The Kearney event was coming up and I had offered to hold a mini class on Earthcaches since someone suggested seminars and classes would be a nice change from event caches and games. What had I done to myself?? I may talk a good game in my stories but in real life I’m a quiet guy not prone to public speaking, and enjoy listening much more than talking and especially if the talking is done in front of a group.

  I had made the offer, not because I think I’m an expert, but because of the great experiences Vic and I have shared at EC’s and I feel strongly that Nebraska needs more of its landmarks developed as EarthCaches. So I would be teaching about what they are, what they can be and how to develop them for submission. Beginning an outline and starting to fill it in, I thought wouldn’t it be great if the cachers at the event could visit an EarthCache as part of the class? But what could I develop around there? The event would be held in a state park with manmade lakes, nothing very geologically impressive there but a great place to camp, with fishing and swimming lakes and nice shaded areas to pitch your tent. Tent stakes can be pushed with your foot into the sandy soil and don’t have to be pounded in like… Sand! Why was it there? I had the beginnings of my EC.

    Writing up the page describing depositions of sands from a widely meandering Platte River, I find an article about the construction of Interstate 80, saying material had to be quarried nearby to make the roadbeds. It went on to say, that this material is taken from what is called a borrow pit, (I have a title now) which obviously leaves a big hole in the ground. Knowing the water table would fill those holes; these pits were dug with the intention of creating recreational areas and fishing lakes. Hmmmm, water tables? Well, now I had my logging requirements too!

  After receiving permission from the park superintendant, I sat on the submission for a bit, trying to time the publication of “Borrow Pits” with the event. There had been a large number of EC’s worldwide published in the last few months and the workload was causing some delays in approving and publishing EarthCaches. I sent it in to geoaware about 10 days before the event and made handouts of what would be the page in case it wasn’t published in time, so that we could discuss it.

Of course the subject of fritters came up, both between Vic and I and Sioneva as well, while making our plans to attend. It had become a bit of tradition for us to bring a donut or two for Sioneva whenever we both attended an event, whether a frigid flash mob in the middle of a river or a sweltering summer picnic, we did our best to provide her donut fix. I had been talking up the fritters to her (she normally enjoys frosted cake donuts, but we had been priming her for these) and would make sure she got a “Kearney Fritter”. Vic decided we would buy a few on Saturday morning to share with Sioneva and GeoDad and at the same time place our order for 2 dozen more to be picked up Sunday to take home and freeze.

I was as ready as I ever would be to teach my class and Borrow Pits had just been published! Great! People could visit and log it during the event. Two days to go.

Originally planning to camp until the likely prospect of heavy rain was predicted, we made reservations for Friday and Saturday nights in a motel and offered our previously reserved camp spot for Sioneva’s use. Getting off work early, I was told I would be driving, something to do with Vic being sick of driving after only 2400 miles or so a few weeks previous, no problem, I can step up when needed, if she is ok with my hawk watching while driving. Cloudy skies but no rain, eh, this won’t be bad. About halfway there the skies open up on us, everything is dark and the wipers are struggling to keep the window clear and passing a semi trailer makes them lose the battle altogether and we drop into an abyss at 70 mph. The whumpa whumpa of the wipers and the thrumming din of the rain on the roof combine in my mind to make the sound of screeching, groaning metal and I picture bolt heads zinging off followed by fantail sprays of high pressure water, the glass cracks on a dial and begins to drip as the dark interior of the van starts closing in on us as the needle on the  fathometer reads deeper and deeper.  Whoa..bad time to daydream!! Get your mind back on the road, Joe!!  I’d have to pay attention and do without the imaginary sonar. Traffic slows but doesn’t stop and when the storm lets up a bit, everyone is back at or over the speed limit. We had multiple waves of abysmal conditions, interspersed with the merely torrential, the rest of the way to Kearney and we listened to the wind howl and rain pelt the windows of our room through most of the night.

Then a new day dawned and it was sunny, reflecting its sparkly brilliance from puddles and ponds of standing water that had yet to seep away in the sandy soil of the Platte River valley. With the promise of fabulous fresh fritters, we start our day. A leisurely morning, we didn’t even go caching and rolled into the campgrounds just a bit early (still working on that) with our pasta salad that had aromatically enhanced our motel room in a most delicious manner as we combined the fresh ingredients. (Yahoo, my sniffer works again! and onion smells w o n d e r f u l ! !) Placing the gladware container on the serving table with a blue ice block underneath to keep it cool, we mingle a bit before chow time.

There is a pin the flag at ground zero game going on and the registration table has a box for trackables to be discovered or moved along. One trackable that hadn’t been able to fit in the box was a painting of a very familiar crow, an opalsns WOA TB, in fact the original one. About a week or so before Kearney, I had noticed a painting (?) in the geocoins listings on e-bay and had recognized the name of the seller from the geocoin forums. Thinking of the magazines reader’s, I thought ‘there’s a story here’ and contacted opalsns to do a short interview about this novel twist to trackables. After some correspondence, the interview was published in the new ‘Spotlight!’ column of The Online Geocacher magazine. Having only published the story a few days earlier, I was really tickled to find and discover this caching crow at our event.

Another traveler that didn’t fit in the shoebox was to appear in a little bit and when it did it was green and about to croak, no it wasn’t that hot out, it was …………Signal the Frog, who had hopped all this way just to be a discoverable part of our event and proved to be a well photographed visitor with as many adults as children, handing off cameras to “take my pic” with Signal…myself included.

The next activity was lunch and everyone lined up to sample all of the potluck goodies. I wasn’t seriously dieting this year, so naturally I didn’t eat much. Actually, Vic and I had a fritter each for breakfast and a bit later in the morning we gave into temptation and split one of the two fritters we were going to give to Sioneva.  Now these fritters are, without any exaggeration, a bigger diameter than most dessert plates and a tad over an inch thick, of fruity, dense bread like dough. Fried crispy outside, tender inside and drizzled with glaze, they weigh what seems to be a full pound, and are a meal, or more, to less accomplished fritter critters than ourselves. We later found out the fritter we had given to Sioneva had fed her and her father with a bit left over. Back to lunch, it was all good and tasty and my tummy was satisfied.

Time for the awards and ceremonial logbook signing, I believe the Nebraskache group had 14 golden ammo cans to distribute to achievers of a thousand finds and several coins for those who had multiple thousands . Next, the Delorme and 93 County Challenges and both of those cache owners called up those who had completed them and asked each to say something about their experiences. When we were called up I said “Read about it in the magazine!” no actually I didn’t say that, I had pre written the log for Vic to enter into the logbooks (she has much better penmanship) and made a short remark based on that, but we all knew I would eventually (6 months later) write about our adventures.

Shortly after that people began to disperse. Some would go caching and others would stay for the presentations. I was scheduled to give mine first and setting a time for everyone to be present I began to gather my handouts and courage.

Slipping on a red clown nose found as swag a few weeks ago I began:  “A caching friend from the Netherlands dared me to wear this clown nose today, and it’s actually kind of fitting, So here goes, EarthCaches are fun and like my nose says, they are “The Greatest Show on Earth!” the Earth itself.”  And after making sure we got a pic to prove it to my friend, I took it off so I could be understood and introduced myself; “I’m not a geologist, although I get to play one while visiting EarthCaches. I’m also not a teacher but I did stay at a Comfort Inn last night. Beyond that stellar resume, Vicki and I are platinum EarthCache masters with visits to over 30 EC’s, 5 that we have developed and more in process.” We covered the submittal process, what makes a good EC, the masters program, and good locations in Nebraska that could be developed. A few questions and my time up front was over. The class had gone over well and my jitters dissipated, oh, about the time I answered the last question.

  The next class began with “I am a teacher but I didn’t stay at a Comfort Inn last night.” His class on mystery caches would explain the 9 different types that fall within this designation and go on to discuss creating and solving puzzles. He had brought a large classroom sized pad of paper and needed the help of someone to hold it as there weren’t any handy places to prop it up. A young lady from the audience volunteered to come out front to hold the pad up and turn the pages as needed. She had stepped into Vanna White’s shoes easel-ly and did a good job of it. Vic and I listened closely as he went over tips and tricks for solving and some examples of different puzzles.

After the presentations, we took a very short drive to the site of “Borrow Pits” and met a group going for the EC smiley at the swimming beach. Vic didn’t have her swim suit on this time; I guess she prefers spring fed waterfall showers to lake bathing. It was warm enough it would have been quite refreshing though. Stopping to remove sandburs and discussing why some of us had walked right through the patch of burrs while the other, smarter spouse went around them, we realized it was almost time for the chili and soup dinner that was new this year for the event, so offering a ride to the group of walkers, we all headed back to the shelter.

 You can work up a good appetite sweating out a group presentation, so I was ready for the chili and especially the potato soup someone had brought. Enjoying some conversations, the time flew by and I began to smell charcoal coming from a corner of the shelter. A few more people began showing up and soon it would be ….cobbler time!! Tantalizing wafts of pleasant peach, aromatic apple and cherry fragrances teased me as the fruity delights bubbled in the Dutch ovens, and promised another outstanding finish to the Kearney event.

Lingering the next morning over the continental breakfast, we planned out our day. Find a few caches, go home and do laundry. But first……..pick up the 2 dozen fritters we had ordered. Setting them out of easy reach from the front seats, we go off to find a ball field bison and a huge Wells Fargo wagon. We had a few others that we dnf’ed and decided to call it a day, we just didn’t have a great drive to find any caches since our big push to complete the three challenges in time for this event. We’ll get it back though. After all, Geowoodstock is coming up.

By catsnfish

A couple of empty-nesters who caught the caching bug not realizing it was incurable. So if we’re found in the woods waltzing with Garmins, lifting lampskirts while tying our shoe or looking for “gum” underneath benches, be sure to stay away... it’s contagious and the only temporary relief can be found in finding bison’s, ammo’s, nano’s, or passing coins and spreading travel bugs!

Publisher's Note: Catsnfish write the periodic column The Adventures of Catsnfish. Subscribe (free) to The Online Geocacher to get an email alert when a new article is published.

Comments(1):

1. frittttttterrrrrrr

   Thursday, February 11, 2010 Betsy