Caching in Cape

Over the last few months I have been looking for new places to cache. This past year, I did cache in Canada, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Louisiana, and a little deeper into Mississippi. Pharmd93 called me and wanted to go caching this past Saturday. We decided to target Cape Girardeau, MO. I had been through the city a few times on the way to and from St. Louis to see the Cardinals play baseball. But that was over 15 years ago and I had no recollection of Cape Giradeau. I have thought about caching the city, but knew nothing about the caches with exception of the virtual Cape Rock. Even though Cape Girardeau is within the River Valley Geocaching group, caches in Cape have not been discussed, to my disappointment.

Pharmd93 and myself went to Cape Giradeau and were not disappointed with our trip. Most of the caches we found were quality and in interesting areas and do plan to return. Few of the caches were of the Park and Grab variety and some we did have thrilling views of the Mississippi River. About half of our finds required some walking, a couple needed a degree of hiking from the truck. Consideration in terrain was also required, thankfully, the area was not rocky.

After concluding caching in Cape, we headed south along I-55 and grabbed two caches in small Missouri towns and last, we avenged a DNF in Sikeston.

Hear that Harmonica

Hear that Harmonica by dalls is one of the must do caches near Jackson, Tennessee. Cache is located in a cemetery where Sonny Boy Williamson is buried. Sonny was a famous blues recording artist.

I found the cache on March 10, 2006 while passing through the area. At the time, I had begun to use a Garmin 60cs and was getting used to the auto-routing feature. I pulled onto the road where the cemetery is located and stopped to change the auto-routing to the off-road feature when a local noticed me. Knowing that I didn't belong there, he asked if everything was OK, I asked if a cemetery is nearby and he pointed me in the right direction and found the cache easily.

Reaching for number 2,000 (Last One Standing)

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I found my 2,000th geocache. I reserved a much talked about geocache called Last One Standing in the Land Between the Lakes area. The cache is near an old Catholic church that has been restored. The LBL was once settled area until 1963 and made into a National Recreation area. I picked Last One Standing due to its interesting location and was not let down.
I saw Friday after Thanksgiving would work out for me and planned to go alone when other cachers were unable to their schedules free. Weather turned out to be great. Minnie Mouse didn't want to go caching but didn't want to spend the day with her grandmother and so opted to go with me. I adjusted to what I wanted to go after and limit caches that required a lot of hiking. We begun with a park and grab in Mayfield, then onto Draffenville for three caches in a park. Being that another park and grab was unavailable in Mayfield; we went a sure thing at Confederate Cemetery Cache and then backtracked to Grand Rivers and found 2 of 3 caches just off I-24. I didn't go after a micro since it required a mile of hiking round trip. We hit the LBL and quickly found KL Overlook and then went after the most difficult cache Night Rider Spring. Night Rider Spring proved to be the most physical and a hunter's camp was very close by. We went east towards Last One Standing seeing many deer hunters along the way. As we approached Last One Standing, driving about a mile on a one lane dirt road, a deer hunter was at the church. He told me he was scouting the area, I told him we were caching, and he asked why I was wearing orange. He told me the deer season begins the following day. Since I didn't know if the deer season was on, I wore orange so I wouldn't be shot geocaching. He mentioned that was a good idea.
Found the cache and took some pictures of the area and thankful I chose this cache to by my 2K milestone.