Thunderbird Track #5 - Stream
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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Thunderbirds – legend? myth? reality? Native tribes revered these giant birds and believed that they cause thunder by flapping their wings, while lightening flashes from their eyes. Legends have them both helping and attacking people. In 1992 Kitsap County placed 10 bronze Thunderbird tracks in strategic spots to tell the story of the water cycle. We have relocated 9 of the 10 tracks and placed caches at all 10 sites. We hope you will enjoy them as much as we do.
Note: This is the only Thunderbird track that we were unable to locate. The above coordinates will lead you directly to the cache. It is near the small stream in the area where the track was placed originally. I have a special geocoin for the first person who chooses to do the additional research and direct me to the location of this track.
Track 4: Groundwater
Writer: Margi Berger
Track Sculptor: Peter Allen
For more information and activities related to the tracks, contact the cache owner.
Water Molecule Journal Entry, Monday:
I don’t know when it started – this trip, I mean. Seems like I’ve been traveling all my life.
I remember falling out of a cloud floating in from the Pacific Ocean the other day and landing on a salal leaf. I was with some buddies in a drop. This leaf was bent over some reflections, and we kept sliding and drooping and finally, splash, right into them. There were a lot of other water molecules there already. They seemed glad to see us. “Welcome to the pool!” they said. I felt at home right away. Almost like I’d been there before. Everybody began joking and telling stories about where they’d been – icicles, rainbows, snow.
Many had just come down Green Mountain, which is pretty small for a mountain, but very, very green. One told of being trapped underground in porous rock for thousands of years. In fact, he claimed to have been part of a melting glacier back in the last ice age! He talked about Woolly Mammoths. We had to tell him they’d disappeared some time ago. Another had come down a while ago in rain, like me. But he had trickled into pores and cracks in the soil around roots and worms, and finally into some limestone. These two had finally worked their way up to the surface in “springs,” and obnoxiously bragged about how pure they were. Others told of monsters. Wildcats and bears, eagles and salmon, Orca and a giant Thunderbird with lightning flashing from its eyes.
Then someone yelled, “Who’s up for another adventure?” Next thing I knew, we were sliding and careening downhill like a roller coaster. It was wild! Around curves, over boulders, through woods and rocky banks. We made a lot of noise in rapids, and met up with a bunch of molecules from rocks that had been knocked around and ground up by the current upstream. They introduced themselves, but I’m bad at names. I do remember calcium carbonate and iron and magnesium oxide, maybe because I liked their looks. One of my friends said she’d even bumped into a few atoms of gold. True or not, word spread like crazy. We decided then and there to name our creek after them.
And then there were these creatures. You’d go in one end and come out a flapping thing someone called a gill. It was bright pink inside. And outside there were shiny scales. The creatures looked sort of like boulders, but were a lot livelier. They thrashed and lashed, working their way upstream. All the other water molecules were as excited as I, and I heard the word “spawning” again and again. It seems that’s why these characters were working so hard – to get some place upstream to lay and fertilize their eggs. I’m glad I don’t have to go through all that, but it sure is fun to be part of it. They couldn’t do it without us.
Soon we were zipping under a low bridge with yellow and black striped signs by it. Wheeled machines were loud on the bridge and someone who’d been there before said that it was part of a road on the east side of a lake.
And what do you know? We soon ended up in that lake! It was quiet and restful. We found ourselves yawning and all those yawns sounded like Tu-HOO-ya, Tu-HOO-ya, Tu-HOO-ya. We relaxed awhile, enjoying the scenery which included some strange drowned trees. Then we were carried away and down a river.
Now I’m hanging around in a bay rubbing shoulder with a lot of sodium chloride and other mineral molecules. It feels different from the rain and the pool and the creek and the lake. But there’s something familiar about it. Think I’ll stay awhile and see what happens next. Got lots of company. Even boats.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Qb bpgbchfrf rawbl serfu jngre be qb gurl tb oryyl hc?