Caching Across America

When we first started Geocaching two years ago, I thought it would be neat to find a cache in all 50 states by the time Brian graduated high school. It gave us a goal plus an excuse to travel, which we all love. And guess what? A template’s already in place. We discovered today that there’s a Geocaching series in which one cache has been placed in each U.S. state…it’s called “Cache Across America”. I’m thinking this was tailor-made for the Nieves family!

After you’ve located all fifty states’ caches, you’re eligible to receive the clue to the final cache, located in our nation’s capital. Ironically, the final cache coordinates (at least from the hints we’ve been given) are closer to us than any of the other fifty states caches! Seems the story of our lives…we go circuitously and completely out of the way to finally find ourselves right back where we started.

The Maryland “Cache Across America” stash was in Greenbrier State Park, just outside Frederick. The actual cache location was an easy (in my mind) climb up a (barely steep) hill and had a beautiful view of the Greenbrier State Park lake and beach.

The problem was that we had only hiked less than a third of a mile from our car to find the cache, and with our expanding waistlines and growing sense of not-wanting-to move-much due to the weather getting colder, I figured we were really obligated to do a longer hike.

I feigned ignorance as I suggested the “BIG RED TRAIL”. In reality I had reviewed the park map and determined that the other trails were too wimpy. The BIG RED TRAIL was listed as a “strenuous 4.5 mile loop" and that sounded just peachy to me. (I’m from Georgia, though…a lot of stuff sounds peachy to me!).

Sevan and I soon left Brian and Ed in the dust (or in the falling leaves, rocks and roots, as the case may be). We stayed in constant communication with our walkies and after our refreshing stroll, we compared notes.

Ed and Brian encountered two slightly aggressive barking dogs (off leash with the owner trailing behind) along their route, BUT they had all the snacks in the backpack.

Sevan and I dodged three mountain bikers (all quite courteous, and no barking), BUT we were starving and snackless.

Ed and Brian had figured out a shortcut (maybe doing only 4 miles or so) and Sevan and I completed closer to 5 miles with some extremely rocky and hilly terrain…but again, no attack dogs. We each thought we had the “better deal”.

It’s all good, and at the end of the day, we were scheming to visit the other 49 states and ultimately find the cache that’s closest to home..the prize in D.C. Now if we could just buy that RV!