Arizona Trust Land and Geocaches - Gillespie Middle School - Illinois 7-3A State Basketball Champs

Breaking news:  Gerry went to Benld High School and I went to Gillespie High School.  A few years after we graduated the two schools merged and the combined middle school mascot adopted Benld's name of the Indians.

The Gillespie Middle school won the Illinois 7-3A basketball championship over Teutopolis in overtime by the score of 38-33 this evening.  They trailed early in the game and were down 13-21 at halftime and then caught fire and won the game.  They finished the season with a 26-2 record.  Congratulations to the team.

GMS Indians waiting for their medals.

NOTE:  If you aren't interested in geocaching or the Arizona Land Trust, then you might want to stop reading today's entry.  

As many of you know Gerry and I are geocachers and try and get out as often as possible.  My two knee replacements last year slowed us down on geocaching and we were looking forward to finding some this season in Tucson.  There were about 500 caches within 5 miles of the RV park and they were on our radar.

Imagine my surprise when I went to download them and the area was free of geocaches.  At first I thought I was having system problems or the geocache site was having problems.  Nope, not to be as they were all removed.  I didn't know why, but do know that the Arizona Trust Land managers have a lot of rules and a permit is needed to even walk on the land.  As you will see in the following letter, the amount of land mass in the Trust is huge.

One of the geocachers telephoned the Trust office and was sent the following letter.  I've omitted his name due to privacy concerns.

QUOTE "
The Department manages approximately 9.2 million acres of State owned Trust land within Arizona. This land was granted to the State of Arizona under the provisions of the federal Arizona New Mexico Enabling Act that provided for Arizona’s statehood in 1912. This land is held in Trust and managed to earn revenues for the State’s public schools (K-12) and 13 other public institutions (see attached).
The Trust’s beneficiaries receive revenue from leasing, selling or using the State’s Trust land and its resources. Pursuant to law, all uses of Trust land must benefit the Trust. The Trust land is not managed for the general public’s use. While public use of the Trust land is not prohibited, use is regulated to comply with the State’s Enabling Act, the Arizona Constitution and state law to protect the land, its resources and to ensure compensation to the beneficiaries.
All recreational uses of State land, other than hunting or fishing with a valid hunting or fishing license must be authorized by a recreational use permit issued by the Department.
A Trust land Recreational Use Permit does not permit target shooting, paintball, airsoft, recreational flying, vehicular rock hopping, geocaching, sand railing, fireworks, or congregating in groups larger than 19 people. Visiting prehistoric and historic cultural or archaeological sites, metal detecting, collecting or removing natural products (rocks, stone, soil, fossils, mineral specimens, cacti, saguaro or cholla skeletons, plants (live or dead), or firewood for home use, are all prohibited. A Recreational Use Permit does not authorize use of non-state lands such as military, federal, tribal, or private lands. Recreational users are asked to take no natural products from the Trust land and leave no foreign objects. Activities involving disturbing the soil/cultural resources and traveling off existing trails and roads are prohibited.
To be clear, per federal and state law, all uses of Trust land must be permitted and must benefit the Trust; a fact that distinguishes Trust land from public land, such as state or county parks or national forests. Parks, National Forests, and lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management are public lands and are managed as such. State Trust lands are not public lands.
May we refer you to those lands where geocaching is permitted, i.e. land administered by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Arizona State Parks.
We appreciate your concerns and hope this answers your questions.
Sincerely,
John Schneeman, AICP, CFM
Assistant Director
Natural Resources Division
Arizona State Land Department
1616 West Adams
Phoenix, Arizona 85007  
End quote "

To give you an idea as to the size of these holdings converted to sq miles they are 14,375 sq miles.  The state of Maryland covers 12,405 sq miles.

It is estimated that there were between 4,500 & 9,000 caches on the Trust land.  Nobody can agree on the true count but there have been a significant reduction in geocaches in Arizona as a result of the enforcement of the laws.  Many caches have been relocated but many others abandoned.

Most people don't realize how popular geocaching is and how far people travel to look for them.  The French & Germans schedule vacations to travel to the US Southwest to geocache and Arizona is a popular destination for them.  It will be interesting to see how this ruling changes the number of visitors to Arizona in the future.  

The vast majority of the caches aren't on Trust land, so there are still thousands of them out there waiting to be discovered.  Gerry and I found 5 of them yesterday in downtown Tucson.  The rectangles on the map below are geocaches and the smiley faces are caches we've found.  It looks like we have our work cut out for us to fill in more smiley faces.

We have been taking it easy the past few days and Gerry has been working on making her Valentine cards to be sent out.  I've been completing some small chores around the RV and just enjoying the nice weather we've had the past week or so.

Geocaching Day At The Beach

The weather forecast for today was rain, wind and tornado warnings.  Just your typical day in the Charleston area.  I checked a couple forecasts and decided it wasn't going to be that bad and we made our plans accordingly.

We were drawn to Edisto Beach once again today to take advantage of a semi-nice day with warm temperatures.  It was in the mid 70s and nice except that it was windy and rained a little while we were there.  That didn't stop us for searching for some geocaches in between the rain drops.  There was a beach series of caches that we were searching for and they usually aren't that difficult.  These proved to be more difficult than the ratings assigned to them, but we managed to find a number of them.

It was lunch time and we stopped at Whaley's, a local bar/restaurant for a bite to eat.  For a change, Gerry ordered a flounder sandwich and I went with a prime rib sandwich.   It was good, but was the strangest prime rib that I've ever eaten.  The eatery had a unique feature about it that you don't see very often.  The bathroom was outside and it was raining so you got wet if you used it.  At least they had a bathroom.

The highlight of the day was a walk on the beach around sunset and taking a number of photos.  The surf was up and eating away at the sand with steep drop offs.  We had the beach to ourselves and Gerry managed to pick up some shells.  I imagine the beach will be littered with shells in the morning after the surf settles down, but a trip down for this isn't in our plans.

It was interesting to see the contrast between Tybee Island with all their $2.00/hour parking signs all over the place and then to visit Edisto Beach and find 38 beach access points with free parking.  Of course Hilton Head Island has about 2-3 access points and no parking in the area.  All within 90 miles of each other and which one do you think we felt most welcome at and visited a couple times while we were here.

The remainder of the blog will be dedicated to displaying some of the photos we took while we were there.  I hope you enjoy them.

No money trees, but they do have wine trees.

It turned out to be a nice day after all and we didn't have a tornado so that made it perfect.  Now we have a cold weather forecast to deal with, but hopefully it won't get down as low as forecasted.

That was our day, how was yours?

Bluewater Casino & Geocaching

Geocaching takes on a new meaning out in this part of the country.  It is typical for geocaches to be spread out and sometimes a small series of them will be in a row.  Since the desert roads out here stretch for miles, people lay out geocaching series of anywhere from 200-2000 caches in a row.  They have to be at least 300 ft apart, the series can go on for miles.  One such cache west of Parker, AZ on US 62 in California has 1,000 caches hidden along side of the road over 135 miles.  It usually takes dedicated cachers two long days to complete the course and people come from all over the world to finish it.

Now before you think I have lost my mind, I only downloaded 80 caches and today we drove out to the beginning of the caches to see what was ahead of us.  Miles and miles of the Mojave desert is what is there.  The series is called Heart of the Mojave and each cache is labelled HMD-0001 through HMD-1000.  We only logged 6 found caches today from this series, but will go out again and find the remaining 74 that I have downloaded.  

It was very windy out there and Gerry's time spent fixing her hair went for naught.  It didn't take long for her hairdo to become a mess.  Now in my case, it wasn't a problem for obvious reasons.  No hair!

We turned around and headed back to Arizona.  There was an advertisement for a RV park and we decided to take a look at what they offered.  It was an OK park, but nothing special and since it was so far out in the boondocks, we crossed it off our list.  We did see some interesting sights along the way though.

I think this is a Volkswagen Thing for sale along side of the road.

Much of the land out here along the Colorado River is part of the Indian Tribes.

There is an old railroad bridge spanning the Colorado River west of Parker and it is neat to see such an old structure still standing.

Just west of the bridge is the town of Earp, California which consists of a Post Office, marine repair business and a convenience market.  Wyatt Earp used to have a number of mine claims just west of the town and searched for gold there until his death in 1929.  He must have been a tough cookie to survive in the Mojave Desert.

 The post office is more than 220 miles from the county seat in San Bernardino, California is further than any other in the county. The entire region on the California side falls under area code 760.

Next stop on our trip was the Bluewater Resort & Casino to see if we could donate some dollars to the Indians.  We were very successful in that venture much to our dismay.  I actually won money but soon grew bored of playing the slots and turned the money over to Gerry so she could play longer.  She is the gambler in the family and unless I am winning big money, I lose interest after an hour or so.  She can play all day and love it.  Finally she lost enough and said it was time to leave.

We had dinner in their restaurant buffett style and I have to say it wasn't a memorable meal for me.  The food was cold, mostly Mexican dishes and not that good.  Gerry had better luck in her choices and said it wasn't that bad.  

After that we came back to the motorhome and watched NCIS and Person of Interest on the computer.  There isn't TV reception out here and we don't have Dish or Directv so it was either watch a movie on DVD or use our bandwidth on the computer to watch tv programs a day late.  The MIFI was able to keep up with the streaming programs and we managed to watch both programs.  I guess we will be watching the Sunday night CBS programming the same way since we will be here until Monday morning.

Gerry hasn't had a chance to edit this night's blog, so please forgive me for poor grammar or sentence construction.

That was our day out here in the wind and heat, how was yours? 

Geocaching

Warning for those not interested in geocaching you can stop reading here.

First, what is geocaching?  The following is taken from www.geocaching.com.

Geocaching 101

Welcome to the geocaching community! If you still have questions after reviewing this information, we recommend that you search our Help Center or ask a question in the geocaching Forums.

The Game

What is geocaching?

Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.

How is the game played?

At its simplest level, geocaching requires these 8 steps:

1. Register for a free Basic Membership.
2. Visit the "Hide & Seek a Cache" page.
3. Enter your postal code and click "search."
4. Choose any geocache from the list and click on its name.
5. Enter the coordinates of the geocache into your GPS Device.
6. Use your GPS device to assist you in finding the hidden geocache.
7. Sign the logbook and return the geocache to its original location.
8. Share your geocaching stories and photos online.

There are many other levels to the game. Keep reading the guide to learn more!

What are the rules of geocaching?

1. If you take something from the geocache (or "cache"), leave something of equal or greater value.
2. Write about your find in the cache logbook.
3. Log your experience at www.geocaching.com.

What do I need to go geocaching?

The only necessities are a GPS device or a GPS-enabled mobile phone so that you can navigate to the cache, and a Geocaching.com Membership.

Where are geocaches located?

Geocaches can be found all over the world. It is common for geocachers to hide caches in locations that are important to them, reflecting a special interest or skill of the cache owner. These locations can be quite diverse. They may be at your local park, at the end of a long hike, underwater or on the side of a city street.

Are there different types of geocaches?

Yes. There are currently over a dozen "cache types" in geocaching, with each cache type being a different variation of the game. See the full list of Geocache Types.

  
I have been picking up a geocache here and there lately and have skipped the ones nearest to the RV park.  Today Gerry and I got a late start looking for the caches and since there was a very bad wreck on Kolb Ave, the diverted traffic overwhelmed the road we were on.  Then there was an accident in the merge lane of our road and that made it even more difficult to get around.

The nice thing about geocaching is that there are many out there and I just switched to another area to search for them.  The first cache was in the desert about 200 yards away.  I set off looking for it and found the cache quickly and signed the log.  The next cache nearby was very difficult to get to and I approached it from the wrong side of the highway and it was at the end of a difficult climb.  I decided I didn't have any business searching for this one and called it a DNF.  (Did Not Find).

By this time the traffic was becoming impossible so we had to drive further out.  We managed to find a cache where we dropped off a travel bug and then found another cache behind a small cemetery.  The next caches were quite a way off the highway and the path was through some tough cacti.  We decided to save them for another day and I tried to talk Gerry into stopping for Happy Hour at a local water hole, but she held firm and we came back to the motorhome.

We didn't find that many caches, but I walked more looking for them than I have in the past couple years.  Slowly, my walks last longer and hopefully the healing in the knee will continue.  

That was our exciting day, how was yours.

History of Las Cruces Geocaches

Jr, we are having fun.

There is still some cold weather ahead of us and we decided to hang around Las Cruces a little longer.  There was a "wind" event in the area the last few days, but we didn't even notice it in the motor home.  It helps to have a 45ft Prevost RV parked next to you and have it shield you from the wind.   It has been a little dusty, but it cleared up some today.

The owners of the Prevost are traveling to Charlotte, NC for the NASCAR race on Memorial Day.  They are a friendly couple and own a campground in Mapleton, OR.  The campground received excellent reviews in the RVPARKREVIEWS website and the campground webpage is:  Maple Lane RV Park
If you are in their area, check them out.
 
There is a string of 18 caches just west of Las Cruces under the name of History of Las Cruces and they are named after different events in the past.  For example, 1598, 1849, etc.  They were hidden along a ranch road and were fairly easy to find.  Gerry and I shared searching for them and we completed the finds in less than 1 1/2 hours.  There were also 3 caches that weren't on this list and we picked them up, also.  The Border Patrol agent kept a watchful eye on us during one find, but didn't put us in the hoosegow. 

Retrieving cache with water tower in background.

Las Cruces water tower about 5 miles from cache.

I found it!

Muggles watching us.

Note:  Muggles are those who aren't geocaching but are watching what you are doing.  Some of them check where you were and try and find the geocache after you leave.

Last cache of the day.

One of the exciting parts of searching in the desert during hot weather is the chance of meeting creepy crawlers.  Today was one such day for me when I ran across a 2 1/2 ft long snake that was heading for the same place as I was.  He seemed more determined than I was, so he got the right of way.  I didn't see where he went since my back was turned as I ran down the path.  Yep, ran!  My knee replacement held up very well and I scooted out of there.  

I then tried another approach to the spot where the cache was located and carefully pulled it out of it's hiding place with my walking stick.  It helped that the stick is 4 ft long.   

We finally called it a day and headed back to the MH to clean up and go out to dinner.  One of  our favorite restaurants is located in Las Cruces and we try and eat there at least one time when we are in the area.  It's the Cattle Baron Steak & Seafood Restaurant.  We got there late and the first rush of patrons were beginning to thin out, so we got seated quickly.  They have a very nice choice of steaks, seafood and a great salad bar.  We enjoyed our meals and left there with full tummies.

That was our day, how was yours?

Mountain Road & Coronado Nat'l Forest

There is a gravel mountain road east of Tucson that will take you to Benson, AZ the long way.  Tanque Verde Rd ends and the beginning of Reddington Rd begins.  I'm not really sure why this road was built other than as a ranch road, but it sure is rough.  It also takes you to some of the most pretty areas around Tucson.  The Coronado National Forest covers most of the area and is quite wild.  There are a lot of "sign hunters" in this area and that must be the reason the sign above is made out of steel.  

There were so many beautiful areas that it was impossible to capture them all.  Down in the valley was a stream that had numerous waterfalls.  Of course since it hasn't rained in a couple months, the waterfalls were dried up. I would like to come back when they are flowing and get some photos .  The area is very rocky and difficult to walk around in other than some hiking trails.  These trails are beyond my ability to hike now, but it would have been great a few years ago.   Gerry and Sharon took a short walk down a trail to check it out and said it was a nice walking trail.

Al retrieving the cache

There was a geocache about 2 miles off the main road on a ranch road and we decided to drive there and pick it up.  Wow, that was one rough road and we had to take it both ways.  The truck was fine on the road, but it had us bouncing around the cab of the truck like rubber balls.  We did find the cache and also the small lake back there.  The lake was very beautiful and I wonder how the water level stays so high.  I found the cache and Al crawled out on a rock to retrieve it.  I tried to come in from the side, but Mr. Cactus didn't want me there and gave me a reason to not try that again. 

The area has numerous cattle roaming around and every once in a while we came upon small groups grazing in the fields.  They must be sturdy cattle since the hillsides must be difficult for them to negotiate.  I don't know the different breeds of cattle but there were 4-5 different ones there.  They must not see many people and stared at us as we drove by.  

 

We drove through some wild groups of Saguaro cacti that were even nicer than the ones in the Saguaro National Park.  We were very surprised to see so many old and large cacti growing in the wild.  Many of them had to be over 150 years old and they were in great shape.

By this time we were getting worn out by the rough road and were ready to head for home.  We still had about 43 miles of dirt road ahead of us, however it was in pretty good shape and we were able to make good time.  We did pass this water tank that was decorated like a work of art.  You never know what you are going to see out here in the desert.

And that is how we managed to drive over 130 miles and spend 7 hours on the road.



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