The Original Stash and a Really Big Fork

This is a continuation of my entry from July 21st. It's more about geocaching, so if you're not interested, please feel free to move on. After getting the cache needed to the south of me, I hiked out and then headed up to visit the spot where Geocaching first started. Back in May 2000, President Bill Clinton signed an executive order which descrambled satellite GPS signals making handheld GPS units exceedingly more accurate. This also lead to navigation systems in the cars which are pretty ubiquitous. It also lead to the game we know as geocaching.

A man in Oregon, Dave Ulmer thought that if he hid a container in the woods and took a geographic reading, he could then publish the coordinates of that container on line and other people could go out and find it. He did and the next day someone else found his five gallon container using just his handheld GPS unit. Originally, the containers were called "stashes," but eventually it evolved into the game of Geocaching we know today.

The original stash is long gone, but parts of it still survive and are brought around to different large events all around the world. There is now a plaque placed where the original stash was placed and you can visit it if you know the coordinates. Needless to say, this is one of the places geocachers want to visit and I was no exception. I stopped at the turnout, geeked out for awhile, found the other geocache that was nearby, took photos and then went on my way back to my motel.

Later that evening, I went to a nearby area to find another virtual geocache and discovered a great spot to eat dinner. What's not to like about good taco trucks? Anyway, this was the perfect location for a giant fork.  No really, it's probably one of the largest forks I've ever seen in my life, but it was a great way to bring people into the food court area. I can honestly say I've had better, but then again, I can also say that I enjoyed myself here, so it was good.

After getting back to my motel room, I planned out the next day's adventure. Part of it would be a foray into the state of Washington to get a couple of caches for a challenge that I wanted to complete. But that would be the second goal of the day because the primary goal was to find the third oldest geocache still active in Oregon which would complete another challenge that I'd been working on for several years.