Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle

Making plans for the Ashland City trail run on 12/26/11, I knew that some of us would drive right by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cache located in Clarksville. I had noticed this before but didn't pay much attention to it since I figured it was like some other caches in reference to the movie "Teenage Mutan Ninja Turtles". Those that I have found were nothing more than an uninteresting magnetic keyholder at a storm drain. The last few months, I began to study this cache and pay particular attention to the 3 difficulty and 4 terrain star ratings. Later, pictures were posted and got a much better idea of the cache. Since the cache had over 20 favorites, I shouldn't be disappointed.

Being that a group would travel from West Tennessee, I couldn't pass up the opportunity for this cache. We arrived at the cache site and began to study the approach. About that time, scoutpaddle comes out of the tunnel and said he found the cache. Yet, after scoutpaddle came out of the tunnel, we were still standing around. I got tired of it, turned on my Surefire tactical light and led the way into the tunnel, followed by chicontater, pcsenn and dhrnrcpa. After getting into the tunnel I found scoutpaddle's footprints and followed them. Made a left turn and soon the footprints were gone! I saw some light and went for the light and could finally stand up. There were several of us in the small area where we could all stand and we were under a storm drain and GPS told us we were in the right location. After shinning the lights around the cache was spotted. We signed the log and made our way back to the entrance/exit of the tunnel. We got out of the tunnel with all smiles. Couple of minutes later, Orion_13 showed up and chicontater's son volunteered to go with Orion_13 into the tunnel where he signed his first 4-star terrain cache!

This was a lot of fun to begin a long day of cache. Prior to departing, I visited the nearby store for refreshments and the employees were inquiring what was going on outside. I told them about our game.

Mopping up Hwy 68/80

Due to my mistakes in bookmarking the caches along Highway 68/80 of the LBL, I didn't have two caches on my GPSr'. The reason I have gone to bookmarking instead of a general pocket query is that I am using a Nuvi for auto-routing and having so many caches on the Nuvi creates a huge amount of clutter.

Last Sunday, minnie mouse and myself wanted to take a bike ride on the LBL Greenway and part of the agreement is that I clear the caches I missed and then take the bike ride. Our first find was Indian Access, this cache was not published at the time of the November cache run, but for us, it was an easy find. Next up was Beach in City of Canton, this cache took a truck with high clearance to make it down to the parking area. After a long search we came up with the cache. A missed cache from the November run was This one's for the birds,... , minnie mouse had a good laugh as I made the tree climb to grab the container. After grabbing the cache I tossed it to minne mouse so she could sign the log. After climbing the tree, I was in no mood to climb down to sign and then climb back up. Minnie mouse signed the log and tossed the container back to me.

Last find in the LBL was LBL Greenway East - Maybe Wet, which is officially the first find while using the mountain bike that I purchased for myself while home on leave in 2010. We rode about 2 miles on the greenway before minnie mouse got tired. She had a good time riding the bike and we plan to return on a warm sunny day and ride the round trip of 5 miles.

Highway 68/80 run

Since my return from deployment a year ago, I had not ventured into the Kentucky side of the Land Between the Lakes. During this time, I watched the amount of caches along Highway 68/80 grow and grow and had been tempted to make a cache run of the area.

Being there were so many caches to go after, I posted on GOWT and RVG sites on Facebook that I would make a run of the area the Friday after Thanksgiving. The Friday after Thanksgiving has traditionally been a free day for me and have used the day to be geo-aggressive. My aggressiveness paid off with 29 finds. All my caching partners set new daily find records and cleared at least two Fizzy terrain/difficulty grids as well.

The highlight caches of the day were:

Turkey Bay ATV Series # 1 The Silo and Turkey Bay ATV Series # 2 Edsel proved to be the most physically challenge with steep hills to traverse. Both are 5-star terrain caches, requiring an ATV. Neither of us had ATV's and we did it the hard way by hiking. Thankfully, we found the caches before the ATV's were on the course.

Mt. Everest, another physically challenging cache, we parked .10 away and hiked straight up the hill.

!!! BE PREPARED !!!, a clever hide. I had found two caches like this in my geo-career and wanted to show chicontator of the work some cachers will put into a cache. The cache container was missing. We ended up taking the entire device apart and repaired the cache. Cache is located in secluded area of the LBL were many duck blinds could be seen.

One of the most unusual experiences was at Bogard Cemetery where dhrnrcpa found a pentagram on a headstone and we were all a little freaked out that someone buried here was a worshiper of Satan.

We also found caches on a brand new LBL greenway. I plan to return with my girls when the weather turns nice for a bike ride. Most memorable of those caches was: LBL Greenway East Duck Island/End of the road took a lot of effort but we found the cache.