Sunday, July 10, 2011

Under Every Helpful Smile.....

I was on my way back home after doing a few caches up in southern Minnesota, and I had this cache mark as I could do a little backroad driving and could get to it without going to far out of my route back home.  I had an ok day caching, but too much time spent driving in the car.  This Terracache is called Under Every Helpful Smile.....  I had looked at the distance and elevation and thought this one won't be bad, should be a nice way to finish off the day and it would give me a small break from the road.  The one thing I didn't take into account was the owner.  I should have known better that it wouldn't be a walk in the park, but wasn't expecting what I ran into.  It was quite a workout.  Plus this was a neat idea.  This cache was made at an event that the attendees got to log, but those that missed it would get the pleasure of vising it out in the field.

As I was trying to find my way on the back roads of Northern Iowa, I was completely turned around and was starting to debate if I should tried this without a full tank of gas.  This was an area where homes are few and far apart.  When I saw this place, thoughts were rolling threw my head this is the perfect way to start a horror movie. I passed this little "store" thinking, yup if the car breaks down that's where I'll have to walk to, looking for help, since my cell phone had no signal in this area.



As I took the twisty and winding roads I finally made it down to the parking area.  Which nobody was around.  But I'm in the middle of no where.  I looked at the GPS and saw it was only .30 of a mile away.  This was when I thought, yup piece of cake.  Please remember I'm still having problems with my neck and shoulder since I had major surgery done on my neck about 6 months ago.   So off I head into the woods looking for a trail of some sort.



It became quite clear after the first  tenth of a mile, this was going to be very ruff.  You are walking on the side of the slope upward the whole way there, and all I could find at times, where a few small broken animal trails.  It was bushwack city the whole way there but you had to be careful cause there was slippery grass under the tall foliage.  At times you where reaching for something to grab onto to keep going which most of time, I grabbed some plant with thorns or got a handful of neddles.  As I kept going in deeper it was starting to get dark out and I really didn't want to be here in the dark, so I was trying to be quick, but the bluffs at the top of the slope were really neat to see.


I finally reached ground zero, and thought just by looking, it right there in "that thing".  Nope.  It was going to take some climbing around these big boulders and a little searching to find it.  This is what I looked like with the cache in hand.


I took note of the cc code by taking a photo of it twice, and writing it on my hand.  I had left my pack in the car since the distance wasn't far, but wasn't expecting having to deal with such thick foliage.  I swear I was waiting and listening for banjo music to start playing.  This area is never visited.  But again I had no time to waste, as I wanted to get back to the car before it really got dark out.

I have to say this was the roughest cache I had hunted in a very long time.  Of course there will be better times of the year to hunt this one down, but I'm glad after it's all said and done to have done it right in the middle of summer.  It was also a good reminder to take my pack even if the distance and elevation isn't very much as you just don't know what kind of terrain your really going to run into.

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