Congratulations to KCL Adventures and TheLF who were FTF.
Welcome to the Villages Geocaching Club first Mystery Cache.
Don’t go to the posted coordinates, you will find nothing but water. You would be in the middle of a lake.
Remember, only daylight geocaching is allowed in The Villages Florida.
You will find yourself near Spanish Springs Town Square the 1st town square in The Villages. Spanish Springs was The Villages first major expansion and required Orange Blossom residents to cross over the multimodal golf cart bridge spanning across SR441/27.
The theme of this cache is to provide you with some of the early history of the villages. From its humble beginnings as a trailer park to today’s multi-county community with over 160 thousand residences.
Harold Schwartz was the founder and patriarch of The Villages Florida. Harold never sought the limelight. He was content to stay in the background and enjoy seeing Villagers revel in this amazing lifestyle of their adopted hometown. While he was a friend and adviser to captains of industry, presidents, and heads of state, he never lost focus on this community and making it the greatest retirement development in the world.
In 1983, His son, Gary Morse moved to Florida to take over his father's business selling vacant lots to mobile homeowners. Morse instead decided to build homes, restaurants, pools, and golf courses, and by 1986 Morse was selling more than 500 homes per year.
Spanish Springs expansion was Gary’s vision and as they say the rest is history. Gary Morse is survived by his son Mark Morse who currently has a steady hand at the helm of The Villages.
To start your adventure, you must solve the puzzle above. It requires you to find a conversion method from characters to numbers. Replacing the characters in the coordinates with their numeric values. A coordinate checker is provided to verify your answer.
The final or physical container is within a mile of the listed coordinates.
It is a small container. There is car/cart parking near the hide. Non-Residence may enter via the gates by pushing the red button located on the gate.
Good Luck!!