Travels with the Dope (WARNING: lots of words, very long post, no political content)

I recently enjoyed one of the most gorgeous day trips I've had in years. Back on the 6th, I lit out on the open road as the sun rose not knowing exactly where I was heading. And it turned out to be the most gorgeous day and the most beautiful scenery I've seen in a long time. My idea of heaven is rolling in the trusty Dopemobile, good tunes or Air America on the stereo, and finding out what's around the next bend.

About a year ago, I stumbled across an activity known as geocaching. I'm hooked.

The way it works is this: Geocaches are little containers that are placed all over the world. They can be anywhere. Under a post office box, in a hollow tree in the woods, on top of a mountain, or literally anywhere you can imagine. There's a website (www.geocaching.com) that is like a giant clearing house for geocaches. You go to the site and register, which provides you with your own page which lists the caches you've found, caches you've hidden, and other info. It keeps track of how many you've found as well. Some people have found over a thousand! You can then search for geocaches in your area by area code or coordinates, or search anywhere around the world. The site has a map function which shows caches.

For instance, there are hundreds and hundreds of caches hidden within a 100 mile radius of the Quad Cities and the number is growing all the time. (There's about 5 on Sylvan Island, 6 or 7 in Scott County Park, and about the same number in West Lake Park, for example. Here's a map showing the caches in the area.



The caches can range from a tiny pill bottle to a large ammo can. They all contain at least a slip of paper to log your find, and most also contain various trinkets and goodies, the idea being that you drop off something and take something. Many contain a disposable camera and you're supposed to take your own picture. The "owner" then collects the camera once it's full and gets to see who all has found his cache. There's a million variations and fun stuff, and you can find out more at the site. (You can also find benchmarks, those little brass discs used for surveying. I found one in a pasture high atop a bluff that was placed in 1886 during a survey of the Mississippi River, and which no one had found before.)

The basic tool of this "sport" is a handheld GPS or global positioning system receiver. You can get one for anywhere from $30 to over a thousand bucks, depending on bells and whistles. Good ones go for a couple hundred. These receive signals from a fleet of satelites orbiting the earth and can pinpoint your position to as few as 7 feet anywhere on the face of the earth. (unless something interferes with the signal, such as tree cover.) They're also amazingly useful for just getting from point A to point B and back in areas you're not familiar with or if you get lost.

You search out the caches in the area you want to check out, (they are literally all over the country. Anytime I've taken trips, I check out geocaches in that area or on the way and find a few if I have the time) Each cache has it's own page created by the person who created it and hid it (you can also hide your own) It contains the coordinates of the cache and a few paragraphs with a general description and tips. For instance, if the location is full of sticker bushes or insects, or requires tough climbs, etc. they'll warn you. Each is also rated for difficulty to find and difficulty of terrain.

Once you have the coordinates loaded in your GPS, it points you to the spot and off you go. Where you're going to end up, you don't know. And that's the part I love.
I've ended up on towering bluffs in the middle of a remote cow pasture, climbing cliffs that I didn't know existed around here, slogging through woods in nature preserves that I likewise had no idea existed, seen historic places that I'd never seen, etc. And you can do it anytime you feel like, day or night, 365 days a year. I've gone out at 3 a.m., and at all times of the year, whether it's below zero or almost 100 degrees. Some are within yards of a nice parking area, others require miles of difficult hiking. You can pick your own level of challenge.

The GPS usually gets you to within several yards of the cache, but they're not just laying in plain site. They're often in remote woods and well hidden and disguised. Some are hung on cliffs or up in trees, a lot are hidden in hollow trees or logs and covered with pieces of bark to disguise it. So it can be quite a task to finally find the cache.

Once you've found the cache (or tried)you go back to it's page on the site and log your find. You can write about your experience and the condition of the cache, what the weather was like, things you saw in the area, or even post pictures. This way the "owner" of the cache can keep tabs on it as well, as people will report if it needs attention, has been moved, destroyed, etc. You also get to see who all have found it.

Some make their hides easy or specifically for kids, others lay out strings of mult-caches, where you have to go to one location, record certain information, decode that or solve a riddle, which provides the coordinates to the second part, etc. Some require finding as many as 8 or 9 caches before you find the final one, and they might be spread out over several miles.

Anyway, I looked at all the caches loaded in my GPS and picked one out on IL-92 about 30 miles. I took off at about 4 a.m. It was a relatively easy find, and after walking around taking in the sights at this remote location, I wanted to look for another. I looked at the GPS map and saw a few caches relatively close, so off I went. To make a long story longer, I ended up exploring all over the countryside, found some incredibly beautiful spots, hiked a lot, saw lots of wildlife, met some nice people, learned a lot of history of the area, and had a fantastic day. (despite spending a looong time crawling through thickets looking for a couple caches that I later found out had been removed. Ooops. Serves me right for not checking the site first.)

Here's a couple shots I took. 10 points for the first person to identify the structure in the picture and where it's located. (Hint: It's within 60 miles of the QC's)

Can anyone doubt that the midwest is just as beautiful (sometimes) as any other spot on earth?