These geocaches were placed as a tribute to my sweetheart, Mrs. cantuland. I could treat her with a gift of a bag of those candy hearts but I love candy too much and I would end up eating them all up myself without even reading what's on them. So instead of eating all of her candy hearts, I'm placing these geocaches. Each geocache represents a fond memory that we share, memories of vacations, family, various things that make us both smile when the stories come up.

This project was a long time in the making, since December of 2008. Now that these are published, I can stop worrying if anyone else had submitted geocaches that would interfere with the synergy of these geocaches. It's time to let this one finally run on its own and start on another project (or two).

I often go back and read all of these over and over. And to my wife: Happy Birthday; Happy Mother's Day; Happy Valentine's Day; Merry Christmas; and all the other holidays that this project was going to be for but took too long. Happy Kansas Heartland Day!

To find this geocache, look on the back of each of the logbooks and/or in the yellow boxes on the laminated "You Found It" cards for each of the other Heartland Geocaches. There, you will find part of the key, but not all geocaches will have one. One letter equals a number. Plug those numbers into the following and you have the completed key for the coordinates for this geocache. Your log will not be deleted if you happen to stumble across this geocache without having previously logged all of the others. A word of caution, though, when posting your log for this cache, do not include spoiler answers or final coordinates in your log, lest you risk the unfortunate deletion of your valuable log. It is such a sad tragedy when an inappropriate log brings upon the inevitable destruction of itself.

COORDINATES:

Latitude North 37° ( A + C ) . D, ( F + L ) '
Longitude West 97° ( N + Q ) . T, ( V + Y ) '

You are looking for a HUGE black ammo box with cantuland-geocache-logos painted all over it. Original contents include a Guide to Geocaching, a Sacagawea gold dollar coin, a Kansas quarter, a Lewis-and-Clark edition nickel, one of those new-Lincoln-image-on-the-back pennies, an old wheat penny, and LOTS of other miscellaneous trade items. That thing is HUGE!

Congratulations to both frog4peace and crossmage for being First To Find!

See waypoint GCQAQT for the next Heartland Geocache.

Not all of these geocaches are Traditionals. There are also a few Multies and a few Puzzles mixed into the bunch. You may notice that the locations of all of the Heartland Geocaches are centrally located in the heart of the nation, in the great plains of Kansas. They form a big heart across the land, spanning over six miles wide!

Have you found ALL OF THEM? Check out the "Challenge" at
http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/view.aspx?cx=CX37.

In preparation for tracking down these geocaches, you should know a few things so you can make it back home.

• Load up your GPS receiver with some fresh good batteries, and have some back up batteries with you.
• Cell phone signals are spotty out here. How charged up is your cell phone battery? Dead phones don't seem to work out here.
• Dirt roads become muddy roads when wet. Almost all of these are on dirt roads. Don't try these when the roads are wet, and for those who do try out the muddy roads (Some of you will.) make sure you have a phone number handy for a towing service. See the previous note.
• There's lots of driving; fill up your car with fuel. The nearest two gas stations to the NORTH in Belle Plaine are at a convenience store (N37*23.560' W97*16.532') and at Mike's fuel and towing (N37*23.532' W97*16.897'). To the NORTHEAST is Casey's General Store in Oxford (N37*16.477' W97*10.324').
• Every now and then you may spot a bright green contraption attached to a power pole or a fence post. There is a government study of the types of insects that reside in the vicinity. Please do not disturb them; they are not geocaches.
• And also . . .

REMEMBER: Make the fair trade. Log your visit. Leave the site better than you found it. Protect the environment — always. Educate those around you. Find another cache! Good luck, and may all your cache dreams come true. —cantuland