It's Not Just About the Numbers

This year I found my 500^th geocache. Unlike many cachers, I didn’t choose a particular special cache for the milestone. In fact, due to miscounting, I achieved it one find sooner than I’d figured on. My milestone was a simple lock-n-lock that was part of a trail of similar hides. I’m pleased that it belonged to a first-time cache hider and was in one of my favorite local parks, but that was not planned, nor have any of my previous milestones been.

Milestone finds are special among geocachers. Each is featured on your geocaching.com profile, and there is a special commemorative geocoin-and-hat-pin set for 500 which I, of course, ordered right away and proudly have on display. Some other cachers, though, would wonder why it took me nearly three years to reach this milestone.

The reasons are many and complex. I guess the main one is, I approach geocaching like a fine wine to savor rather than raw liquor to get drunk on as fast as possible. I’ll take quality over quantity, thank you. That doesn’t mean I’m above park-and-grabs… I love them, especially when I’m travelling or in an area for some other purpose than caching. Since I don’t have a Smartphone, it’s not easy to cache spontaneously, but when I find Wifi and locate an unknown cache in my vicinity then track it down, it’s a special find. That elevates a skirt-lifter or guard rail clinger to a quality cache to me. It is a bit of a challenge for someone without the instant access of a Smartphone, as well as an unexpected pleasure on a day devoted to other things.

Living far out in an unpopulated area, mostly public forests, caches of any kind are few and driving distances are long. It’s environmentally responsible and also saves me money if I devote entire days to geocaching, pre-load my GPS for an area, and drive there. Therefore ‘streaks’ of any length are not something I normally strive for. When I do take a caching day, the amount of driving time between caches still limits how many can be done in a day, and rural caches also usually involve hiking and/or climbing. A reasonable number to expect on a normal day in this area would be four to six finds. I’m happy with that. I’d rather enjoy a few caches, looking at the scenery, wildlife-watching, taking a few photos, and generally having the kind of adventure that makes a good found log.

There are those that do power trails (I’ve done the four relatively short ones locally) and rack up huge find counts in a fairly short time. I feel that newbies that do this are missing the learning experience of really understanding what geocaching is, how it works, and all it has to offer. Some of them may have found over 1,000 caches in a very short time (it’s possible to do in a couple of days), but what do they actually know about the game? Do they understand swag trading etiquette, how and why to write a great find log, what trackables are and how to deal with them, or even something as simple as how to reassemble a microcache and place it exactly where it was? I’ve heard some of the damnedest crazy-newbie stories and not all of those people by any means had single-digit find counts. Yes, we’ve all been there and I’m not dissing beginners… welcome, and have fun! But there will and should be a learning curve. (My first skirt lifter took me twenty minutes to find. You mean those things slide up?!?)

Another reason my find count isn’t higher than it is, is that the way I most enjoy caching is with a partner. My most frequent caching partner is my housemate Maggic. Since she badly broke a shoulder, our caching excursions are a lot less frequent that they once were. She is timid, often in pain, and tires easily. Neither one of us is under 60 and are far from the boldest cachers around anyway. I do go out on my own but prefer her company, for my own safety among other good reasons. Living in forested mountains in a snow zone, we also do little caching in winter.

Lastly, there are many geocachers that, for one reason or another, devote the major share of their caching energy to other aspects of the game. I am a caching socialite and evangelist; I attend (or host) a good many events. I also run geocaching programs for local festivals, kids’ organizations, the local library, and the like. This usually involves a lot of preparation, laying a temporary trail of waypoint hides, providing prizes, printing information sheets, and toting along my computer to demonstrate how the geocaching.com website works. This kind of outreach is important, not just to recruit new cachers, but to give geocaching a positive public image in the community. This makes it easier to get permission for a hide, makes caching events welcome activities in parks and towns, and informs the police exactly what those suspicious-looking individuals clutching GPS or Smartphone are doing in the shrubbery. In addition, I’m increasingly interested in hiding my own caches. This can become an absorbing, creative, and time-consuming hobby in itself.

I’m in no particular hurry to reach milestone 1,000. It may well take even longer than the first five hundred did. When I do, I’ll celebrate and take pride in the achievement. More importantly, I’ll know a lot more about geocaching than I know now, and will have had the kind of experiences that I’ll be telling tales about for the rest of my life.

Alas, Poor Bus!

            When I first saw the Bus, instantly a fantasy popped into my mind. I saw it, much younger, brightly painted with flowers and peace signs, bouncing down the road from Cherry Springs. Rock music pours from open windows… King Crimson or The Who… and the sweetish aroma of marijuana mingles with the exhaust smoke in its wake. Suddenly the bus coughs, sputters, and the engine dies. It keeps coasting down the hill, until the driver notices a dirt road on the right and a grassy spot on the corner and steers the bus to a safe halt there.

            “Hey man, what’s up?”

            “I think we’re out of gas.”

            “Bummer.”

            “It’s pretty here.” A girl with long hair and a billowy skirt floats down the bus steps and whirls around on the lawn. “Why don’t we just stay?”

            “We could homestead here,” another girl says dreamily. “Like a commune. We could live off the land and be organic. Hey, is there any of that pizza left?”

            “Yeah.” An arm passes a slice out a window.

            “I think we’re meant to be here,” the first girl says. “The bus stopped, like karma, man.”

            Two bearded guys come out. One gathers rocks for a fire ring, one waves the girls along as they collect firewood. Shortly they’re lying around a campfire, passing a wineskin, playing guitar, and nibbling pizza. “We’ll live in the Bus. It’ll be groovy.”

            I felt a very real connection to these people from the depths of my imagination, born the instant I saw the rusty, whitewashed old bus with its rickety attached plywood side room. Of the many RVs, shacks, and eccentrically-built camp buildings in the area, the Bus captured my imagination, and that of any other visitors that rounded the curve of the road from Galeton to Cherry Springs and saw it on its grassy corner. Six miles from anywhere in either direction, it was a landmark for decades. A photographer did a photostudy of it; his research showed it was some very rare model of bus from the late 30’s or early 40’s, and his beautiful photos were snapped up by collectors.

            That is why the community reacted with horror when the latest owners of that property demolished the plywood shack and began dismantling the bus itself! Car traffic increased because people drove by just to look at the slowly-filling dumpster as the bus disappeared, back to front, a little at a time. We mourned. This was a piece of Potter County history (or possibly Potter County fantasy) vanishing as we watched. Personally, I felt like I was losing the connection with my own hippie roots, although I’ll be the first to say my theory about the Bus’s origins is completely out of my fertile imagination. But I was not alone in my grief. The loss of this venerable landmark was the hot topic of gossip in Galeton’s cafés and taprooms all summer.

            When nothing was left of the Bus except the cab, the dumpster vanished. A month later, a pre-fab white aluminum structure, like a very large shed without windows, appeared where the passenger section of the bus and the side-room used to be. The gutted cab sits a yard from one wall, looking forlorn. It appears to be turning its back on the characterless aluminum monstrosity behind it. In shock after its massive passenger-section amputation, its windshield has the vacant, blank look of a skull’s eyes. Where have the dreams gone?

            Yet, as sad and pathetic as the Bus’s skull is, I hope the landowners have plans to restore and preserve it somehow. Will they connect it to the aluminum shed in the spring? Will it get new window glass, a cheery paint job? This may not revive the old Bus’s soul, but it would at least keep the memory of a long-time Potter County landmark alive. The era that brought the Bus here is long gone, but it’s worth remembering.

What Was Accomplished

Monday, August 31, 2015          Home at last     trip odometer 7,816 miles

            I arrived home around 10:30 this morning to be greeted by a rush of cats. Well, by Ginny rushing out to the garage because the connecting door was open and she was eager to hunt for mice; by Cassie, who actually did saunter out to greet me, sniffed my fingers thoroughly, gave an approving face rub, and accepted petting; and then, when I walked in, Molly looked up from her nap and saw it was me. She gave me the whole enthusiastic welcome treatment, from thunderous purrs to slamming her body against my legs to rub them fervently, finally giving me a series of tender licks. She and Ginny continued to be my most emotional welcomers, with Cassie looking on happily. Deanna gave me dirty looks but finally caved in when I sat for awhile. The lap was irresistible to her, and I am now forgiven for going away by Deanna. I had to go out into the workshop to greet Alex, since that’s his napping place. Once he sniffed my hand and recognized me, he allowed himself to be picked up and draped over a shoulder to be carried around purring. Rowena, five hours later, has NOT forgiven me but just grabbed a treat I put down where she could sneak it without acknowledging me as the donor. An ex-feral, she is slow to trust and easily offended. I have to wait for her to make the first move.

            It didn’t take as long to get home as I’d figured, because by the time I found a place to stay last night I’d come nearly half an hour from where I’d decided I was too tired to make it home. But here I am, safe and comfy. Now is the time to evaluate my accomplishments.

            I drove 7,816 miles in 25 days, for an average of about 313 miles a day. During that span of time I stayed in one place for multiple nights twice. My goals were to attend my friend’s daughter’s wedding, to find three of the most prestigious geocaches in the world, to attend the final Geocaching HQ Block Party, to fish the Yellowstone area and see some of its best-known sites, to pay my respects at the Native American sacred site Medicine Wheel, and to see the famous Minnesota Twine Ball. I accomplished all of these goals. I once again enjoyed catching native cutthroat trout on flies, and saw Old Faithful erupt, which I missed both previous times I was in Yellowstone. I had a profound experience at Medicine Wheel which, as such things often do, involved some pretty rigorous testing.

            During the trip I logged 70 geocaches, making August 2015 my best caching month ever, and bringing my total to 488 finds, just 12 short of my 500 milestone. I found a cache (at minimum) in each of 19 states I never had before, each earning me a virtual souvenir and boosting my US State Souvenir total to 31. I also found my first non-US caches and added Ontario, Canada to my souvenir list. The Original Stash Tribute Plaque and Geocaching HQ each have their own souvenir, as does the Block Party. Additional souvenirs earned include 4 of the 5 2015 Challenge souvenirs and International Geocaching Day. My souvenir total stands at 76! I’ve now found 84 caches more than 250 miles from home, the farthest being 2,224 miles away. The Original Stash Tribute Plaque, the HQ Cache, and Mingo, the oldest continuously-maintained cache, were the three I set out to find, but I also added the St. Louis Arch virtual and the Famous Twine Ball cache, two well-known and desirable finds. This may all be as boring as watching paint dry to most people, but I am a statistics freak (one of the things I loved about baseball), and have great fun with the geocaching personal stats pages.

            I acquired a good many geocoins and the like, dropped one each of my ASPGB proxies in Mingo and the Tribute Cache and watched, open-mouthed, as they BOTH went to the HQ Cache and arrived there before I did! I picked up the Bristol Bunny Travel Bug and gave it a 1,500 mile ride, hopefully earning its owner a pint of holiday cheer for mileage this winter. I got to tour Geocaching Headquarters, found all the Block Party Lab caches, and generally had a caching good time. Incidentally, Bruce, my trackable Subaru, has now logged 6,080 miles since activated April 8^th. Why the difference? Road miles versus line-of-sight between caches Bruce ‘visited.’

            Aside from fishing and geocaching, I’ve learned a great deal this trip. For one thing, coffee gets worse the farther one travels West. On the west coast, I had to double the sweetener and use cream (which at home I seldom do) to make it potable. For another, my brain, meaning memory, planning, and processing, is in much better shape than I’d been led to believe. My emotional state, though… I reach the proverbial ‘last nerve’ very quickly and just lose everything when I do. I’ve learned I have courage. I also possess more physical strength and stamina than I’d figured, although I do have my limits. I’ve learned that I have a benevolent guardian (call it angel, spirit-guide, or what you will), perhaps several, who subtly call my attention to lessons I should learn, point out things that will make me smile, steer me away from evil people and towards nice ones, and, most of all, cushion life’s little disasters so that I learn from them rather than becoming a statistic.

            Things I didn’t need to learn that stood me in good stead were, when something is pleasurable, enjoy it! Give people a chance to be nice, and they will almost always take it. When someone smiles, smile back; when they don’t, smile first. Most of all, see the beauty.

            I like to travel. That should be obvious by now. However, I’m looking forward to a good, long stretch of time spent almost exclusively at home. I want to digest the things I learned from this trip, perhaps make some of the truths my own and apply them to my day-to-day life. Will I make another big trip like this one? Probably, but not soon. When I once more feel stagnant, and need to change in order to grow, I will pack my suitcase, and seek my answers on the road.

Oh, Canada!

Sunday, August 30, 2015           Wellsville, NY

            Taking a short cut through Canada almost got me home today. Perhaps if I hadn’t taken those lengthy wrong turns in Buffalo, or not missed my exit in Hamilton, I might have made it. As it is, I’m totally exhausted and two more hours (the last hour in the dark) would have been more than I could feel comfortable with. Besides, I have to give the cats their last-evening-till-mom-comes-home party.

            It was an eventful day. First thing, I found myself discussing geocaching with a Canadian customs worker. They were pulling aside one car in five to take a survey on tourist visits from the US. I’ve got her really curious. She even asked the name of the cache I’d be visiting first.

            Which was my first find outside the US. On my statistics, it will now say I’ve “cached in two countries,” and the world map will show which two. It was a remarkable cache, just a repurposed plastic coffee can, but it had SIX trackables in it. If that proves anything, it proves that Canadian cachers are kinder to trackables, because two were geocoins (originals, not proxies) and their owners obviously trusted that they would not ‘vanish.’

            I had pre-downloaded five caches in the rural stretch of the Canadian motorways to make it easier to get on and off, and find more solitude to search. I missed one, daydreaming my way past the exit, but was rewarded when I went for the next one.  This was really creative. A good-sized lock-and-lock container had a magnet epoxied to the lid, and a ¾ log had a cavity chiseled from the bottom and a matching steel plate screwed to the top of the cavity. The container would not fall out even if the log was rolled vigorously. A casual seeker might lift the log and think “nothing underneath” never noticing it was hollow. The hint was “magnetic.” I lifted the log and thought it was too light-weight for an apparently non-rotted piece of wood, and looked. Clever. It was empty of swag, so I added a little.

The next one was far from solitary; it was right between the parking lot and drive-through food lane of a very busy ‘rest stop,’ which in Canada is much like the ones on the PA Turnpike only bigger and more hectic. I had to linger quite awhile pretending that a recycling bin was fascinating both before grabbing the skirt-lifter and before replacing it. This was my only micro find in Canada.

Then I went in and rewarded myself with a large iced coffee. I knew I was really in Canada when a lady I was passing said loudly to her companions, “EH?” There are fewer flags displayed than in the US, where every large business and half the residences seem to fly one. When a Canadian flag was displayed, it didn’t seem at all strange to me. The only real adjustment I had to make to Canada was using the inner, smaller-font numbers of my speedometer, as speed limits were in km/hr. Having the mile markers and signs also in kilometers was actually beneficial, because I always came to a town or interchange before my intuition said I would. It made the time pass quickly.

            The last cache I had downloaded was a “Travel Bug Hotel,” and I had decided that the Bristol Bunny would be dropped there, if I found the cache. New York State seems to have mostly micros, and once I’m home it will be at least a couple weeks until I’m in a position to hunt down anything larger. This gives the Bunny the best chance of moving on quickly and racking up more miles. I gave it a good ride, South Dakota to Ontario. I did indeed find the cache, a camouflaged food-service-sized peanut butter jar, and swapped the Bunny for a lovely geocoin from Germany that turned out to have three rabbits imprinted on one side. The damn things DO multiply! This one is visiting states and Pennsylvania is on the list.

            Shortly after that I hit the Hamilton traffic, missing the exit for the bypass. I took the QEW to Niagara, and decided at the last minute to take the Niagara border crossing instead of the Buffalo one. This decision cost me at least an hour of travel time, but I did get a view of the Falls crossing the bridge. I was so tired (and hungry) I was practically incoherent with the American customs officer and couldn’t even remember that Port Huron was where I’d entered Canada. But finally he waved me on. I got lost numerous times navigating Niagara, NY, and Buffalo, which it turns out I needed to go through to get where I was going anyway. I actually had to go west for awhile on I-90 to find my south-going exit. Déjà vu! Somehow the little two-lane road I took south eventually dumped me east of Olean, around 6:00 p.m.

            With Route 44 closed for construction, I was looking at either finding a place to stay or getting home after dark. I chose the latter. Now my journey is almost over, and I’m beginning to think of its ending, what I’ve accomplished, and, alas, what needs to be done at home. I was away from all that… sigh.