------------------------------*All Limited Edition Geocoins Have Been Awarded*------------------------------
This cache is placed as part of the
Crystal Lake 100-Years Geocoin Challenge created to celebrate Crystal Lake's centennial anniversary of incorporation (1914-2014). The Challenge will take you throughout the city where you will discover twelve (12) hidden caches and explore some Crystal Lake history along the way. Be one of the first 250 geocachers* to complete the Challenge and receive a limited edition trackable CL100Years Geocoin.
The Crystal Lake 100-Years Geocoin Challenge Passport contains instructions, a list of the geocaches, and designated areas for recording the code words you discover in each cache. You can print your Passport
HERE or pick one up in the specially marked box located just outside the front entrance to Crystal Lake City Hall at 100 W. Woodstock St., Crystal Lake, IL 60014.
Here are the 12 caches:
GC4XNGQ,
GC4Y2WH,
GC4XM0N,
GC4Y96C,
GC4XKNN,
GC4XK2V,
GC4ZFZM,
GC4XTYZ,
GC4XPNZ,
GC4ZAKQ,
GC4XPM5,
GC4XQQY
*limit one per registered geocaching account/household please
------------------------------code words are located on inside cover of logbooks------------------------------
(L) Colby subdivision and (R) Standard Oil gas station at Keith & Virginia_Elgin Courier News clippings courtesy of Crystal Lake Historical Society
Below are excerpts from National Weather Service “The Palm Sunday Story April 11, 1965”:
At 10:45am [on April 11, 1965], the Severe Local Storms Center, SELS, in Kansas City issued a statement concerning the possibility of tornadoes that afternoon from northeast Missouri across central Illinois to north central Indiana. Around 1pm, the SELS forecaster issued a tornado forecast (analogous to today’s tornado watch). It covered central and northern Illinois and southernmost Wisconsin. Unbeknownst to him, the first two tornadoes of the day had touched down fifteen minutes earlier.
The cumulus had risen into thunderheads by the dinner hour, and at 12:45pm a funnel snaked its way out of one of those clouds and hit the ground near the community of Tipton in Cedar County Iowa. It quickly grew and produced F4 damage to two dozen farms.
Though it was apparent to most meteorologists that the weather on that 11th day of April was going to be much more dangerous than usual, nobody imagined that the [earlier] tornado would be the first of thirty-nine twisters to tear up the Midwestern landscape over the course of the afternoon and evening. Nobody dreamt that those tornadoes would carry death to 260 people.
As the afternoon progressed, the tornadoes left Iowa behind in order to terrorize northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. At 3:20pm a tornado dropped to the ground west of Jefferson, Wisconsin and charged northeast.
Seven minutes after the Jefferson County tornado touched down, another tornado reached earthward in McHenry County, Illinois. It would become one of the most famous tornadoes of the day. It began its eleven mile path of destruction on the southwest side of Crystal Lake, near the public golf course. It rampaged across the southeast side of town, destroying subdivision after subdivision. The tornado brushed the junior high school, and ripped apart the [Crystal] Lake Plaza Shopping Center. In one neighborhood known as Colby’s Home Estates, the tornado was a quarter mile wide. One hundred fifty-five homes were damaged, forty-five of them beyond all repair. Five people were killed in the tempest. East of town, the tornado narrowed to a width of about 650 feet. It slid down a steep hillside without ever losing contact with the ground. The storm continued on and devastated the tiny community of Island Lake, killing one more person before it lifted a few minutes later. It would be classified as an F4. It lifted at 3:42pm.
Important Information: 5/30/15 NOTE: New container now in place using different host and only steps away from original placement. Extreme stealth will be required. Original Hint #1 is not as applicable now but will put you to within a couple steps of GZ; Hint #2 still applies.