August
7, 2015 258.5 miles, most of it trying to
negotiate Pottstown, PA’s one-way streets.
Road Trip 2015. To Geocaching.com,
it’s a competition. To me, an actual road trip. This, the first day, is sort of
like a prologue. I’d have started my road trip five days earlier, heading north
to Niagara Falls and through Ontario to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, thence to
the mysterious ancient mounds of Wisconsin, the notorious Minnesota Twine Ball,
and on to Medicine Wheel, one of my main destinations. I’ve been feeling an increasing
urgency to trace the roots of my father’s family, and that means paying homage
to the Cheyenne ancestors at a sacred site. This is the one that’s called to
me, louder and louder, over the years. I understand that there is now a paved
road instead of the switchbacked, say-goodbye-to-your-muffler old dirt one; yet
still some hiking, as is only right for a spiritual journey.
But, that was fantasy. Reality is an
ill-timed wedding at which I MUST make an appearance. Katelynne and Michael are
one of those rare young couples I believe may stay the course, grow old together
and never lose the love. Besides, I’m not just a number to fill out their guest
list, they WANT me there. ‘Nuff said.
So here I am. 144-odd miles southeast
of home instead of 250 miles northwest of it in Canada. Rather than re-trace
those miles to stick to my original plan, I’m hoping to head west right after
the reception (after cake, before dancing or drinking). I wanted more time for
the southern leg… there are so many things on my bucket list. However, I can
still make it to the Thursday Meet-and-Greet at the brewpub in Seattle if I
keep the pedal to the metal and only stop for the necessary geocache finds to
get State Souvenirs I don’t have.
What’s that? Did I lose you? Why, it’s
just this: I am an enthusiastic geocacher. Geocaching’s World Headquarters is
in Seattle. For the past seven years, they have had a Block Party in the middle
of August which is THE social event of the year for geocachers. They announced
that this year is the last one. This includes a lot of one-of-a-lifetime
opportunities, including the possibility of being chosen for a development
panel for future improvements in the game; touring HQ; finding the HQ geocache;
the local Geotour of nine caches which
earns a super-duper prize; four days of activities with other geocachers; a
side trip to find the memorial for the first-ever geocache; and lots and lots
of virtual and actual souvenirs. That gives me a timetable of getting from
Pottstown August 8th mid-afternoon to Seattle August 13th
mid-day by car, while finding at least one geocache in each of a half-dozen
states including three must-haves: Mingo (world’s oldest continuously active
cache) in Kansas; the Arch virtual in St. Louis, MO; and the aforementioned
first-ever in Oregon.
Yesterday things got even more
complicated. I made an unexpected trip to Galeton, the closest town to home,
and there I was able to find one of two newly-hidden geocaches. I found myself
thinking, “Rabbit, you could go for the big streak. You could find a cache
every day from now until September 3rd. Twenty-nine days.” My
previous record streak was 5 days, on a previous road trip. How and why? It’s a
great excuse to get out of the car and get some mild exercise. It gets you off
the four-lane and into the REAL ambiance of an area. You get to feel the soil
underfoot, observe the trees and plant life, note down unusual (to you) birds.
Sometimes you are led to a cache in a unique natural spot or an interesting
historical location, or merely get a chance to chat with the locals in some
little convenience store and sample local cuisine. That’s what geocaching on a
road trip means to me. The virtual souvenir is just a valued reminder of a good
time, a time during which I slowed down and appreciated an area instead of just
zipping past it at 65 MPH.
So, after traffic and construction
and arguments with my car GPS (Pottstown is EAST, not WEST) turning a 4-hour
drive into one of over 5 ½ hours, one of my first actions after checking in to
my motel was to get back into the car to go to the nearest Wal-Mart parking lot,
location of one of two local caches I’d pre-downloaded into my Garmin 62st.
There was a parking space right against a guardrail, where I suspected the
micro-cache was located. Someone had conveniently run into a tree that was part
of the corner’s landscaping, and I studied the 45-degree lean of the poor thing
with a look of gobsmacked out-of-towner on my face. “Gaw-lee, Andy, wouldja
look at that?” Bobbing my head like a chicken (or Don Knotts) I spotted the
cache out of my peripheral vision. SNATCH! I inconspicuously took my prize back
to my car and signed the log, then returned to the leaning tree, shaking my
head. “Did you ever see the like in all yer borned days?” POP! The cache was
back in its hiding place and the hick from the sticks was back in her geomobile
and gone.
Once again Pottstown’s one-way
streets had me frustrated, but this time I managed to find a landmark: The Ice
House, a hoagie/pizza shop I remembered visiting with my friend Monica back a
good many years. Just what I wanted, a take-out supper I could eat at the motel
at my leisure in air-conditioned quiet. Little did I know they were also a
package store. And even less did I imagine they would ask to see my ID (which
clearly shows I’m 43 years over legal drinking age) for buying a single pint
bottle of Guinness to accompany my meal. Now the meal, the pint, and this
report are finished.
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