Bank Barn Remnants

Placed by Cache Owner MVG in 2016, this treasure hunt tantalizes with something resembling a remnanting bank or barn.

With a nudge of our trusty Honda west and south, we leave city lights behind. Barns spring upward from fields, where black, brushed cowhide matches methodical manicure of any suburban lawn. The farmer hunches and watches, keeping his thoughts about cow-starved city drivers well under wraps. With rotational grazing, cover crops, and no-till cultivation, small stock raisers are revitalizing soil into a living organism.

The geotrail unfolds at John Bryan, where sun dapples and forest critters scuttle. Following along in the careful foot-crafting of past cachers, next-to-finders avoid random ruckusing through underbrush, preserving tiny homes of wood-dwellers.

We don’t miss the Bank Barn. It once towered tall enough to be approached on two levels, the upper side embedded in the bank, and the lower side on the ground, perhaps at river level. Stagecoaches on the Cincinnati-Pittsburgh route stopped for water, and, if sensible, switched to fresh horses before making the climb back out of the gorge.

Now the trees lean, dance, and carouse, on walls raised by the placing of infinite large stones. Time and air hold the nicker of tired horses, groan of passengers stretching cramped limbs, and twitter of news vocalized, not digitized. Blood passed to descendants from these stones carries imprint of granite strength.

And then the UPS, or in this case a UPB, because, while it is definitely Unnatural, it is technically not a Pile of Sticks, it is a Pile of Bark. Technicalities matter, as any cacher who feels irked by untechnical coordinates will gladly share.

Guardian of the Cache, we salute you. We leave a piece of ourselves entrusted to your rockstar galaxy.

The moon has crept into our sky. Our place, as all places, calls back the ones it owns. We trace our footprints home.

Where barn-builders still must build, stones and farmyard red are replaced with a glittering glow.