Seeking Cache Owner boydfamily’s hide, in the company of 3.5 million muggles, is the definition of adventure.
Placed in 2014, the cache celebrates two centuries of energetic enterprise. Clifton Mill rose from the ground in 1802, with hand-powered lumber, sweat, and grit. By 1810, the mill was sold to Robert Patterson, who surveyed the emerging town into saleable lots and renamed it Clifton. When Patterson sold the mill, he had raised enough capital for his sons to reinvent the mechanical cash register into the National Cash Register Company.
Today’s Clifton Mill channels the music of the Little Miami River into a brilliant display of lights, celebrating all that is Christmas. Reigning supreme above the cliffs of the gorge, this bejeweled kingdom sparkles and bedazzles with the ingenuity and creativity of the Satariano family.
Yearly pilgrimages bring gazillions of Americans back to delight in the miniature yesteryear village, toys under the tree from decades gone by, and the new kid on the block — digitized illumination. Long-suffering residents add their own enterprise creation, with a very chill Santa left in charge.
Our geotrail takes us alongside the mill, to a tiny spot often known simply as GR. In May of 2000, as the GPS satellite world was unjammed, Dave Ulmer placed his first five-gallon-bucket stash of canned beans and a slingshot, and proudly marketed the coordinates of his brilliant tap into GPS navigation. Buckets sprang up around the world, in a global scavenger hunt which rewarded the finder with a gift exchange. Eventually, the geocaching world took over. Hide sizes shrank to include micro and even nano, exponentially increasing the difficulty of the find.
Exuberant geocachers defined themselves with a potpourri of cache handles. The next 22 years have been spent in the fellowship of others who have conquered each cache, meanwhile admiring and web-logging the cleverness of the Cache Owner. Gift exchanged.
We ratify our reward, as the Little Miami chatters below. First breaths of winter lift spirits and encircle hearts. Mindful and inspired exploitation of technology awards us another point in our quest to outsmart the digital age.
On our way out, brighter than 3.5 million lights, muggles twinkle with hope and joy, in an old Birth and a new year. At the heart of the universe, all is well.
OH Love Of Geocaching 