About this
Cache...
Do NOT attempt this cache from the
interstate! Please park at N 37° 14.476 W 093°
21.247.
This cache is located along Kearney Street
near the Springfield trailhead for the Frisco Highline
Trail.
It should be a fairly easy find. Depending
on your vehicle, you might be able to drive very close to ground
zero.
You are looking for a matchstick container
wrapped in camouflage tape. Please do not remove the cache from its
hiding spot. Simply remove the lid to retrieve the
logbook.
Good luck and have fun!
NOTE: If you want to just find the
cache, you have all the information you need. If you want to find
out about the "ChainCache" twist, keep reading. (NOTE: This
is NOT a Challenge Cache, Multi-Cache or Puzzle Cache. You do not
have to hide your own cache or find other caches in this
series in order to claim this cache as found. Other than the
"ChainCache" twist, this is basically a straightforward
cache.)
About the "ChainCache"
twist...
You may be familiar with the concept of a
"Chain Story". A "Chain Story", for those of you who are not, is a
story that is written by multiple people. The first person will
start the story, and then a second person will add on to that
story, then a third person will contribute to the story, and so on
until the story is finally completed by the last person. The result
of how the story turns out can be very unpredictable and oftentimes
quite funny.
This cache, which is located in
Springfield, Missouri, builds on the "Chain Story" concept and is
the starting point for a chain story that will be written by fellow
geocachers and accompanied with caches to go along with those
stories. I have written the beginning of a story below, which stars
four local geocachers.
I am not planning to mass advertise this
"ChainCache" idea. I want it to grow naturally as cachers within a
hundred miles or so of each cache find out about the series.
Hopefully this idea will work!
Before I explain how this will work any
further, let me give you the first part of the story that I have
written. Further explanation of the "ChainCache" concept is
provided after the story.
The story
begins...
"The Great American
ChainCache, Part 1", by OzarksJim
It was a dark and stormy
afternoon. Thunder crackled across the sky and sounded like Indiana
Jones' whip striking the clouds above the Missouri
Ozarks.
SterlingConnie was sitting at his computer,
browsing the recent postings from his Facebook friends, when
suddenly his phone buzzed and rang with a specific ring tone that
could only mean one thing: NEW CACHE PUBLISHED! He grabbed his
phone and looked at the e-mail he had just received. It indicated
that the new cache was not very far from his house. Was he going to
go after the cache? Of course!
He got up, put on his coat
and stuck his feet into his slippers and headed out the door.
Because he was so nervous, his hand shook as he put the key in the
ignition and started his car. He backed out of his driveway and
drove towards ground zero.
This new cache was hidden
near the Frisco Highline Trail in Greene County, Missouri. The
Frisco Highline Trail used to be the route of the historic Frisco
Highline Railroad. The track that eventually became the Frisco
Highline was completed by the Springfield and Northern Railroad in
1884. Probably the most famous event to occur on the Frisco
Highline happened in 1948 when President Harry Truman rode the
rails from Springfield to Bolivar to dedicate a statue to Simon
Bolivar. In 1954, the last passenger trains operated on the line.
The first section of the Frisco Highline Trail was completed and
officially opened on National Trails Day in 1999.
SterlingConnie was
familiar with this area because he had found a few caches here
before. He pulled off of Kearney Street onto the path of what used
to be the Frisco Highline Railroad. To his northwest was the
Springfield trailhead of the Frisco Highline Trail, and to his
southeast was the cache. Nobody else was here, so he felt confident
that he would be the first-to-find (FTF). It was pouring down rain
so he needed to carry his umbrella along with his GPS-enabled phone
as he made his way towards the cache. The traffic along Interstate
44 buzzed above his head as he walked underneath the interstate
bridge. He was aware that this area might get muddy in the rain and
regretted wearing his slippers.
As he got a couple hundred
feet from the cache, he heard noises behind him: car doors slamming
shut, voices talking. He was sure they were other cachers so he
waited for them. pogwog, BigHef32 and ScottyLove approached, and the looks on their
faces indicated that they were worried he had already claimed the
FTF. They exchanged hellos and he told them he hadn't found the
cache yet. So the FTF party of four continued the remaining 200
feet down the path towards the cache.
When they got to ground
zero, instead of the cache, they found a very large egg-shaped
capsule hidden in the woods that had a glass door on the front and
a glowing blue light inside. It reminded SterlingConnie of the
movie, The Fly, where Jeff Goldblum's character went inside
one capsule and ended up in another capsule (too bad that fly had
to mess everything up). The capsule was about six feet tall and
camouflaged to look like a cedar tree, which some people believe
(because there are so many of them around here) that it is the
State Tree of Missouri (it isn't).
BigHef32 was the bravest
of the group so he reached forward and opened the door of the
capsule. A whooshing sound that sounded like, Shhh..WA-CHA!
emanated from inside the capsule and was followed by a huge puff of
white fog. When the fog inside the capsule cleared, they saw four
small chairs inside and a note was on one of them. BigHef32 picked
up the note and read it aloud to the group: "ATTENTION CACHERS: THIS IS NOT THE CACHE.
THE FINAL CACHE IS SEVERAL HUNDRED MILES AWAY. IN ORDER TO FIND THE
FINAL CACHE, YOU MUST GET INSIDE THE CAPSULE AND PUSH THE BIG RED
BUTTON. YOU WILL THEN BE TRANSPORTED ABOUT 100 MILES TO THE NEXT
WAYPOINT, WHERE YOU WILL RECEIVE FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. SINCERELY,
THE CACHE OWNER."
Because this sounded
really cool and none of them wanted to give up the FTF, they all
decided to keep going on this cache. So all of them got inside and
ScottyLove closed the door.
There was an instrument
panel on the left side of the door with the big red button that was
mentioned in the note.
"Well, guys", said pogwog.
"Is everybody ready?"
They all agreed that this
was a caching adventure worth taking, so pogwog reached forward and
pushed the red button....
To continue reading about
the adventures of our four brave geocachers, view the other caches
in the "Great American ChainCache" bookmark
list!
Want to contribute to
the "Great American ChainCache"?
If you would like to add a cache and
continue writing this chain story, please follow these
directions:
- First, carefully plan where you want your
cache to be. (Sorry, but existing caches will not be accepted. All
caches in this series must be published AFTER the publication date
of this cache.) In order for it to be part of this chain story
(i.e., added to the "Great American ChainCache" bookmark list), it
must follow the guidelines below.
- Your cache should be no less than
100.0 miles nor more than 109.9 miles from the nearest cache in
this series.
- It must not double-back on the
direction the PREVIOUS cache in this series was travelling.
(Example #1: If the previous cache was headed North, the
next cache in the series can't go South. Example #2: If the
previous cache was headed Northwest, the next cache can't go
Southeast.) The reason for this is it would mess up my Google Map of this series.
- Your cache MUST be a regular
straightforward cache, so no multi-caches, Earthcaches or puzzle
caches please. The difficulty of the cache is up to you, as long as
it's a regular find so I can know the coordinates and plot them on
the official "Great American ChainCache" map in Google
Maps.
- Please make sure your cache is in
a muggle-free zone and is very unlikely to be archived. I don't
want a bunch of archived caches being part of this "chain". I may
or may not remove caches that have been archived from the official
"Great American ChainCache" bookmark
list.
- Next, please contact me to let me know you
are adding to the "chain". I would recommend doing this
BEFORE you write your part of the story, just in case
someone has already contacted me first (I wouldn't want you to
waste your time writing a story that you can't contribute to). That
way, I can reserve your "link" to the story.
- Once I confirm that your "link" is
reserved, go ahead and hide your cache and write up your cache
listing and your part of the story. Your story can include whatever
you wish, but all I ask is that your part of the story CONTINUES
from the previous cache in the series, is family friendly, is not
excessively long (about the same length as Part 1) and has
something to do with geocaching. If you want to include cachers in
your area in the story, as I have done above, that would be fine (I
highly recommend you get their permissions first), but please don't
"kill" any geocachers in your story. Remember: FAMILY
FRIENDLY! I would also encourage you to include something
interesting about the area where your cache is hidden, such I have
done with Part 1 (the Frisco Highline Railroad).
- Please make your cache a NON-Premium Member Only cache so all
cachers can read the entire chain story.
- Please title your cache using the
following example: "Great American ChainCache -- Part 2". In
this example, this would be the second story in the
series.
- Please include your
story (not your cache description) in the following table.
Obviously you don't have to have all of the descriptive text that I
included. You can just write up the description of your cache and
then stick your part of the story in the table below. Please copy
the HTML for the table, and remember to have ONLY the story part
(and not your cache description) in the table.
| The story below is part of the "Great American
ChainCache", which began in Springfield, Missouri and
continues here. You can view the "Great American ChainCache" bookmark list to
read the chain story in its entirety (or read how the story is
progressing so far). If you would like to contribute to the "Great
American ChainCache", please read the requirements here. |
| "The Great American ChainCache, Part
?", by ?
(continue the rest of the story
here...)
|
| To read the next part of this story, you can view
the "Great American ChainCache" bookmark list. If
you do not see any further caches linked, that means the story is
still being written! If you would like to contribute to the "Great
American ChainCache", please read the requirements here. |
- I recommend
that before your cache is published, send me the HTML from
your cache listing. I'll let you know if I think it looks okay and
you can go ahead and submit your cache for
approval.
- Inform your reviewer
that I have given the okay to include your cache in the "Great
American ChainCache" (they can contact me if they have questions),
and have your cache approved and published. Once it is published,
please let me know IMMEDIATELY so I can add it to the
appropriate bookmark list. Be sure to send me the GC number of
your cache!!
If all goes as
planned, after your cache is published, you shouldn't have to do
any further edits to your cache listing. I will take care of all
the work and update the bookmark list as new caches are added, and
will also edit the HTML for the original "ChainCache" as needed.
Once your cache is published, please do NOT change any part of
the story since it will be "linked" with other stories and changing
your part of the story may have dire effects on the rest of the
chain story!
As the originator
of the "Great American ChainCache", I reserve the right to refuse
any cache to be part of this series if it doesn't meet the
requirements listed above (either now or in the future) or is
archived.
The chain story will
end when it reaches the United States border, or when there is a
total of 25 different caches (whichever comes
first).
That's about it, I
think. Any questions, let me know!