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.

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

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.

Name of the cache: Waterfall Sandwich.
Size of the cache: Ammo Can.
Difficulty: 1.5 Terrain 2.0.

Meh, doesn’t sound particularly evil. But everytime we’d close in on it only to sigh “sheesh, why can’t we see an ammo can! it’s a frackin’ ammo can!” With Jen at the GPS helm – we finally found this little bugger! Yah know, alot in life is about perspective.

[StarTrek the Movie 2009]

I was checking on my geocache’s at the Brenton Arboretum when lookie what I found – dast deutschen Polizei!

So, I left Lime Larry the Travel Bug in the Furious Tick Mafia cache

for a new geocaching short-term buddy – the Polizei Travel Bug

So, off we went – barreling down the gravel Autobahn a’la James Tiberius Kirk, Polizei enjoying the view out the side window

Ah, a more urban beat to patrol as we seek a cache on Grand titled: Terrace Hill. Yup, found it! Celebratory pic 1:

Two “no finds” and we start heading home. Ahhh, let’s make just one more stop. How can you resist that smile?! Found the Desk Job cache!

Time to fuel and head home

singing a little John Cougar Mellencamp “I fight authority and authority always wins…” all the way back home to my  “little pink houses for you and me” where I’ll rise and greet another sweet day to “R.O.C.K. in the USA”!

GPS was pointing in a different spot this time…hum….maybe we’re onto something!

Does this rock wall make my butt look big?!

Jen begins her search just ahead of me and Ne-hau! Theres the clever little hide! She felt around one of the larger stones and there was a coat hanger type wire – push it and out pops this container with the cache:

A quick sign of the log and off we went to find the next cache!