BYOP. The securement wire is clipped on - otherwise the bottom is twist on/off. The world's largest spruce tree is located on the Olympic peninsula. This cache is located in Olympic Green Park (6am-10pm); however, the trees here aren't even the largest in Minnesota...and they are pines, not spruce. Oh well, this should still be a fairly straightforward find even with the natural camouflage.
Spruce isn’t just a tree – it’s a historical name for Prussia.
According to Merriam-Webster, the phrase “spruce up” means “to make neat or smart in appearance,” and it first appeared in English around the end of the 1500s. It is related to (and likely comes from) the adjective spruce, which means “neat or smart in appearance.” The verb and adjective are also related to the tree spruce, though interestingly the name for the tree shows up in print after the verb and adjective do.
Spruce was one of the English names for the historical area that borders the Baltic Sea and which was known as Prussia. It turns out that the region, with its abundance of farmland and cattle ranching, was known for a few different things that bore the nickname “Spruce”: canvas, ocher, timber, iron, and leather. Spruce leather was used to make a style of jerkin that ended up being popular among the well-to-do and fashionable. By the end of the 1500s, the association between Prussia and fashion was strong enough that the word spruce was being used generally of anyone who was fashionable or smart in appearance, or of making someone neat or fashionable.
What about the tree? Was it considered fashionable as well? No: the tree gained its name because it was thought to originate in Spruce, or Prussia.
Since this geocache is being published on Halloween you might get dressed up, but you don’t really need to get spruced up to look for it. Hopefully you’ll think it’s pretty “neat”. Congratulations to Mn-treker for the quick FTF.
WARNING: PLEASE DO NOT CLIMB ANY TREES IN THE PARK. Climbing trees is hazardous and may be illegal on public property.