Geocaching with Joe

A couple of Saturdays ago when Mom was in Utah (after having driven out there with Barbara), Joe & I went geocaching at Tyson County Park, which is north of of I-44 between Times Beach (now Route 66 State Park) and Lone Elk Park. We found about 6 caches in the space of about 2 hours without any information other than the coordinates. This meant that we mostly bee-lined through the woods from one to the other. The first cache we found had a rubber snake "gaurding" the hiding spot, which was under a small rock ledge. Shortly thereafter we came upon this beast, which was not rubber at all:

Hollow logs seemed to be one of the favorite spots to hide caches. If you look closely you can see the blue lid to the plastic container that held this cache:

The other favorite spot was under rock ledges, which were very abundant in the park. Once again, if you look closely you can see the lid of the container right off the tips of my fingers:

We have come to develop a sort of knack for thinking like a geocacher and looking for places that would be good places to hid a cache. Sometimes the name of the cache was a pretty good clue. For example, one of the caches had been given the name "Tyson Cascade". We found it under a small rock ledge on a steep slope just above this geological feature:

Joe looks particularly impressive in this shot. Another cache was called "Roman Columns?" and was found in the hollow under this tree with the twin trunks rising from a common root system:

The reference in this case was a bit more obscure.

Thanks, Joe, for the invitation. It was a very good time, with a lot of good tramping through the woods exercise, which was just what I was looking for on a Saturday.