Daughter Number One is a geocacher. In fact, she is a geocaching nut. She loves to geocache. What, pray tell, is geocaching? Someone hides a log in a container of some kind and posts the coordinates and hints for others to find it and write their name on the log. The container may be itty bitty, with just enough room for a skinny, tightly-rolled log, or it may be some larger size—up to and including a water tower. Caches of sufficient size often have souvenirs, such as stickers, for finders to take, with the understanding that those who take a little present will leave some other little present. There are even virtual caches that you find by taking pictures or answering questions about what you see, and sending the images or answers to the person who hid the cache.
Daughter Number Three and I just got to spend a week with D#1, and allowed her enthusiasm to pull us along with her as she geocached her way through three states. D#3’s daughter and her husband and their eight-month-old live in Matthews, North Carolina, and it turns out Matthews is rich in geocaches. One was virtual, and called for walking around downtown and answering questions. How many panes of glass in the fanlight of a historic building? What number appears to the right of the door of another? How many earthquake bolts in the façade of a third?
Earthquake bolts? None of us had heard of earthquake bolts before. And, assuming they’re used to help hold buildings together in case of earthquakes (they are), why would they be used in North Carolina? I looked this up later, and learned that earthquakes are not unknown in that part of the country. There was a huge one in 1886, for example, that was felt over two-and-a-half million square miles.
We did another geocache in the same downtown, during an event called Beats & Bites, a band-and-food-trucks party at the park. We didn’t attend the event, but it provided pleasant background music for a cache near a sculpture at the park entrance. D#1 found the small cache, and we strolled back to our restaurant to find the pizzas had arrived and the rest of the family had started enjoying them.
At the other end of the sound spectrum, D#1led us off to find a cache at the rest stop we happened to visit on the way south. The coordinates led us up a seriously steep hill behind the parking lot, and then along a little path into a woods. The cache was a nifty model log cabin (you have to admire the hider’s pun), but the highlight was four grave markers for naval veterans of the American Revolutionary War. The site was remarkably peaceful, the only sounds the birds and the wind soughing through the trees. It felt like an honor to be there.
Gaffney, South Carolina, has painted its water tower to look like a giant peach. The paint job is most excellently peachy; Roald Dahl would approve. At night, the peach is so artfully lit that it seems to glow. We can attest to this, as we were there in the gathering dusk when the lights were on. Despite the hour and the isolation of the spot, D#1 led us on three geocaches by the tower.
One was virtual, requiring only that you submit photographs of the peach. D#1found the first physical cache quickly, following the instructions and coordinates provided. The last one proved tough, at least as night was falling. It involved her working her way through a thicket, but she kept at it until she’d written her name on the log in an old ammo box. After that, we skedaddled out of there.
Every time D#1 registers that she’s found a geocache in a state where she has not geocached before, the official geocache website provides her with a virtual patch for the new state. She has a respectable collection of them, and added a patch for Georgia on this trip.
Also, on this trip, she passed a significant geocaching milestone: she completed her eight- hundredth geocache. She has found what was hidden eight hundred times. I asked her if there would be confetti when she recorded that momentous find, and there was. Virtual confetti and balloons and a message of congratulation. Geocacher friends sent her texts of admiration when she shared her big news, and phone calls would follow.
Eight hundred finds is a lot. She doesn’t geocache for glory; she genuinely enjoys her hobby. All the same, this may not be the time to tell her some cachers have fifty thousand.
5 April 2024