Gone Campin is my first hide, hidden on the closest place to heaven on earth I have ever known.
I place my first cache here in memory of my parents, two of the most wonderful people ever to walk this earth, who equipped me with the experiences and knowledge to survive, thrive and enjoy all life has to offer.
This is my lake property, the place where I grew up. We lived in the city, but, trust me, I "grew up" in the woods and on the waters surrounding this place!
The 11 acres around the cache are mine - the tens of thousands of acres surrounding that belong to Alabama Power and Kimberly Clark and are open-use lands if you want to hike, camp, hunt or fish in them.
Come on down, by car or boat, and enjoy the scenery and wildlife.
Since I own the property but allow others to camp on it there may be campers nearby - don't sweat it - they're good people. Unless they are geocachers they won't know the game so please keep the actual cache location to yourself!
Bring your family, spend the day here swimming and picnicing or camp out for the weekend. Camping is primitive - the house burned down (twice!) and all that's here at the moment is woods, water and a fine recently refurbished outhouse.
On the way in or out you may want to stop at N33 09.832 W086 17.359. This is an abandoned railroad where Wilson's Raiders, in an effort to destroy the infrastructure of the South after the War of Northern Aggression, destroyed trainloads of alabaster marble destined for sale.
It lies in the heart of Marble Valley, an area where some of the most beautiful marble in the world has long been mined.
Numerous notable buildings around the world are built of marble extracted from this valley. There is still a large marble mine in operation .5 miles away.
At the coords above traincarloads of marble awaiting transport were overturned, creating a "valley" of blocks of marble on each side of the tracks. It's an interesting place to walk along and contemplate the manual labor, hand drills, mule carts and so forth that were required to mine these huge blocks back then. If your back (or willpower) is strong there are slabs of marble you can haul off to a stonecutter to have made into lovely tables and stuff.
If you are a golfer or just want to take a drive through some lovely countryside ride through Perrywinkle Farms, a little-known gem of a working farm and corporate retreat at N33 087.515 W086 24.680. These folk raise Brahma cattle with horns approaching 8' wide, and the hundreds of acres of fenced land is stocked with Turkey, Quail and huge Whitetail Deer.
Back to the cache, though: GeoRose and I hide 'em like we like to find them - a traditional with quality goodies in an easy-to-access interesting place. We gave this one a 1.5 rating due to the confusing dirt roads you will navigate to get here and the fairly rough 20 yards of terrain you will have to navigate from the car to the cache.
This is a forest and lake - watch for cottonmouth snakes!
At time of hiding the cache contains an FTF prize of
Two Motorola Talkabout FRS/GMRS Radios
and a
Waterproof Headlamp
Potable Aqua water purifier
Pin-on Compass
Poker Cards
Book "The Tiny Warrior" by DJ Eagle Bear Vanus
Emergency Blanket
Pen / Geocaching Instruction Sheet and Log
Humu the Fish Travel Bug
Kitchemonedo Travel Bug
(I placed Kitchemonedo here because there is an Indian Burial Cairn less than 30 yards from the cache - can you find it?)
Have fun,
Ed & Teri
TheAlabamaRambler and my GeoRose
*****
The above is the original cache description. I am leaving this as the history of the cache.
The best way to find this is near to the posted coordinates, a flare tube, between a small cedar and a large pine.