GCN10J Batch of Heaven (Multi-cache) in Iowa, United States created by Melrose Plant & Balboagirl

This cache has been archived.

Melrose Plant: Alas, the Batch of Heaven seems to have descended into hell. Well, sort of. The little beach which was so nice over a year ago is pretty much trashed now. There is all sorts of garbage and carp carcasses all over the place. More importantly, the empty wooden wire spool which was the third stage clue is gone. Only one of the four steel rods which once held it together remains. Maybe somebody burned the spool for firewood.

In any case, I haven't been a good cache owner and this is the first time I've visited the cache since it was placed--it's just too far away. The cache was in perfect shape, though. So for these reasons, and others, I'm pulling the plug on this one. Thanks to all those who visited.

Melrose

GCN10J ▼

A cache by Melrose Plant & Balboagirl Message this owner

Hidden : 3/6/2005

Difficulty:

Terrain:

Size: Size: regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:

We'd like to think of this as a family friendly cache--it is not a techically difficult multi--but please use the utmost caution if you have small children. In other words, I wouldn't let anybody under the age of five run loose when you get near the water. The area has cliffs and dropoffs. It's not difficult climbing, but could present a hazard to those who don't know not to walk right off of edges!

Our tenth wedding anniversary was March 4th (and they said it wouldn't last). We rented a cabin at Cordova Park for the week-end. Just us. No Max, no Elsa, and no cats. We did take the cell phone, but turned it off, and we didn't watch TV. OK maybe for about a half an hour the whole time. It turned out to be way better than we expected.

One of the ways it turned out to be better is that we found the "Batch of Heaven." If you squint, and if you really want it to be, "batch of heaven" is a small "beach". Ok, BalboaGirl herself grew up in Southern California and this isn't really a beach, but it's as close as she's gonna get here in Iowa, so she'll take it. It's called "batch of heaven" because Maxwell likes this song from the Disney animated film "Home on the Range" (which by the way, is filled with great music and fun adult type jokes, but the film is really a kids' movie. Anyway, rent or buy it, it's great.) The song is called "Patch of Heaven" but Maxwell calls it "Batch of Heaven" so . . .we thought the beach looked like a "patch" but decided to call it "batch" in honor of Maxwell's 5 year old word confusion. :) So this is how he managed to creep into our little get-away.

The reason we made this a multi is because the Batch of Heaven itself is subject to inundation when the Corps decides to raise the lake level just a few feet, so it's the second of three stages.

N 41° 25.335', W 93° 05.098'
This is the first stage, and is the same coordinate listed at the top of the page. You need to note the hour at which the gate is locked (promptly) and substitute that number for the "x" in the Stage 2 coords:

N 41° 25.201', W 93° 04.9x3'
This will take you to the Batch of Heaven. On your way to the Batch of Heaven, be sure to check out Team Red's Cliffs Cache. Or catch it on the way back after you're done with ours.

Anyway, back to the beach. You're out of the wind there (assuming it is windy like it was when we were there), so take a moment to enjoy your surroundings and let your GPS unit zero in on a certain object. Count the number of metal rods (make sure you count them ALL) and muliply that number by 7. Substitute the result for the "xx" in the coords for the final cache.

N 41° 25.176', W 93° 04.9xx'
Here you are at the physical cache, which is a 2.3 quart Rubbermaid container. It contains the usual stuff.

We hope you enjoy finding this as much as we enjoyed hiding it. By the way, we didn't intend to hide one this week-end, so this container was my emergency cache repair kit (for other people's caches) and the contents are the little bit of swag I had plus whatever we could find. I think it turned out well. Have fun!

Kimberly & James

Additional Hints (No hints available.)