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Difficulty:
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Size: 
(micro)
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This is an exceedingly easy find. The worst you will have to fend off on the way is trash up the road and perhaps the giant beetle that I see sometimes around here. However, bring a tall person or a tool.
The neighbors are aware of this cache! Also note that I have labeled it as a "front-yard" cache, as it is right near my place of residence!
Note: Please see the end of the description for CITO opportunities nearby. Thanks, and enjoy the cache!
Midway is a small atoll almost exactly in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just as the island where this cache was placed is almost exactly halfway between Dover Point and Dover Downtown. The atoll is at the far end of the Hawaiian Archipelago, and is the result of corals forming around an extinct volcano, which then sunk beneath the waves, leaving only the coral.
Midway has a colorful history. Discovered on July 5th, 1859, by Captain N.C. Middlebrooks of the ship Gambia, it was sited for use as coaling station by the late 19th century. However, attempts to make it usable failed dramatically.
Midway was largely forgotten about until 1935 (except for a small contingent of US Marines stationed on the island), when Pan-Am clippers used the atoll as a stopping point between Hawaii and Wake Island. At this time, they could stay in style, being driven in the wood-paneled station wagons of the era to the Gooneybird Lodge, a hotel which had been built in 1903.
In 1940, the island was seen as vital to protect the United States coastline, and was thus reinforced heavily. The island proved its worth on December 7th, 1941, when a small scale attack was launched in tandem with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Midway held.
However, by June 4th, 1942, the Japanese decided (following the events of the Doolittle Raid) that they wanted Midway to help protect and further glorify their homeland. Commanded by Admirals Nagumo and Yamamoto (with Yamamoto leading from behind), they attacked Midway, with the hope that the American carriers would be unable to respond.
The Americans, however, had other ideas. Under (at the time) Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, and having heard Japanese chatter about a potential attack, and using the information codebreakers had given him, he mobilized what strength he could – including the carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5), heavily damaged at the Battle of the Coral Sea. This strength, combined with an incredible amount of luck and poor Japanese decision making (as anyone who has seen the Henry Fonda movie, Midway, knows), contributed to an overwhelming American victory – they had sunk four Japanese carriers and one heavy cruiser for the loss of the Yorktown and a destroyer.
Many historians regard the Battle of Midway as the turning point in the war for the Pacific.
Following World War II, and with the advent of the Cold War, Midway was transformed into a listening post. With the fall of Communism, it was generally abandoned to the gooneybirds (Laysan albatrosses - Midway harbors over 70% of the current species population.)
Only a few hundred miles north of Midway lies the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This is, essentially, where the discarded plastics of the world end up – and stay forever. Located extremely close to the Midway Atoll, pieces of garbage, like clockwork, end up on the beaches killing wildlife and destroying the ecosystem.
There is a similar problem, only about a kilometer south of the cache on Middle Road. Literally tons of trash “washes up,” as it were, on the sides of the road, the result of careless drivers just tossing their garbage out into the world. Thus, I ask the geocaching society one thing: to make this cache sort of a permanent CITO event. Every time someone finds this cache, I implore them to pick up a piece of trash on the way in or out. Post what you pick up, and I’ll calculate tonnages! Thank you very much in advance!
This is my first cache. It is a 35 mm film canister. Let me know how I did!
Congratulations to vinsonbar and Peggy1963 for the FTF, and rjb43nh for the STF.
Have fun!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Fgbc guvaxvat nobhg vg fb zhpu. Gung'f jul gur Wncnarfr ybfg gur Onggyr bs Zvqjnl!