Gnome Sweet Gnome Traditional Cache

Luna "lingered in that charming little garden to say hello to the gnomes, such a glorious  infestation! How few wizards realize just how much we can learn from the wise little gnomes."― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

This family friendly cache takes you by established trails into  a beautiful wooded area of the Haugh Family Preserve. This cache and its accompanying cache--Gnome Friends 2--are intended to be fun for children and easy to find. (Alas another cache--Gnome Friends 1 had to be archived because of muggle trouble )
 
The give away hints will give you more time to enjoy the walk and the variety of trees.

For a longer walk, you can also visit the three Land of the Lorax: Pine Forest 1, 2 and 3 caches in this same wooded area.

All five caches may be done in less than one hour and all are within 10 to 20 feet of established trails.

DO NOT try to access this cache from Valley Vista Road which is a very busy highway with NO PARKING.

Instead,  please park at the parking coordinates in the nearby Circleville Park and take established trails into the adjacent woods that are outside of the park. To encourage you to go this route,  two other caches have been placed along the way--"Gnome Friends 1" and "Gnome Friends 2."

All these caches have been placed with the permission of Patton Township.

The name gnome has been used in the Fantasy genre, typically in a cunning role, e.g. as an inventor.

In caching circles in the State College area, "gnome" brings to mind a certain inventive puzzle maker, humorist and intrepid discoverer who has created nearly 80 caches--a numbing number. His target fixation ranges from rail trails to cemeteries to Spring Creek Game Lands to Penn State where he has a number of Freshmen courses.

In retrospect, some caches are obviously atrocious yet without hubris. Some prompt us to over fish for hints. We long to just rest in peace on the gnome's mattress. Many are classy but leave us glassy eyed and stuck in introspection. Others cause us trepidation as we think "holey moses."

To give perspective, the gnome apparently has a nice grandma who wraps him in a winter quilt for rides in a little red wagon lest they all fall down. It's said they go on high rock roads up mossy mountain past the old corrals and the disappearing barn.

So to celebrate this gnome's far ranging exploits and his generous contributions to our caching community, a simple cache has been placed in a tree hollow along a fine woodlands trail. You are looking for a camouflaged square rubbermaid container hidden in the crook of three giant maple trees with a rock and bark covering it.

Please note that parking in Circleville Park is only permitted from dawn to dusk. If you are doing these caches outside those hours, please park at the parking lot for Patton Woods off of Circleville Road and do the Pine Forest series on your way. The parking coordinates for that series are given at Land of the Lorax: Pine Forest 1 (GC4HE8Y).

Note: Though Gnome Sweet Gnome has a regular size container, the log itself is in a micro container that WILL REQUIRE TWEEZERS to remove. There is an FTF prize of little animal stickers that glow in the dark.

(Though my husband, JBT, knows nothing about this cache, I have asked him to be disqualified from the FTF lest anyone think he had advance knowledge.)