The Drive Through Hell's Furnace Room

Friday, August 14, 2015             I MADE IT!        Everett, WA

            Talk on the porch at the rustic hotel was of additional road closings as the Oregon wildfires spread. Later I’d learn from Maggi that they had made the news and the smoke was visible on her national weather map. Last night I’d laboriously determined that Rt. 26 would actually take me closer to the Original Stash Tribute Plaque, my next must-have geocache, than I-84 would have. This morning the topic of conversation was Rt. 26 being closed somewhere west of the town of Prinesville, some fifty-plus miles away.

            I walked down to the town café and enjoyed a breakfast of two huge blueberry pancakes with bacon. Chatting with the locals, I was still wondering what to do. Back to Plan A, I decided. If Rt. 26 was still closed, Rt. 97 and Rt. 197 led north from Prinesville to I-84. Then I’d turn on the Garmin and let it guide me from there. Of course, Prinesville is about the southernmost Rt. 26 goes, and the distance to I-84 from there was as far as I’d already come on Rt. 26. But you can’t argue with closed roads.

            About an hour later I got to Prinesville, and, sure enough, Rt. 26 was closed west of there. Smoke was clearly visible, a low-lying haze everywhere, thickest to the west and south. I turned north, and veered left onto Rt. 197 in a few miles.

            This has got to be the worst, most white-knuckle stretch of narrow, switchbacked, terrifying pieces of rough roadway ever built. For someone with acrophobia, I can only say that I longed to give up, pull over. Two things stopped me: I was mostly on the outer edge of the road and pulling over was either not feasible (no shoulder) or, at the few emergency pull-outs, it would just take me closer to that breath-stopping drop. And, number two, I knew that I would either have to eventually move the car down the road, back up the road, or die there in the pull-off afraid to move. This was, apparently, the Deschutes Gorge. I’ve heard this river is great fishing, but I never want to go back there as long as I live. It was only marginally better climbing out than descending in. The drivers behind me were exceedingly frustrated by my cowardly 20 MPH all the way through that stretch. As one might guess, I sure didn’t make time getting to I-84 and the horrid town of The Dulles. Or something like that. There, when I stopped for gas, some kind soul pointed out I had a good reason for my handling problems on those switchbacks: my left rear tire was almost flat. I’d been watching that one for several days and just kept forgetting to top it off.

            My nerves were totally shot, I was weak and shaking, and no matter how many quarters I pumped into the air machine, I just could not hold the air nozzle firmly enough to the tire stem to get any air into that tire. The service station guys were singularly unhelpful. At last I admitted defeat and programmed Minerva to lead me to a AAA repair shop. Heartbreakingly, she led me back east to the very intersection of I-84 and Rt. 197. And the guy couldn’t do anything.

            Well, not exactly. He gave me very exact directions to a place called Shwab’s Tires and they were just as good as he’d promised. I waited less than half an hour, they did not find a puncture but replaced the valve stem (and cap, which I’d absent-mindedly stuck in a pocket) and had me on the road again before 4. (This is now Pacific time.) The highway now was running along the Columbia River, which is one of the most impressive waterways I’ve ever seen. The brisk wind which has been spreading the fires so rapidly was churning up whitecaps on water that was already wild, wide, and fast. Fish in THAT? No way. The Hood River came in after awhile which augmented the flow and calmed it, just a little. This was very beautiful, but I was in no mood to appreciate it. I had one more cache to find, and a film festival in Seattle this evening.

            I turned on the Garmin. 143 miles to the cache. Motor on! An hour later, we were very close to Portland and I checked again. Still 143 miles, and due north! How was that possible?? I pulled off and checked my settings. Somehow the Garmin had switched destinations to the Headquarters Cache in Seattle. Re-checking, I found the Original Stash Tribute Cache was twenty miles south.

            Now came the infuriating business of following the GPS compass needle many miles on unfamiliar roads. I found Rt. 26, but turned onto another freeway that seemed closer to the line, but actually veered east shortly. Then I zigzagged back through small towns and semi-rural neighborhoods, thwarted by roads that turned the wrong way or led down into some remote area and ended. At one point I glimpsed a river, and with the Garmin reading 3 ½ miles in that direction I knew the cache was across the water. I had to find a bridge. Then I had to find a road going roughly the right direction. I got within a tantalizing mile of the cache when the road turned west again. Expanding Minerva’s map showed an intersection and a parallel road. Finally the numbers were steadily counting down, switched to yards instead of miles. I confidently made a left turn onto a hairpin-switchbacked rural road. Yards turned to feet, and I spotted a pulloff ahead with three cars and just barely room for Bruce. This was it.

Geocaching’s History page describes it thus: “On May 2, 2000, at approximately midnight, eastern savings time, the great blue switch controlling selective availability was pressed. Twenty-four satellites around the globe processed their new orders, and instantly the accuracy of GPS technology improved tenfold. Tens of thousands of GPS receivers around the world had an instant upgrade. For GPS enthusiasts, this was definitely a cause for celebration. Internet newsgroups suddenly teemed with ideas about how the technology could be used.

“On May 3, one such enthusiast, Dave Ulmer, a computer consultant, wanted to test the accuracy by hiding a navigational target in the woods. He called the idea the "Great American GPS Stash Hunt" and posted it in an internet GPS users' group. The idea was simple: Hide a container out in the woods and note the coordinates with a GPS unit. The finder would then have to locate the container with only the use of his or her GPS receiver. The rules for the finder were simple: "Take some stuff, leave some stuff."

On May 3rd he placed his own container, a black bucket, in the woods near Beavercreek, Oregon, near Portland. Along with a logbook and pencil, he left various prize items (including the notorious Original Can of Beans). He shared the waypoint of his "stash" with the online community on sci.geo.satellite-nav: N 45° 17.460 W 122° 24.800

“Within three days, two different readers read about his stash on the Internet, used their own GPS receivers to find the container, and shared their experiences online. Throughout the next week, others excited by the prospect of hiding and finding stashes began hiding their own containers and posting coordinates. Like many new and innovative ideas on the Internet, the concept spread quickly - but this one required leaving your computer to participate.

“Within the first month, Mike Teague, the first person to find Ulmer's stash, began gathering the online posts of coordinates around the world and documenting them on his personal home page. The "GPS Stash Hunt" mailing list was created to discuss the emerging activity. Names were even tossed about to replace the name "stash" due to the negative connotations of that name. One such name was "geocaching."

“Geocaching, first coined by Matt Stum on the "GPS Stash Hunt" mailing list on May 30, 2000, was the joining of two familiar words. The prefix geo, for Earth, was used to describe the global nature of the activity, but also for its use in familiar topics in gps such as geography. Caching, from the word cache, has two different meanings, which makes it very appropriate for the activity. A French word invented in 1797, the original definition referred to a hiding place someone would use to temporarily store items. The word cache stirs up visions of pioneers, gold miners, and even pirates. Today the word is still even used in the news to describe hidden weapons locations.

The second use of cache has more recently been used in technology. Memory cache is computer storage that is used to quickly retrieve frequently used information. Your web browser, for example, stores images on disk so you don't have to retrieve the same image every time you visit similar pages.

The combination of Earth, hiding, and technology made geocaching an excellent term for the activity. However the "GPS Stash Hunt" was the original and most widely used term until Mike Teague passed the torch to Jeremy Irish in September 2000.”

            Yes, this activity went from zero to global in four months. And in the very spot I was parked, that first “stash” was hidden, starting the game, over fifteen years ago. Unfortunately, the original container is long gone, but cachers who care about their own history got permission to place a tribute plaque on the site, and hide a commemorative geocache within fifty feet so cachers can log that they were here and paid tribute. The plaque itself already has a mythos, supposed to enhance the performance of any handheld GPS placed on it, and may even improve the owner’s geosenses. Naturally Nermal got into the picture I took of my Garmin resting on the plaque. I could already feel the surging tingle of my geosenses as we headed for the actual geocache.

            Or maybe that was my danger-sense. This involved a steep climb up a beaten-dust trail, 45 degrees in the easy spots, through the woods. I crawled most of the way, signed the log, took another picture with Nermal, took a picture for two guys that were there (the place was swarming with cachers come to pay homage), and dropped my ASPGBX coin. Then amused everyone by butt-skidding the whole way down, adding Oregon dust to the Utah dust in my poor camo pants, and completing the ruin of my former dress Crocs.

            I could not linger. For one thing, the pull-off had overflowed and people were parked as far away as the turn-off and were walking up that steep road. For another, Seattle was an estimated 163 miles away. Since I had no idea where I was (except in the purely micro sense of knowing what cache I was at) I programmed Minerva with the street address of my hotel in Washington. I immediately knew I was in trouble. Seven hours? To drive (roughly) 163 miles as the crow flies? Ridiculous! She even gave me two options, claiming the direct route she’d normally use had the reputation of high traffic volume. Okay, I clicked on the “avoid traffic” route. Which turned out to be not so low-traffic around Portland, and once I got to Washington State, took me on a rural-road detour similar to Oregon Rt. 197 through Mt. St. Helens and Rainier State Parks. Of course, it started to rain the minute I got off the high-speed road, and the sun set around the time I stopped for gas and a mediocre pre-made sandwich (my first food since those humongous pancakes) and re-set the routing mode on Minerva to “most use of freeways.” I was guided to Tacoma, adjacent to Seattle, and back onto I-5. There I began to have the horrible notion that something had gone wrong with my hotel booking. We sped past the airport, which I knew from maps was considerably north of Geocaching Headquarters. On, and on, to finally be directed to exit in Everett, which indeed proved to be over 30 miles from HQ, not the quarter-mile the AAA agent had said. It was a little after 10 p.m., I’d been on the road 14 hours, and the hotel had given away my room despite my call from Wyoming. I was furious, and I think the desk clerk sensed it despite my self control. She ‘found’ a room in the supposedly-booked hotel, and I dragged my luggage up the elevator and here I am! As close as I’ll get until tomorrow. The only bright spot, if it can be called one, is that the film festival had been cancelled because the venue was in a park and it was both raining and windy.

The Drive Through Hell

Thursday, August 13, 2015         Trip odometer 3,300 miles Mitchell, Oregon

            What a day! I drove into Utah with high hopes, as the two pre-downloaded Utah caches were within a quarter-mile of each other off the same exit, close to the Wyoming border. This was an over-a-cattle-guard-on-the-off-ramp onto a dirt road exit. A dusty climb for Bruce up that dirt road, and I parked looking at the steepness of the terrain with some chagrin. Once more I was wearing my once-good dressy Crocs. Not even thinking about rattlesnakes, I leapt out of the car and searched for a route to the likeliest spot for a cache. The name was “Corner Post,” there was only one of those corners so typical of Western barbed wire fences in sight, reinforced with boards with nice sturdy wooden posts, and the Garmin pointed right to it.

            One route looked doable, a short slope down to a wandering path that slowly descended from the road then up to the fence corner. It wasn’t until I’d started beating brush on the ascending part that I thought of snakes. By then, I was committed. I made my way up to the post and started looking for a “quart-jar sized container” as described. Nothing, and very little cover for it. I even felt the tops of the posts in case they were hollow. Since this fence apparently forms the boundary between a public hunting area and a very insistently private ranch, and the barbed wire was fresh, aggressively barbed, and the strands no more than 8” apart, I confined my search to the near side. Expanding to search through the adjacent withered clump of stunted trees, still no luck. Calling up the most recent logs on my Garmin, I was angry to discover a series of DNFs. Why hadn’t I checked the logs before downloading the cache, as I normally do?

            Well, I had one more chance at my Utah state souvenir, and it was just back at the intersection with the off-ramp. When I got there, I was frankly discouraged to find that the Western notion of a “terrain two” cache is not what I expected. A steep slope of bare, extremely loose, soil had to be scaled to get to the top, where the “small” cache was hidden in a sage bush. There was no finding an easy route here, so I finally just crawled up as best I could. I went through every sage bush, searching among the branches and on the ground under the sprawling roots, for a good half hour; only refusing to probe too deeply into gopher holes. Well, that and search the sides of bushes hanging over the drop-off for the slope. My acrophobia kicked in big-time. No lock-and-locks, no dangling bison tubes, even camouflaged, no pill bottles or khaki-painted Altoids tins. This was my last chance at the state souvenir, so I was thorough.

            Finally I said to myself, “Find someplace off an exit likely to have Wifi and search for some local skirt-lifter. This is futile.” So I butt-slid down the slope, grinding a great deal of Utah into my clean pants (and those shoes), my sinuses clogged and my chest heaving from my (still active) sagebrush allergy. The minute I got in the car one of my severe foot cramps hit, and would not go away. Luckily it was not my accelerator-foot, and I just gritted my teeth and concentrated on driving and looking for Wifi.

            Mile after mile of Interstates rolled past with no services at exits. I turned north, gassed up at a Wifi-less truck stop. Finally, approaching Provo, some eating places began to appear on the services boards and I saw a Starbucks symbol. Off the next exit I went, into a huge mall district with no Starbucks in sight. A Target sign on the right made me think the Starbucks might be there, as they often are in Pennsylvania. No such luck, it was a Pizza Hut. But my bladder was yelling to be emptied, and I went in anyway. Only to find that, YES, there was Wifi! A quick search with my iPod app showed just what I was looking for, a cache in the next parking lot over.

            I entered the coordinates manually in the Garmin as a waypoint, my usual way of spontaneous caching, and drove over to a wonderfully deserted lot, where I was guided to a light post: I’d found my skirt-lifter, and gotten my Utah souvenir. The short walk had even soothed my foot cramp away.

            It was terribly hot, I was thinking, as I turned my car AC to maximum cold, highest fan speed. Northwards we went into Idaho, where I had not pre-loaded caches due to planning to return home through the northern part at a more leisurely pace. I stopped at a Carl’s Jr., a western hamburger chain I’m quite fond of, to find my luck had turned again. A massive power failure had just ended, and the grilles were the lowest priority for bringing back up. I gulped a couple hot dogs from the adjoining convenience store then sped on my way.

            The thermometers mounted on buildings as I drove through Boise averaged 103. I don’t care how low the humidity is, that’s HOT.

            I couldn’t decide whether the immense columns of smoke I was seeing were some huge Boise factory complex or one of the wildfires signs had been warning of all through Utah and parts of Wyoming. It turned out they were fires, but I didn’t learn the full extent of the disaster until much later. The moment I crossed the border to Oregon a big sign said FREEWAY CLOSED. Another said ALL TRAFFIC MUST EXIT NOW. It should have been followed by one that said “…and may god have mercy on your souls,” because there was no detour signs. I followed traffic a little way, then pulled over and got out my map. I had no idea how far the closure extended, or why it was closed. What other road from here would take me west? I rapidly decided Oregon Rt. 26 would do, although it made a deep southward curve before heading northwest again at the other end of the state.

            Rt. 26 was a 2-lane rural highway, running between irrigated fields and pastures of cattle. Once every 50 miles or so there was a small town, often just a cluster of buildings or a sign pointing off down some potholed country road. Gas became an issue, and I gladly stopped at a little rural two-pump general store. There the attendant (Oregon being one of two states I know of that don’t trust customers to pump their own gas) told me there were at least three big wildfires around. “The town is jumpin’,” she claimed. Town? With one store and less than a dozen houses, it was about the size of Oleona, PA. “What with the firefighters comin’ through, and all the detours. We even have our own fire.” She waved unconcernedly at a column of smoke directly upwind. On my way out of town, I saw some enterprising citizen had a table in his driveway with a hand-lettered sign: “Fire T-shirts, $15.”

            It turned out that Rt. 26 follows the original Oregon Trail. Somewhere on one of those low-gear, lengthy uphill runs, my great-grandfather’s covered wagon had a back wheel jam. Tragically, he was too furious to remember to set the brake when he jumped off the driver’s seat and walked back to check the wheel. His widow promptly turned the wagon around and returned to Wyoming. This was very much on my mind as I drove. And drove. And drove. Incredible canyon country; miles of forest featuring yellow birch, several kinds of pine and spruce, and the occasional redwood; camping spots and recreational areas; but no gas stations. And, as time went by, I began to wonder if I’d be forced to stop for the night in a campground with my exceedingly-minimal camping gear.

            The last chance, at nearly sundown, was a dinky town called Mitchell. The motel along the highway said “No Vacancy.” I turned down the potholed road into the town proper, to find, next to the Stage Stop (yes, really) a hotel that had to date back to the turn of the century, and I don’t mean the one we just had. But it was rustically charming and had a vacancy. The bathroom (meaning sink and toilet) was across the lobby and there was no way I would ever climb those breakneck wooden stairs to the shower. But there was a comfy bed, a place to pee, and (oddly) Wifi. Good enough.

Drive Time

Wednesday, August 12, 2015     Trip odometer 2,648 miles          Evanston, Wyoming

            Let me state for the record that I agree with my dad 100% that breakfast should be filling, with plenty of protein, and except for very, very hot weather, served hot. I don’t need traditional breakfast foods, leftovers are fine. But a sickly-sweet pastry or a bowl of cold cereal are not good enough. I should have skipped the Econolodge’s continental breakfast and gone out, but the coffee smelled good, and WAS the best motel coffee to date. An English muffin slathered with “Country Crock” and a banana, however, were not a good breakfast. That set the tone for the whole day.

            I admit that, when I pulled into the rest stop ten minutes after hitting the road, it was pleasantly deserted, and it was a pleasure to smell the sagebrush I trod on to find the well-made cache in a clump of cottonwoods. However, fifty-eight years ago I was prescribed my first allergy meds for an allergy to sagebrush. I’m not sure if that’s what had me coughing and congested all day, or I’m just underhydrating for a dry climate and a high altitude.

            I admit it was a nostalgia trip to see road signs for suburbs and outlying towns around Denver, and to see the Rockies rising abruptly out of the high plains beyond the city. The traffic was unbelievable, though, crawling bumper-to-bumper half the distance to the Wyoming border. The first thing I saw upon crossing that border was a herd of bison. As the day wore on, I spotted Lone Tree and a small herd of pronghorns, in addition to cattle and horses galore. Apparently, however, Little America has expanded from its original building east of Cheyenne on Rt. 30, because a detour (the on-ramp for I-80 which I wanted to take was closed) led me past Little America but this was a posh golf resort. I gassed up at Sinclair and got out of there fast. Another Little America 200 or more miles west was an entire town of tourist traps. I’ll wait and look for the original, thank you.

            Wyoming makes Kansas look populous. Hundreds of miles went by on I-80 with absolutely nothing to see. An occasional exit invariably was marked “No Services.” Nervously I made sure to top off the tank at each of four towns we passed large enough to have a gas station. At one of these I found myself starving, and the only place to eat (and not drink beer) was MacDonald’s. Not my favorite place, but at least I convinced them to leave the cheese off my quarter-pounder. As I ate, I gazed across the street at “The Wagon Wheel Liquor Store and Fly Shop.” I kid you not; I swear that’s what the signs said.

            So this nearly four-hundred mile stretch was very boring indeed, despite frequent lane closures for construction that sometimes had us slowed down to as little as 30 MPH. At one point we passed a sign that said “Continental Divide. Elevation 7,000 feet,” which was exciting out of all proportion to its significance. I do well at high altitudes. My only symptom has been foot cramps, and that could have been from driving. Heck, my hands are sore and the skin in some spots is tender. I’ll be glad to get the forced-drive part of the trip over with.

            Storms hit in the worst stretch of construction, those Rocky Mountain thunderstorms where you think you could touch the bottoms of the clouds with a stool and a good stretch. The lightning is all cloud-to-ground because, let’s face it, the ground is closer than the other clouds. I was almost to the Utah border. Could I get through Utah, grab two caches there, and get to Oregon in a little over an hour? No, it turned out, because Idaho is in the way. I chose to stop for the night, even knowing that there is no way I will make it to Seattle in time for the Meet-and-Greet tomorrow. I may not even make it to Seattle until Friday, and feel I’d better call the hotel there and ask them to hold my room until I get there.

            It was a grueling, nerve-wracking day of driving and not much else. A few twinges of fifty-year-old nostalgia, and otherwise all traffic and boredom. I had hoped for more from the two states I think of when I ponder my roots. Perhaps, on the way home, when I have time to linger in the more esthetic parts of them, I’ll feel less conflicted.

Kansas

Tuesday, August 11, 2015          Trip Odometer 2,110 miles         Limon, CO

A better day today. Up at 7, arrived at the car repair place before 8:30. “Christian Brothers” was not just the owner’s surname. The waiting room was loaded with bibles, positive-thinking-through-Christ books, etc., and the PA was loudly playing Christian rock. Frankly, I’d rather listen to operatic arias or old-school rap. Still, I’d only knitted a round-and-a-half of my hat when the mechanic called me out to see the problem: a hole in the exhaust pipe, not a threat. She said it could easily wait until I returned home to fix as long as I can stand the noise. I can, it’s better than Christian rock.

Elated by the good news, I negotiated the Kansas City urban traffic with little difficulty and entered Kansas. Home of Mingo, the oldest continuously-maintained geocache in the world. Totally apart from state souvenirs, Goal #2 of the trip out. Only 400-odd miles away. Kansas is big. And friendly, I discovered. The sign at the first rest stop said “Dunkin Donuts.” Could it really be? Coffee had been steadily getting worse as I progressed west, until this morning’s bitter swill which I’d had to double-sweeten and cream heavily. I hadn’t seen a Dunkin Donuts since eastern Kentucky. Was it a mirage? NO! I walked in the rest stop building, and there it was. What’s more, a bank of Coke machines topped with a flashing neon sign proved that I had left Pepsi country behind and was back in the Coke-dominated world. This wasn’t a rest stop, it was heaven. I went back to the car with the largest coffee DD sells and a glazed chocolate donut, which was my lunch some miles later.

It was a pleasant day of driving. Kansas unfolded around me, miles and miles of miles and miles. Eastern Kansas isn’t as flat as I expected, but was rolling and sometimes wooded, although the trees were mostly unfamiliar to me. I kept reminding myself that, between the Mississippi River and Denver, land altitude rises nearly a mile, and most of this is in Kansas, so gradually that even Bruce didn’t object to the climb.

The most obvious feature of the view here is the sky, which seems to arch more than 180 degrees overhead, dominating the earth below with its ever-changing palette of blue and white (and occasionally grey). Below, in addition to the expected agriculture, there were quite a few cattle, plus the pens and chutes for sorting them and rolls of hay for winter feed. The highway was often cut through a hill, revealing several layers of sandstone, some red, some a distinctive yellow, and wide layers of chalk-and-flint, which I found very exciting. As often as I’ve read about flint knapping and yearned to try it myself, this was the first time I’d seen the stone in its natural setting. Some of the sandstone layers seemed crumbly, making me wonder if fossils can be found here (it turned out they are), and in deep folds of the land I had glimpses of some stone more structured, harder; possibly granite. I wish I knew more about geology, it seems so interesting, but I’ve never been able to tell one rock from another if they were the same basic type. As I took in the passing scenery, every once in awhile, with a little thrill of anticipation, my mind would whisper the single word: Mingo.

            Except for a couple stops for gas, I drove steadily westward at 75 miles an hour. I was amused, approaching Salina, that one billboard said “The Friendliest Yarn Shop Anywhere!” with the letters Y-A-R-N imposed on colored balls of yarn. Imagine a place where a yarn shop can afford a billboard on the Interstate. There was another for another yarn shop more than a hundred miles along. If I hadn’t been on a tight schedule to Seattle, I might have stopped. But, there was Mingo…

            So gradually I didn’t notice it happening, the land flattened out, becoming the true prairie that is stereotypical Kansas. “Dippy-birds,” as I call the oil pumping devices that dot the west, began to appear. In addition, the largest collection of solar windmills I’ve ever seen, even huger than the array on Dartmoor in England, spread across the land. Below them, the little traditional water-pump windmills spun merrily while the more modern ones barely moved, ponderous and dignified. (Mingo)

            Signs began to appear near Hays, indicating that this is indeed the Bible Belt. Literal signs. These are not the crudely scrawled boards along Southern roads, but neat and often artistic signs, some featuring artwork including full-length portraits of Jesus. I find these more esthetic and less threatening than a board spray-painted, “REPENT OR ELSE.” But I have my own prayer: Mingo is near.

            A last rest stop, and I turn on the Garmin. Mingo is less than 30 miles west. With one eye on the road, and one on the Garmin, I decide to take an exit five miles before the cache, one with a gas station, so anyone who sees my CITO t-shirt and understands it will realize geocaching is contributing to the local economy. My (faulty) memory of the map places Mingo at a back-roads crossroad, and I set off up one of the ribbons of packed dust that is Kansas’ idea of a county road (still better than Illinois). Two miles, and the numbers counting down miles-to-the-cache stop going down. The arrow points left, so I turn onto another ribbon of dust. Better, the numbers are dropping again. Left again at a T-intersection, and I see the distant movement of traffic on the Interstate. With less than two miles to go, it seems I’m approaching I-70 again. Was there a closer off-ramp? Yes, I discover, as the road turns briefly to concrete as it goes over the four-lane. A hundred yards to the cache, my Garmin says, and the needle abruptly wheels left, then back, and the numbers rise again. A little ribbon-of-dust goes off to the left and curves back towards the highway, veering right again at the berm. I turn, spotting a familiar-looking post-and-wire fence. I’ve seen this place before, in pictures. A K-turn to get the most convenient pull-off spot, and I gather my equipment and get out of the car. A corner fence post, a conspicuous rock in front of it, draws me. I pry up the rock, and it falls to reveal… Mingo. World’s oldest geocache. A big cylindrical container, the top held on by a huge hose-clamp thing, set neatly into a custom-made concrete-lined hole.

            I take many, many pictures. I open the container, sign the log, sort through the swag within looking in vain for any of the 26 trackables reputed to be in this cache. At length I put in my ASPGB IX proxy geocoin, and solemnly swap swag, taking someone’s signature poker chip and leaving my very favorite dayglo smiley lanyard. With a feeling of being a part of history, I close the container and re-hide it. Mingo. I found Mingo. The heat and dust of Kansas are friendly to me now. I drive the four hundred yards up the road to find a tribute cache, neatly hidden.

            Then it’s back on the road, off westward once more. Less than an hour sees me over the Colorado border, although the scenery looks identical. Only the road has changed… definitely less well-maintained than it was in Kansas. But, I am not in Kansas anymore…

            The welcome center is eleven miles from the border, and there I discover that one of the two Colorado caches I’d downloaded was right on the border, and only accessible from the westbound side of I-70. The other is over 90 miles west. I take to the road, but Bruce is demanding gas again and my stomach is demanding something that is not junk food. Exits go by with nothing around them, except for the occasional obviously-vacant building. Are there ANY places to eat, gas, and stay between here and Denver? A little town called Limon eventually proved to have a couple gas stations, a pretty good steak house, and an Econolodge. Here I sit, savoring the day’s triumphs.

            Mingo was an incredible find. It was also my first in Kansas, my farthest west, and farthest from home. These are statistics that don’t mean a thing to anyone but me, but they are achievements I value. Now, tomorrow is another, very long, day.