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Home is Where the Heart is Multi-Cache

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heiple: No longer available

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Hidden : 8/25/2008
Difficulty:
1.5 out of 5
Terrain:
1 out of 5

Size: Size:   small (small)

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Geocache Description:

Located in Lester Cemetery, a small pioneer cemetery north of Dunkerton in Lester Township, Black Hawk County. Permission to place this cache has been given by Bruce Jefferson, member of the Board of Trustees of the Lester Township Cemetery.

This cache is dedicated to the Dunkerton area people who lost their homes in the EF5 tornado of May 25, 2008. Lester Cemetery is located right in the path the tornado took as it devastated the rural area north of Dunkerton. Look around the cemetery and you can see tree and grave stone damage left by the tornado. Directly west of this hilltop are 4 farm homes along North Canfield Road that were completely destroyed, located along a span over a mile in distance. Official estimates conclude the tornado was 1.2 miles wide at this point. My brother's house was one of those four homes. (See video.) Many other farms scattered across the countryside were also damaged or destroyed. As we cleaned up in the days following the tornado we discovered that what the tornado took was just stuff. The important thing was that everyone was safe and that a home can be rebuilt -- hence the name of this cache.

From the starting point, look to the northeast and you'll see a farmstead on the east/west gravel road that was also destroyed by the tornado. If you draw an imaginary line from that house, through the cemetery, and on to the southwest, you'll find a farm along that gravel road where they lost their garage. That family's dog, a beagle named Skipper, was in the garage when the tornado hit. The dog was found alive and unscathed in the rubble of the basement of the home you see to the northeast, a mile away from his home! It's most likely that Skipper flew over this cemetery en route to the basement. See the Waterloo Courier story and a photo of Skipper here.

This is a three part multicache. Stage 1 will take you to a grave stone. Notice something odd about this grave stone -- it's the only one in the cemetery with a north/south orientation. The story is that this woman was an atheist and refused to be buried facing the east as is tradition. At the time of her burial, the grave was said to have had a large rock or rocks placed on top of it at her request. Just in case she was wrong, she didn't want to go to heaven by accident! Use Harriet's grave stone to get the clues for Stage 2.

Stage 2 location:
N 42 AA.620
W092 0B.0CC

AA = The day of Harriet's birth + 4
B = The day of Harriet's death - 1
CC = The last 2 digits of the year of Harriet's marriage + 2

Stage 2 will take you to another grave stone. James and his wife Elizabeth settled in Lester Township from Amberson Valley, Franklin County, Pennsylvania and are my family's founders in Dunkerton. My brother and I and my children, nephews, and niece are the 5th and 6th generations to live in the area. Use James' grave stone for clues to the stage 3 location.

Stage 3 location:
N 42 35.5AA
W092 0C.0BB

AA = The last two digits of James' death year - 9
BB = James' age in yrs + 19
C = James' age in mos + 2

Original contents of the cache include an FTF pin for the First-to-Find, carabiner keychain, pfalstad's Labryinth Geocoin, and some other small trinkets for trading.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Vg'f va gur anzr

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)