Congratulations, SM325! 15K Finds! (Five Rivers) Traditional Geocache
Congratulations, SM325! 15K Finds! (Five Rivers)
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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SM325 recently zipped right past 15K. (Okay, it wasn't all that recent. I'm a tad late.) It took me a while but I finally found a Spot in his proverbial neck of the woods to hide a tribute. (But it's not hidden all that well. Watch out for muggles.) And I got permission from Kelly Kingery, of Five Rivers MetroParks, to do that; special permit number GO4518.17. You'll be heading for Englewood Reserve.
I remember when I was closer to 15K than SM325 was. But then, I started doing it just over two years before he did. However, he does retired way better than I do retired. And that's in spite of The Forces of Chaos apparently doing everything they can (and failing, thankfully) to run interference. I've seen references from him to me as the EverReady Geocacher. That was quite flattering but I think that's a better description of him. He makes the long drives I've made to find something to do look like I don't go caching much past my front door. But the way he's going, it won't be too long before I'm closer to 15K than he is again, just from the opposite perspective. (I probably should've just waited another couple of months or so and made this a 20K tribute.)
So, congratulations, SM325! It's not a Bud but this one's for you.
Most of the walk is around 500 feet on a paved bike trail. However, the terrain just off the trail, where the cache is, could require a little care with the footwork. I parked in a big parking lot with the entrance at
N39 52.505 W084 17.835
The road to the parking lot is off of E. National Rd. (Driving up/down Hwy 48, when you get to the intersection to head west for US 40, don't go west. Turn the opposite direction (i.e., east) and then follow E. National Rd. to the right onto a rather long, windy drive into Englewood Reserve. Watch out for the One Way signs as you enter the parking lot.) I've posted a picture of the park's hours of operation below. Please don't be in there outside of those hours.
Please! If you can't go to the effort to cover it back up when you're finished, would you please at least push it as far into its Spot as you can to keep it out of view of passing muggles. Cache maintenance is rarely trivial, and while I'm in no way complaining about Five Rivers' policies, replacing stolen or vandalized caches in their parks is a very nontrivial process. And please do not try to just follow your electronic playmates over the rock wall. That would only up the terrain and the wall may not be able to deal with much of that.
Oh yeah. I also managed to remember to put a pen in the baggie with the logbook this time. It shouldn't take too much care to keep it from poking a hole through the baggie.
Now, go get it before the muggles do.
A Note About Travel Items for People Who May Not Be Familiar With Them
In addition to trade items (commonly known as "swag"), geocaches quite often contain travel bugs or geocoins. These items are not for general trading. They are "travel items." They are the property of other people and their goal is to be taken from one cache by geocachers and then placed in other caches, i.e., to travel from cache to cache. There are two types of travel items, travel bugs and geocoins. These items must be logged separately from logging the find for the geocache. There's a "special process" for that. A travel bug is usually some type of trinket (such as a small stuffed animal) with what looks like a dog tag attached to it. Sometimes it's just the dog tag. Either way, the dog tag will have a string of letters or numbers on it. Geocoins will also have such a string imprinted on or engraved into them. That string is called the "tracking number." It is important for logging the travel item as it's retrieved from and placed in geocaches. Please watch out for such items and do not take them if you don't intend on helping them travel to another geocache or do not wish to learn the logging procedure.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Raq bs ybt oruvaq jnyy