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Updated on Wednesday:
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GRUMPY'S BATHTUB - July 13, 2006
(Sitting in for publisher Helen Morris this week
is Bill Bailey.)
The news waits for no one. Even though July 4th is a
holiday for most folks, many people still work on the holiday. In order
to get the paper out on Wednesday, it has to be finished on Tuesday,
which was July 4 last week. I had to cope with two of the largest
thunderstorms of the year trying to kill the electric power and,
thereby, the work I was doing in my computer. I received a phone call
from home telling me that our creek crossing in front of the house was
too high for crossing so perhaps I should call home before leaving to
see if it was safe. I made the call and found out that just after the
last big storm two very wet people were seen trudging up the road coming
out of the holler. Since no one else lives on our road, I knew they must
have been geocachers.
Geocaching is a sport for anyone with a GPS (global
position-ing system) unit. Geocaching (you pronounce it Geo-cashing) is
an entertaining adventure game for GPS users. The cache is usually a
waterproof container filled with small items, although some caches are
simply of historic or scenic interest. Participating in a cache hunt is
a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of
a GPS unit as well as getting out into nature and exercising. Low tech
walking plus high tech GPS equals fun. The basic idea is to have
individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share
the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use
the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may
provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is
asked to do, if they take something, is leave something for the next
person who visits.
Geocaching.com reports there are 287,043 active caches
in 222 countries. In the last seven days, there have been 208,453 new
logs of finds written by 32,868 account holders. There are 869 caches in
West Virginia, eight in Calhoun and many more in surrounding counties.
A friend had placed a multi-geocache, made of three
parts, on Memorial Day called “Grumpy’s Bathtub,” which I am monitoring.
No one had been to the cache and I was so excited I immediately changed
into some old shorts and went to see if their journey had been
successful. The man and woman seen walking up the road were a couple
calling themselves “C-Team.” They are retired from Verizon
Communications and live in central Ohio. Geocaching is what they do for
entertainment and exercise. They had found all three of the caches, so I
sent them an email of congratulations. They answered me with a diary of
their adventure.
Since this is a multi-cache of three parts, they had
parked before the first cache just as the first storm was unleashed.
Wondering what they were getting into as they watched quarter-sized
hailstones bounce off the hood of their car, they decided to wait half
an hour. When the sun came out, they found the first cache, and the
coordinates inside, telling them where the second cache was.
Before they found the second cache, the air filled, once
again, with the sound of thunder and they were forced to seek shelter in
a rock overhang beside the road. The storm raged for an hour around them
and hail fell once more. It rained so hard, they were able to see the
creek in front of them come up over two feet with limbs, leaves and
debris raging past.
Once this storm had spent itself, C-Team located the
second cache and retrieved the coordinates for the last cache. To get to
it, they had to cross the creek. Under normal conditions, this can be
done without even getting your feet wet, but not on a day after rain had
fallen from two storms. C-Team managed to find a spot where they felt
they could safely cross and promptly managed to fall in. They became the
first people to take a bath in Grumpy’s bathtub. After the bath, they
went on to find the final cache and returned to their car as quickly as
possible before another storm could catch them. They said, “Thanks for
an excellent hunt.”
This was not C-Team’s first visit to Calhoun. They have
been here before searching for, and finding, other caches. They would
love to see more caches here in Calhoun because they find the people are
friendly and the area so scenic and peaceful.
If Geocaching sounds like a good idea to you, visit
calhoun chronicle.com (click on the green geocaching logo at bottom
right) or geocaching.com websites for information. If you own property
in Calhoun (landowner permission is necessary) and would like to have a
geocache placed in an interesting or scenic spot on your land, call Bill
Bailey or Lisa Minney, 304-354-9373. The geo-cacher’s motto is “Cache
in, trash out,” so you will not have to worry about anyone littering. It
is an interesting and fun way to promote Calhoun County and entice
people from other areas to come here and see the beauty and peace we
enjoy every day.
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