In honor of my friend Jenny’s 100th Cache Find,  I custom built a cache and stashed it at the Racoon River park. Very pretty views — the sound of the birds singing and water ebbing. Such a nice serene place only 15 minutes from home and 15 minutes from downtown Des Moines.

This was the first location Jen and I went Geocaching when I got to Iowa, so lots of great memories on this trail. It’s a small size cache, on record as number: GC1NRPZ

Enter the walking trail from the Dog Park at the Racoon River Park in West Des Moines, where you can park at the parking lot. Trail goes from gravel to grass trail – it’s mild terrain. In spring and fall there may be a small amount of standing water at different parts of the trail once you get off the gravel. Total hike about a mile, round trip. The trail forks off at different areas around the lake so watch the needle. There is a kid’s playground near here to enjoy as well.

Mind the edge — the lake is still cold.

Lots of swag for the kids and the kids at heart to start this cache! Inital swag includes: girls headbands, girls ponytail ties, cowboys & indians figures, gummy pencil grips, grow in water dinosaurs, and lego-style building kit.

A few fellow cachers have already found this cache and left additional swag and a geocoin.

Here’s Captain Jack grinning wildly on the eve of stashing the cache:

So, here’s to you Jen — to 100 more finds and more grand adventures!