Our first time out Letterbox Hybrid
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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This is a letterbox hybrid cache. You start at the posted coordinates and follow along with the story which will lead you to the cache.
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It was May 3, 2008. My son and I were finally going to go geocaching. I had heard and read about the activity for over a year. We were both very excited. We made our way to Independence Oaks County Park. There were several caches here that we were going to try to find.
I parked in the lot for the Nature Center. We found the trail by the sign that read:
Nature Center
Cohn Amphitheater
Sensory Garden
Walking up the trail just a little, we crossed a very nice wooden bridge. On the other side of the bridge was The sensory garden. There were some cub scouts looking for tadpoles in the pond to the right. The sidewalk continued on past the nature center where it stopped by a back door. There was a woodchip trail that went on into the woods. After just a short walk, the trail split. There was a sign that said Habitat Trail. Hmmm which way to go? The cache was still almost a half mile away. We chose the right trail. This soon T'd off. We had to choose again. This time it was an easy decision. Since the GPSr said the cache was off to our left, we followed the trail to Rock Ridge. We crossed a small low bridge over a creek. The water was flowing pretty good. The trail started to climb, steeper and steeper. There were large rocks on both sides of the trail. This must be why it's called Rock Ridge. I was watching as the GPSr was ticking down the distance to the cache. We were getting closer and closer. Finally we made it to the top of the ridge. There were some squirrels running around some fallen trees off in the woods. Soon we came to a bench. We sat down for a moment to check for any hints. We were very close. The hint just said "don't get stumped". I'm not sure how helpful that could be. Noticing that our batteries were low, we pressed on. The GPSr was ticking down, 60' ... 50'... 40'... blank. Oh, no way! Our batteries died. Well I was prepared, I pulled out the spare batteries that I brought, and replaced them. Only to find out that those batteries were dead too. I noticed we were standing right at the edge of where the trail drops off pretty steep. I told my son we were on our own. We were withing 40' of the cache. He asked me what the hint was, I repeated it again "don't get stumped". We looked around and noticed that about 35 feet to the left of the trail was a large dead tree with a stump next to it about 4 feet tall. Could this be it? We both ran over and looked inside. We could see the red lid to the cache. Woohoo! We just found our very first geocache.
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Please replace the cache as you found it. Please don't take the stamp or the ink pad.
This cache is placed with permission in Independence Oaks County Park. The park covers over 1088 acres including 68 acre Crooked Lake. There are over 14 miles of hiking and biking trails. Other activities available are picnicking, hiking, fishing, swimming, nature study, and youth group camping. The park is also home to the Lewis E. Wint Nature Center.
Park hours are 1/2 hour before sunrise to 1/2 hour after sunset, unless otherwise posted at the entrance. A vehicle permit is required.
Congrats to GEO-BUM for FTF!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
sbyybj nybat jvgu gur fgbel