May 18, 2017

• Caching Across the Plains

  Here are a few more photos of my geocaching adventures with my friend Maxine as we cached our way across the counties of southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma and Texas.

  We saw a lot of these...

  

  ... and a whole lot of these...

  

  That's Maxine at what was termed the "Visitor Center" at the wind farm in the description on the cache page. We had been looking forward to a nice, clean Visitor Center ladies' room. Needless to say, we were sorely disappointed. I love this photo because of the perspectives. Max is dwarfed by the miniature windmills on the sides of the information kiosk. The miniature windmills are dwarfed by the real windmill several yards behind Max. I think this was a Virtual Cache, where we had to answer a question using information on the sign to claim the cache.

  There are still a few of the old-fashioned (and much more picturesque) windmills scattered about the plains.

  

  We found geocaches at historic homes, museums, old jails, and train depots, to name just a few interesting places.

  

  There had been heavy rain which turned to 17 inches of wet, heavy snow in the area just a few days before we passed through. We saw a lot of flooded rivers and streams, broken trees and power poles, and other signs of storm damage. There was still a good 10 inches of snow in ditches and other low or shaded areas, even though the temperature had climbed into the 80s. The rain and snow also took a toll on the dirt roads. Luckily, most of the ones we went down had dried enough to not be a problem for Maxine's little Chrysler Journey. She bravely drove it down more than one road that looked like this... or worse...

  

  Hmm... that's not the picture I thought it was. This road was pretty good compared to some others we were on. This particular road wound through an area called Big Basin. I'm pretty sure it was in Kansas, but we kept criss-crossing across state lines out in the boonies and there weren't always signs welcoming us to the next state. Anyway, this was the road that led through open grazing land where the buffalo roamed freely, to one of my favorite stops on the trip.

  

  Maxine's Journey climbed up the hillside to a parking area with a sign pointing us to St. Jacob's Well a few hundred feet below us.

  

  That little blue dot in the center of the photo is Maxine. She went down to the natural well to get the information needed for a Virtual Cache, while I stayed on the top to figure out the answers for an Earth Cache. Actually, that didn't take me very long and I spent most of the time while Max was below taking photos and shooting video. The meadowlarks were in glorious voice that morning! See that hill in the upper left of the photo above? See the little dot on top of the hill? Here's a zoomed in photo:

  

  Native Americans would stack rocks in a pillar on top of that hill to signal that there was water below. If I remember correctly, the rocks have been cemented into pillar form to prevent vandalism, and St. Jacob's Well has never been known to go dry.

  This stop had it all: an exciting road, a great view, meadowlarks, history, a science lesson, roaming buffalo... Who could ask for more?

  I'll be back soon with some more photos, hopefully before I leave for GeoWoodstock next week.

   

  • 11:28 pm
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