MAPLE

Dad and I were hoping for an easy find here, since it was hot and humid and we only had about ten minutes to search for and recover the station mark and both reference marks before we had to head to a family wedding. Unfortunately, the station mark eluded us—no wonder when you consider the conditions at the coordinates! The corner of the lot was deeply overgrown with briars, poison ivy, and thickets of long grass that no doubt hosted colonies of ticks. My father took one look at it and said “I’m not going in there.” I did go in there, but once I realized how much clearing and digging it would take to find the mark, I bailed out pretty quickly.

In the meantime, a man walked over toward us from one of the nearby houses. I sure was hoping he was the friendly neighbor referred to in one of the old Geocaching logs for this mark—and he was! I told him as much, and he commented that people come by once in a while to look at the mark, and he enjoys interacting with them. He knew where it was—very close to the base of the tree, he said—but that it was completely overgrown now with all of the summer vegetation. Echoing my father’s comment, he said “I’m not going in there now!” when I asked if he could point out the spot. “I don’t even have any shoes on.”

At least we had better luck with the two reference marks. RM 1 is just across Maple Street from the station coordinates, set in the sidewalk in front of #228 Maple Street. As I photographed the reference mark, a man came to the door and opened his screen door, I guess to check out what I was doing. I started to tell him how lucky he was to have a survey disk set in his sidewalk. He just stared at me with blank eyes, and very slowly closed the door. I guess he wasn’t interested. Oh well.

Reference mark 2 is set just west on Maple Street, in the driveway of #230 Maple Street. A car was parked next to the driveway and the mark was a little too close to the house for my comfort, so I just took a few very quick photos, and then Dad and I headed off to the wedding.