was really a long oval shaped hill with very steep sides all the way around so it didn’t make much difference where we went down. Dick found a place where there didn’t seem to be as much brush so we chose that. Veronika and I started down and when I looked back I saw Dick sit down and push off. You would have thought he was on a sled. Down the hill he went on the seat of his pants. He flew by us and was at the bottom in no time. Looked good to me so off I went. Veronika had a little more dignity, or more likely she didn’t want to have to remove the grass stains from the seat of her pant, so she climbed down. The rest of the trip back to the car was easy.

When we got back to the car Veronika said “There aren’t REALLY any bears or wildcats down here are there!” I told her “No, but didn’t you have fun?” and she agreed she did. We were now real Geocachers.

Bob Jones