Sterling Heights, Now & Then Letterbox Hybrid

This is a hybrid letterbox that starts and ends in Dodge Park. The cache requires you to cross Utica Road so be careful when crossing. With the round-a-bout here drivers don’t always pay attention to the road let alone the curiously needed for one of these intersections to work correctly. There is a crosswalk but no signal light, though you have the right away they are much bigger and tougher than you. This is still a great cache for children just make sure to have adult supervision.

After hearing of the story has been told of a hidden treasure in Sterling Heights and being a Geocacher, I just had to go and check it out. After getting a handful of hints I was on my way. Since it was an entertaining walk I decided to share this treasure (cache) with the rest of my Geocaching friends. The walk included things that pertain to both today and those of days gone by here in Sterling Heights both happy and sad. I hope you enjoy this walk as much as I had.

Here is the list of clues that had been given to me.
The walk starts at a brick like path, follow it across the street where you will meet a paved sidewalk. At the intersection turn to your right. As you walk on you left there will be “modern time” which is of the type you have seen in many communities. Continue along this path until you spot a large shining arch on your left. Near that point the sidewalk turns towards the arch. Follow the way of this shining beauty. As you go along this are several points of interest, some more interesting than others, all very nice. As you stroll this path you will be passing names along the way, names like Centipede, Construction with Orange 4, Apollo, Limestone Lyric, X’s and O’s and Black Widow (I found these names not to be in any kind of order). You will follow this path until you reach the brick like way. Turn to you right and look into the distance and you will find 3 children playing Ring Around the Rosie, ask them for the way to the treasure.

Well I did all of this and enjoyed myself to this point, talking to these kids is where it started to get tougher. The kids wanted to play and not talk to me. All it took was the word treasure and they all started talking at one time, they were pretty excited. They had heard of the treasure but had not seen it yet. They all sure had an idea where it might be so I jotted down each of there ideas and headed off with a real mess on my hands. Not only that but since none of them had ever seen it I had a lot of leads to follow up on, now which one first? After looking the words over well I started by the closest one and worked my way along. They followed for a bit but could see this would take some time as I was completely lost at this point. They headed back to there game where I am sure you will find them again. After sorting through the clues I have kept them in order and tossed out the ones that will not help the cachers find this one.

Here is the next set of clues edited by me.
From the children, head off in the direction of the “stones”, as the kids say. At that point you will see one of these has an eagle on it, note Harry (he is the 3rd), Harry’s family and Rattrak’s family’s have been friends for many decades now. A short ways from here you can sit and reflect, the signs even suggest that. After your break follow the brick like path to the octagon, pass through. As in the “Twilight Zone” opening statements “there’s a sign post up ahead” and there is! This has some interesting reading when learning of Sterling Height’s past. There is also a much small sign there but one that hold and important place in this country, read this. From the smaller sign you will want to head in the direction of the word “of” on this sign. As you follow this path you will see that it changes back to sidewalk, follow that to the right. You will want to follow that over and visit with the very nice Sarah. She is a calm teacher and can guild you as she has Sarah Jeanette. Sarah Jeanette is her Grand Daughter, and is one of the few kids in the area to have actually seen the treasure. As she starts to explain she is interrupted by Sarah Jeanette who is so excited that she has to tell me of how to find this treasure.

Here is how Sarah Jeanette described it to me. She seemed very accurate because I was able to find it right away.
She asked if I had a compass, I replied that I did, good! You will want to sight your compass to 113 degrees, do you see where I am talking about? She asked. Well if you were to walk about 185 paces you will be at the spot to which it hides. I had not seen a problem with that though like so many others I was once again confused on how far a pace is. Some say 3 foot, some say 6 foot and I learned 2 steps was a pace. This is where the teacher stepped in and said what you had learned is the closest, it is about 5 foot. I tried to explain GPS technology but could see I was getting nowhere. So I sighted the 116 degrees, and guessed at the distance from our meeting point, did the math on the paces and loaded it into my GPS. I could sight in the distance a sign that had something to do with the center. As I walked off Sarah Jeanette stopped me and said “you will know you are close when you find a large tree” then she went on to say, ”it is a plastic ammo container near that tree. I thanked them and headed back across the street looking for the treasure. They could not have been more right, and now the treasure is there for you to find. After seeing how much traffic is in the area I was sure to cover the treasure back up very well so that it would stay well for a long time.