So, another issue of the newsletter makes it to the website. This issue is a little light with just a cacher profile and story from Blue Grass Tom. That is the hint for everyone to send in profiles and stories and event reviews and cache highlights and well, you get the picture. Send them all to “newsletter at iowageocachers.org”

Lots of milestones again (even with the flooding) and of note is c_dog getting that 1000th find. Lots of people getting close to 1000 and 2000 so maybe we will have a couple of those next issue.

I took a couple evenings this week and checked on all of my caches that could have been affected by the high waters over the past couple weeks. Unfortunately I lost 2 caches but I did maintenance on all the rest. I encourage everyone to check any caches close to streams or rivers. One of the caches I lost was a quarter mile from Beaver Creek and it was a good 4 foot under moving water. One that was still there was under water, but couldn’t find a way out of its hiding place. So give up and evening or two of hunting down new caches to check on those caches you have placed whether affected by the water or not. It is good to try to find your own caches every now and then.

We all know that we geocache for the fun, the exercise and the challenge. It’s not about the numbers. Yeah right! To some, it is all about the numbers and to that end, the stats page is going to get a little cleanup. Anyone who has not updated their stats in the last 6 months will have their stats zeroed out. So get to the site and update your stats. Even if you get zeroed, you can still enter your stats and be moved right back into place.

GC.Com Username: KNIGHT HUNTER

Number of Finds/Hides: 58 / 10

Occupation? Biology teacher and coach – 16 years

How you got your username? I am a 1991 Wartburg College grad. GO KNIGHTS!!

How long have you been caching and how did you get started? I have been caching since 2003. My first find was Cedar Hill Nature Trail Overlook. The Waverly parks and recreation department published information on geocaching in ’03, I got started that spring. I wish I had more time to devote to this great activity.

Favorite cache/why? It is hard to pick just one – Those that are most memorable are those that I found with friends.

1. Beware of the Bearcat – found in Oregon with my fellow KNIGHTS!
2. Saints Lake Cache – in memory of Jackson, the great Golden Retriever.
3. Take a break – found in Colorado with the RMAS crew.
4. The Gold Medal Cache – found with TK – my partner in crime
5. Darwin’s Dipsy Doodle – found with TJM – my right hand man!

Least Favorite/why? The Tip of Alice’s Finger!!!! This cache gets the thumbs down only because of the thirsty skeeters! I have enjoyed UNIBear's caches, and Alice is a nice hide with great scenery and a nice hike – I do recommend going for it. But, if I had to go for this one again, I would get it in the winter.

Current caching goals? This spring I want to get out more with my new caching buddy - Maxwell MidKNIGHT the caching K9. Some students and I are also starting a “cachers club” at the school. We will be doing some activities and placing a cache this spring.

I would also like to share: I recently found this bit of wisdom from the poet A.E. Housman that reminds me why I cache.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my three score years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

It seems like I get in a fair amount of traveling during the first several months of each year. Some of it is business, some pleasure, and some is a mixture. But, now that I’m a geocacher, I eagerly look forward to all the trips, just like that Willie Nelson song – “On the road again, just can’t wait to get on the road again. The life I love is findin’ caches with my friends…” or something like that, eh?

As you’ve figured out by now, the subject of this issue’s column is hunting for geocaches while “on the road.” It’s always fun to see the maps on the profile pages of other cachers on geocaching.com showing the states and countries they’ve cached in, and I like seeing states get added to my own map. So far I have eight which isn’t a lot compared to some out there, but it’s been fun nevertheless. Actually, just getting out of town within the state is fun, too, traveling around Iowa.

I’ve gained knowledge on finding caches, hiding caches, and making caches, and when traveling by car, the stops always help make longer trips more bearable.

Just as many regions of the U.S. have their own “versions” of the English language, so it seems many areas have their own “versions” of geocaching. I just got back earlier this week from a visit to my family in southeastern Wisconsin. I’ve cached around my hometown every time I’ve been there over the last year and a half, and as I look back, I realize that I’ve never found a single regular size cache – almost all micros and a few small sizes! Here at home in southeastern Iowa, I take a little (okay, a lot) of razzing for my love of hiding the ever-evasive micro, but up there in Wisconsin I fit in (as does my driving), which explains why I didn’t get complaints when I hid a nano on a street sign across from my dad’s house. In nearby Illinois, I’ve seen more ammo boxes than in Iowa, lots of big clear, plastic container with screw-on tops, and a lot of the micros have been of the magnetic variety, with the exception of those hidden by the Galesburg Flash, madkaw, who seems able to make a micro out of things that would look strange even if they weren’t microcaches!

On the Big Island of Hawaii, I’ve found caches in ammo boxes out on lava fields inside holes in the rocks and in tupperware in rural, tree-filled areas, but I was surprised at the number of caches that were just in ziplock bags. I guess when your main climatic danger (outside of lava) is humidity and rain, that bag works fine. I’ve talked with others who have cached places that I haven’t been to, and have heard stories of larger containers, like the 5-gallon pail type and the use of different environmental materials like small rocks, where those are plentiful, to cover caches. Great.

IowaGerd, who usually hikes for a week or two each year in the mountains of Austria, went over there last year with some printouts I did for him and his new Garmin 60csx. He drove up to park near one cache listing that estimated the hide to be about a half-mile from the lot, only to find that it was several thousand feet up! Also, many of the Austrian cache pages considered it normal to include pictures of the actual cache in hiding and out of hiding, so I printed the pictures for him, too. Gerd says that even then it could take up to half an hour to find the container, because, in the mountains, there are a lot of rocks, and they look a lot alike. Hmmm. If I can do some extended work on the stair-stepper (I can see Hawkeyelaw laughing already) to build stamina for that kind of climbing, I’d like to go there with Gerd one of these times to check that out. Have to leave the little nanos for hides at home, though, I guess. Don’t need to get cussed at in two languages; one is enough!

At any rate, seeing the common types of hides in an area and remembering them can definitely help you when you return home by having a broader knowledge base to work from.

If you are a hider as well as a finder, like me, new ideas are always welcome, and on-the-road research can provide those ideas. I probably shouldn’t tip my hand too much here, but, not having pets, I wasn’t familiar with the little pet identification containers that fit on pet collars. So, when I found a cache in Kenosha, Wisconsin, recently behind a church (the owner was building a DaVinci Code series of caches) I didn’t know what it was. Emailing the owner cleared that up, and when I hit the counter at Petco in Davenport, purchasing all 7 of the containers they had, I was a happy camper. Some nice hides will come from those, as well as from other materials that will contain those.

I believe that one of the neat things about geocaching is that it is not only a good sport for everyone in a family, but it is a good sport that everyone in a family should do, if possible. Besides the obvious fun, it builds a good appreciation for the outdoors, and teaches kids that an activity doesn’t have to involve a video controller in order to provide a good time.

As you travel with others, long trips can be broken up with a little (or a lot) of geocaching. Many rest stops now have caches hidden there, so you can kind of make a one-stop combination of bathroom break, vending machine visit and geocache hunts.

And, try to learn some about “route lists,” more and more of which are popping up on geocaching.com all the time. If your trip will follow a well-traveled path, it’s likely that someone has already put together such a list, which gives all nearby caches along the way. As more and more people move toward paperless caching, this is a good way to simplify putting together an agenda for your trip along with the custom pocket query service offered to premium members of geocaching.com

By the time you read this, your faithful reporter will hopefully have made a safe journey to Toronto, Canada, and back. I’ve found listings for three caches within less than a half mile of my hotel, so I look forward to adding a second country to the map on my profile page! Good caching in 2007!