For those of you who don’t know, we are obsessed with geocaching. After completing the Nevada Delorme Challenge we thought if would be cool to do the California Delorme Challenge. By default, if one completes the Delorme Challenge one also qualifies to complete the California Counties Challenge. Over the last year or so we have picked away at the quads and counties in California and not long ago we realized we were only 4 counties away from completing the County Challenge. We needed at least one cache in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, San Diego and Imperial Counties. A plan started taking shape.

It had been awhile since we had visited our daughter in Riverside so we decided to combine a visit with her and the completion of the Counties Challenge. The trip to Riverside took two very long days and in the end we were 4 caches richer, but...FINALLY...we were done. Well, not really because traveling all over California spending countless hours and dollars only allows you the right to receive the location of the final cache. As you can imagine, there were many adventures in our quest for the gold but those stories pale in comparison with this story.

When we plotted the coordinates for the final cache in Google Earth, it was in the middle of the San Jacinto River in Lake Elsinore California. Fortunately the river didn’t look like it had much water but when was the image taken? There was a road on the north edge of the river and a large building and parking lot on the south edge. The road would get us closest to the cache and it had three possible access points. The plan was to find a way onto the road and park as close to the cache as possible. The alternative would be to park at or near the building and hike over to the cache.

When we arrived we tried two of the possible access points to the road and struck out. While searching for the third way in we discovered that the building was a church and this was Sunday (Mother’s Day) and church was a very busy place. Fortunately the last possibility was a winner and we were able to drive within 94 feet of the cache.

For a river there wasn’t much water but what we didn’t expect was an impenetrable jungle and beyond that was a dark foreboding swamp. The cache was somewhere beyond the swamp but the vegetation was simply too dense to see more than 20 feet. GeoJeepette and I walked up and down the road looking for a geo-trail but found nothing but gnarly branches and six foot tall stinging nettles. We tried making our own trail but quickly found the way blocked and had to turn back.

We were determined to get this cache! After all we went through we weren’t walking away without the final prize so I told GeoJeepette to stay behind with our daughter and if I didn’t come back they would know where to send the rescue squad.

Before I could even take my first step into the jungle I had to stomp down dead branches and vines at my feet and break more branches overhead. I created a “doorway” into the jungle and what I saw reminded me of a movie I once saw when I was a kid. You may have seen it too, you know, the one where the young maiden is frantically struggling through a swamp when, out of nowhere, a slimy scaly three fingered reptilian humanoid hand reaches up out of the goo, grabs her leg and...she’s gone in a scream. Or maybe it was the movie where the mad scientist used a swamp very much like this one as a repository for his failed genetic experiments.

I know this cache is important to GeoJeepette and this is Mother’s Day and all, but jeees, do I really have to?!

It was the longest 94 feet of my life. Every careful footstep and handhold stirred up all manner of insects, reptiles, amphibians and mammals. At least I think that’s what I heard running up the trees or slithering through the water. I actually never saw them because the flies and insects flying around my face blocked the view. I eventually found an old rotten log that held my weight and I was able to cross over a particularly foul hole of stinking decaying organic goo. I was sure this was where the swamp thing was waiting for me but somehow I managed to reach the other side alive and intact. After a short euphoric walk through a small bog I came to a small spit of dry land. In 94 feet I managed to become covered in sweat, mud, flies, bugs and various chunks of plant material. But I was close! It had to be nearby, it just had to be! Please.....

My GPSr was worthless with the jungle canopy blocking out both the sun and satellites so I had to use my wits but how do you use your wits when you’re scared witless?

OH, PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER, MAN!!

So, I asked myself, “Where would I hide a cache?” The obvious answer was “NOT IN THIS GOD FORSAKEN SWAMP!!”, but that wasn’t a helpful response so I started to think. I would hang it in one of these trees so the flood waters wouldn’t wash it away. Good answer!! Unfortunately, it was the wrong answer. It wasn’t in the trees. Rats! The only other place was on the ground but there was so much debris that it could be buried anywhere. I wandered around on the little spit of land kicking at debris and poking my walking stick into scary dark grottoes and in only a few very long minutes I found it!

After taking all the trackable items and signing the log, I replaced the cache and followed my trail back to sunlight and GeoJeepette and our daughter. To everyone’s dismay I seemed to have brought all my insect buddies with me along with the mud and debris. GeoJeepette reached out to help me brush off some of the jungle but quickly retracted her hand realizing that most of it was still moving. I took off my hat, shook it off and used it to scare off most of the winged creatures except for the one that was already nesting behind my left ear.

Now I want you to pay particular attention to the last picture of GeoJeepette and myself. Understandably, she’s happy because this Challenge is finally over but look at my face. I’m happy too, honest. It’s just that my arms and legs are burning from the stinging nettles, I’ve got cuts and bruises and...I just know something has already laid eggs somewhere and all I can think about is hosing them off.