Geocaching with the Aug-Man
As most of you know, I had another story in Sunday's Herald-Palladium. For this one, I hid geocaches in Berrien County parks. Augie helped me hide one of them, and also went on the hunt with me to try and find someone else's hidden cache. I don't think the story made it on the paper's website, so here are the important parts:
Finding my first cache
It can't be hard, right?
By ANDY STEINKE
HP Staff
“Who wants to go find some treasure?” I asked my son, Augie, on Wednesday as the sun shone through the living room windows. It was a warm spring morning, perfect for finding our first geocache.
His eyes lit up as he let out an “I do!”
Augie, 3, is a master treasure hunter. I should know. He makes me play a lot of pirate games.
He ran to his room and grabbed his flashlight and backpack. He was ready to go.
I had chosen a kid-friendly location, Riverview Park, for our first expedition.
Geocaching is something I’d always intended to try but had never taken the time to attempt. It intrigued me how people could find containers with only the GPS coordinates.
Really, it’s just hide-and-seek for adults with fancy GPS units.
When we arrived at the park, Augie was ready to go. If there was a treasure there, his map would find it. Well, it would have, if it weren’t a trail guide for Madeline Bertrand County Park.
Unlike the caches I hid for this story, the cache we were looking for was small – a nano cache. It contained only a log.
There was no real “treasure” to find, but Augie didn’t know that.
We started at the Lions Shelter, because I knew from the clues that the cache was near picnic tables, but I wasn’t sure which ones. I turned on the GPS, and we started walking toward the cache’s actual location – Picnic Grove 2.
The sitting area had five or six rows of tables, and our clue told us the cache was “down under.”
So I peeked under the first row of tables, and Augie did the same.
“I found it!” he shouted.
I looked up. He was holding an old piece of tape that had been stuck to the bottom of the table.
“I don’t think that’s it,” I said.
There was a lot of tape, staples, tacks and gum underneath the tables, but nothing that looked like a cache.
Augie helped me for about five minutes before he got bored and wanted to go check out the river.
We took a short break and then continued our search.
He helped for a few more minutes before he stopped and found a stick to play with.
I kept searching, looking up every few minutes to see how many park goers were staring at the weird guy and his kid crawling around on the moss-covered cement looking under picnic tables.
I scoured the underside of all the tabletops and the benches in the area. After 45 minutes, Augie was poking me with the stick, and I had yet to find the cache.
I admitted defeat, and we walked over to the playground for some playtime.
Our voyage was unsuccessful, but I’m confident our next treasure hunt will be one for the ages.
Part One – Hiding my caches
I originally pitched this as a story idea for Earth Day, but it got bumped back a couple of weeks. It probably wasn't the worst thing, because it meant I had more time to hide my caches and get good art. I chose to hide them at parks within Berrien County because it would allow people to get out and see the great outdoors (remember this was supposed to be an Earth Day story) and because I wouldn't have to worry about any trespassing issues. I got permission from the parks people, and went out to hide the caches. Here they are:
Silver Beach County Park
N 42° 06.425, W 086° 29.359
Hint: Though a park full of sand this cache isn’t concealed.
In a nice shady place will the cache be revealed.
Love Creek County Park
N 41° 57.014, W 086° 18.237
Hint: Down the stairs you will find a cache by the creek.
It’s a dam fine view near the treasure that you seek.
Madeline Bertrand County Park
N 41° 45.893, W 86° 16.356
N 41° 45.893, W 86° 16.356
Hint: Don’t be distracted by the 18-hole course.
It’s down by the river that’s this cache’s source.
Rocky Gap County Park
N 42° 08.102, W 086° 27.939
Hint: On this small county beach five breakers you will find.
On the shelf behind three has the cache been assigned.
Sarett Nature Center
N 42° 09.342, W 086° 22.323
Hint: This mile-long trail passes not one pond but two.
It’s the terrapin one that you’ll want to pursue.
The story ended up having a pirate-like theme to it because of the sidebar I wrote to go with it (see below). Designer Crystal Myers did a good job of making the story and all it's little info boxes look good. Here is what the front page looked like:
Part Two – Finding a cache
This is the story I wrote to go with my hidden caches. I thought it would be fun to take Augie along with me, since he's so into "finding treasure" right now. He helped me scrounge around the house to find little trinkets and treasures to put in the caches I hid, so he thought it was great fun to go out and find treasure. Here's the story:Finding my first cache
It can't be hard, right?
By ANDY STEINKE
HP Staff
“Who wants to go find some treasure?” I asked my son, Augie, on Wednesday as the sun shone through the living room windows. It was a warm spring morning, perfect for finding our first geocache.
His eyes lit up as he let out an “I do!”
Augie, 3, is a master treasure hunter. I should know. He makes me play a lot of pirate games.
He ran to his room and grabbed his flashlight and backpack. He was ready to go.
I had chosen a kid-friendly location, Riverview Park, for our first expedition.
Geocaching is something I’d always intended to try but had never taken the time to attempt. It intrigued me how people could find containers with only the GPS coordinates.
Really, it’s just hide-and-seek for adults with fancy GPS units.
When we arrived at the park, Augie was ready to go. If there was a treasure there, his map would find it. Well, it would have, if it weren’t a trail guide for Madeline Bertrand County Park.
Unlike the caches I hid for this story, the cache we were looking for was small – a nano cache. It contained only a log.
There was no real “treasure” to find, but Augie didn’t know that.
We started at the Lions Shelter, because I knew from the clues that the cache was near picnic tables, but I wasn’t sure which ones. I turned on the GPS, and we started walking toward the cache’s actual location – Picnic Grove 2.
The sitting area had five or six rows of tables, and our clue told us the cache was “down under.”
So I peeked under the first row of tables, and Augie did the same.
“I found it!” he shouted.
I looked up. He was holding an old piece of tape that had been stuck to the bottom of the table.
“I don’t think that’s it,” I said.
There was a lot of tape, staples, tacks and gum underneath the tables, but nothing that looked like a cache.
Augie helped me for about five minutes before he got bored and wanted to go check out the river.
We took a short break and then continued our search.
He helped for a few more minutes before he stopped and found a stick to play with.
I kept searching, looking up every few minutes to see how many park goers were staring at the weird guy and his kid crawling around on the moss-covered cement looking under picnic tables.
I scoured the underside of all the tabletops and the benches in the area. After 45 minutes, Augie was poking me with the stick, and I had yet to find the cache.
I admitted defeat, and we walked over to the playground for some playtime.
Our voyage was unsuccessful, but I’m confident our next treasure hunt will be one for the ages.
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