My favorite find was this one at the end of a swinging rope bridge, aptly named “Swingin’ in Estherville”. The rivers in Iowa are running really high from all the rain we’ve been having and this one was no exception. The river was loud and rumbling as I approached the bridge entrance.

Took a few deep breaths as I moved out to the center of the bridge. True to it’s name, it was swinging… and creaking… and I felt quite uncertain what would happen at any given moment. As if the world was about to drop out from under me. I felt like Indiana Jones. Well, minus the Thugees. And the screaming blonde. “Hang on lady, we going to go for a ride!”

Back to the task at hand – find the TREASURE! Ah, here it is! And I didn’t have to bring a sandbag.

I left the “Big O” travel bug here in sacrifice for all the oh’s and expletives uttered during the crossing of the rope bridge and got out of there before Mola Ram shows up. I forgot to bring my sword.

On our way south toward Gendler Park, GPS shows a cache in a little roadside park. Both of us armed with GPS’s we raced to see who could find it first. Over here. No. Wait. Over here. Dang. No. Maybe back there…..Jen’s knowledge of all things carpentry worked in her advantage to find this cache. Otherwise, I’d still be out there looking for it. This happy little container was tucked under the tree in a cutout piece of wood. Nice fake out!

Well, enough with the easy finds *wink*. Urban caches abandoned we set out in search of Panther Creek’s cache. Ah, the peaceful Iowa jungle….we go tromping thru here – bushwacking with our shins – when we hit a big patch of stinging nettles. I’ve never know firey pain like that before. It’s like being stung by a dozen wasps.

Both Jenny and I must have hit the motherload of stinging nettle patches because we were cussing and dancing around for a good 8 minutes until the pain subsided. Oh, lookie here…..

We were a little gentler in our steps on the way back to the car. Really should have worn long pants. And shin guards.

Family’s first find at a home improvement store parking lot. Not pretty but we sure had fun doing the “Drunken Bee Dance” geocachers are known for….gps was bouncing the location of this cache quite a bit but we came up with it. I know my hair looks like I crawled into that storm drain to get the cache but no….that’s just the infamous “humid hair”:

On to the next find, everyone getting pretty jazzed now. A tough find but the nephew spots it – ah, he’s a natural – I’m so proud!

We find 4 more geocache’s that day and finished it off with a round of extra large slurpees.

Full of brash and sass from our geocaching conquests, we took time to relax at the beach.

GPS pointing at that tree….yes, that one surrounded by the ice sheet sidewalk. Oh well, I’ve always wanted to try the luge.

Ha ha – a great UPS (”unnatural pile of sticks”) here:

Time to go warm up and hit that chocolate sauce! UPS peace!

A race to the top to find this nano cache… hee hee, we’re the Outlaws:

Gloves, I don’t need no stinkin’ gloves. Well, actually that would have been nice. Never you mind – on to the next cache titled “Willie Nelson”. Oh, look, more snow…. well, if you got the gps honey, i’ve got the time.

I left this little German Police Travel Bug here to try and keep Willie out of trouble. Good luck with that.

I can’t wait to get on the road again…

Did a loop around the Library to head back west on Grand and the proximity alarm on the GPS goes off (wow, Jen I love this feature!) so I make a quick left and park at the top of the block. No muggles to speak of, it’s a wet, cold, gloomy Saturday, so I’ve the run of the block.

GPS bouncing quite a bit on this one as I’m walking between two very tall buildings – one being the namesake of this cache – The Meredith Corporation.

Did a few laps up and down the street. GPS still fussy so had to use my jedi geosense – aaaah, there she is!

Walking back to the truck, I pulled up the nearest cache to my location – no way! It’s just at the next block! Jumped in the truck and squared around to go west again on Grand. Quick right turn at the WHO headquarters and the proximity alarm sounds again. Nice. Pull over at a parking meter and open the door – oh, ha, there’s piled snow waist high here. Hey, I’m not leaving without finding this cache, so I slide out of the truck into the snow. A few steps later and I’m free of the white beast.

Hum, gotta be around here somewhere…..

I take a peek at my notes for this cache. Clue is Matthew 27:51. Fortunately I wrote down this verse in my notebook. Well, that was absolutely no help whatsoever. I need a sign God – a sign! Oh, there it is.

In my little town there is a Veteran’s Memorial park on Main Street. All these years I’ve driven by here I didn’t know there was a geocache right up under this truck in a cammo’d film canister!

Yes, it’s real. A real Hughy Heli that you can walk up to and climb about.

Next stop – an “icon” in our small town – the WALMART! Cache was called “Always” but the difficulty level was a 2 with a terrain of 1. Hum, can’t be that hard right?  Had to use geo-fake (the pretend use of the gps as a cell phone) to get a good look “around”. Finally spotted this after a good 15 minutes scrubbing the bushes with my feet – oy! Pull this hook and a long coat hanger device comes out with a film canister attached to the end of it – niiiiice! Now getting it out for this vertically challenged human, there was the difficulty rating right there.

Met Dad for lunch at a local favorite restaurant. Just so happens there’s a cache here too so I introduced Dad to Geocaching.

Fried caches not on the menu. Boo!

That concludes this Florida geocaching adventure with “the sign of the catfish”.

Drove out towards Gray’s Lake / DSM Water Works hoping to find a few caches that were not submerged under feet of snow. Oh, this looks promising. After wading out to this gazebo and climbing up to reach above one of the roof timbers, I was able to fetch the cache!

With this “boost” to the ego and ignoring the numbing return of feeling in my toes, I proceeded to the next cache across the street. What are all these people doing out walking around a frozen lake at noon already?! I used my super decoy of “hey, lets take a picture of the sign” to swoop in and grab the cache – a small magnet attached to the bottom of this sign:

Stopped by one of my favie cafe’s downtown, Ritual Cafe, to warm up a bit and “steel” myself for this find. Took forever to locate this little guy. As you can see, it’s barely the size of my fingernail, magnetically attached to the backing of one of these steel beams:

“Oh, I am fortune’s fool!” – from Romeo and Juliet

• 14.5 inches of snow
• 40+ mph wind
• 7 degrees

Oh, you think that’s the whole story huh? Nah! We were out to geocache on one of the last semi-warm days here in Iowa! And a banner day at that – we found all 4 of 4 geocaches.

See how obvious caches are! Take a look thru the Nancy-vision 3000:

Yes, it was prickly but I was not to be denied:

Last one of the day is along a deserted bike path near one of the area lakes. It’s deserted because it’s freezing cold out. Great because this one is a difficulty 2 1/2.  Sweet! No need for stealth. Riiiiight.

I’m up a tree (giving one heck of a monkey impersonation) when two ladies and a baby go strolling by while Jenny is taking this picture. Don’t worry, I’m using my Jedi invisibility cloak.