Cache Across America

Log entries

State	Date
California	2024-11-16
New Jersey	2024-12-26
Delaware	2025-05-18
Maryland	2025-05-19
Virginia	2025-05-20
West Virginia	2025-05-22
Indiana	2025-07-23
Michigan	2025-07-23
Ohio	2025-07-24
Florida	2025-11-24
Georgia	2025-11-27
Alabama	2025-11-29
Utah	2025-12-22
Nevada	2025-12-23

My journey

2015

I happened to find the original California CAA cache in my first week of caching. It was located very close to my work at the time. I had no idea what CAA was. My log was simply “TFTC”. Such a neophyte.

2024

I first heard about the CAA series from this Reddit thread, which listed the series final as a must-do cache in DC. I already had a goal of finding a cache in every state, but this added an irresistible layer of difficulty, and a sense of organized curation, to it. I knew I had to get my name in the hall of fame.

The replacement California cache was fortunately in the Bay Area. I made the short drive and found the cache in a beautiful park with spectacular views of the coast. A great way to start the series. I did a long loop with a brutal uphill climb on the way back. Near the parking lot, there was a medical emergency on the trail, and I actually saw a very rugged ambulance drive on the trail to transport the victim away.

California

For Christmas, my family visited my sister in New York City. I knew I wouldn’t have much time to make a long trip, and I didn’t have a car of my own, so I made only one CAA attempt: New Jersey, which is actually the closest CAA cache to NYC. I made the 2.5 hour (one-way) drive in the dark, but other than some self-induced GPS problems, I had no issues finding the cache—even though the only light I had during the search was my phone’s flashlight.

New Jersey

2025

Early this year, I decided to attend GeoWoodstock XXI. As I do whenever I travel, I looked at what CAA caches were near; WV, VA, and MD were obvious choices. I booked my flight and began counting the days. About a week later, I realized that getting these states would isolate Delaware. So I moved my flight up a day and added the beach to my itinerary. Another while later, I kept thinking about GC17MX1. It is a 33 stage multi in Central Park, Manhattan, that I started in 2019. I came very close to finishing it on the aforementioned trip to NYC for Christmas, but I had some numbers wrong and ran out of time to try to fix it. I didn’t know when I would be back in NYC, so I went all out and moved my departure another day earlier.

Well, the start of this trip was a comedy of errors. My Friday flight got cancelled. My rebooked flight the next day was delayed. Despite Google Maps’s insistence, it is impossible to drive to the EWR Amtrak station, so I had to drive to a different train station to catch my train. That train got delayed 40 minutes due to a disabled train on the tracks. On the drive to Delaware, Google Maps had me avoid traffic by taking a side street, only to find that the ramp back onto the highway was closed so I had to backtrack back to the highway, then sit in that traffic. Nevertheless, after a three-and-a-half hour train ride and a three hour drive, I found myself on Bethany Beach within easy walking distance of the New Jersey cache.

Or so I thought. Google Maps once again routed me to the wrong place, this time a private development. I looked for the parking waypoint that the cache description mentioned, but it was not the be found. I finally used the parking waypoint for GC5A05G and walked the 2.5 miles round trip to sign the log.

Delaware

The next day took me through Maryland into West Virginia. The Maryland cache was thankfully uneventful. I was worried it would be difficult to find in the woods without a hint, but my GPSr was surprisingly reliable.

Maryland

After a drive through Shenandoah National Park, I continued on to Richmond for the Virginia cache. This was the most disappointing CAA cache I had encountered up to this point, because this location had so much potential to be great, but was unfortunately ruined by the local residents. The natural beauty of the island and river were marred by ubiquitous graffiti. The sound of the rushing water was drowned out by amplified music. To top it off, the south parking waypoint has been turned into resident-only parking, so I needed to search for a place to park. I was sad that I felt I should leave quickly instead of staying to enjoy the unique location.

Virginia

All told, I drove 650 miles in two days to get MD, VA, one national park, and to set myself up for another national park the next day. After a few stops at New River Gorge NP, I continued on to Morgantown. I arrived too late to go to Cooper’s Rock State Forest. The next day was very rainy, making me regret not arriving early enough yesterday to make an attempt. I began the day by attending the pre-GeoWoodstock event in the same park. I ran into problems as soon as I started the hike. First, I took the wrong trail. I ended up on the McCollum trail, which isn’t even on Google Maps. After I crossed the power lines, I checked the map, and realized I was way off. I followed a faint trail back towards the Raven Rock trail, but it soon ended. I cut through about 300 yards of off-trail wilderness to get back to Raven Rock. From then, I encountered muddy ground and running water on the trail at times. Then it started to really pour. The rain soaked through my shoes, hat, pants, and even my old raincoat. This all made the hike seem much longer than it was. However I found the container easily, took in the views from the nearby vantage point, and began the trek back to my car. The hike back never seems as long as the hike out.

West Virginia

Four CAA caches in five days–the year is off to a great start. Can it get even better though?

Two months after returning from GeoWoodstock, I made plans to visit Indianapolis to attend the Post. music festival and see a band I had been trying to see perform live for ten years. After lots of route finding, I figured the best path was to fly into Chicago, visit Indiana Dunes NP, pick up the Indiana and Michigan CAA caches, and then stay with a relative in Ohio. And that’s pretty much how the first day worked out. Indiana was a fun hide that stumped me for several minutes.

Indiana

Michigan was a little bit more of an adventure, since I chose to walk along the road to get from the parking waypoint to GZ. I had to hop a wire fence to get to the container. Then, staying on that side, I had to hop another wire fence to get back to my car. It was a very pretty sunset though.

Michigan

I had initially planned to get Ohio and Kentucky the next day. However, I needed to catch up on sleep (my flight the previous day was very early) and dipping into Kentucky would have added 2.5 hours to the trip. I wanted to spend that time with relatives, and being on the road an extra 2.5 hours would put me in Indianapolis dangerously close to the start of the festival. I chose to skip Kentucky and drive straight to Indy after signing the Ohio log. I can neither confirm nor deny that my choice of shirt, celebrating four consecutive victories by the University of Michigan Wolverines football team over a university in the state of Ohio, was intentional.

Ohio

Three states, two days, 650 miles (again). Would have been nicer to get four, but I’m still happy.

Later in the year, my wife’s family wanted to have a reunion in Atlanta. Our kids and our nephew had the entire week of Thanksgiving off from school, so they decided to schedule the reunion for that week. We spent three days in Orlando before driving up to Atlanta. I managed to get some time away on our first day in Florida to drive up to Lake Norris while everyone else was recovering and adjusting to the time difference. Florida is a multi, and stage 1 actually gave me quite a bit of trouble, because I didn’t know what I was looking for. It didn’t help that the coords pointed to a different object. I finally found it using the hint, but I read the wrong number of digits. This led me to a plausible but unlikely place. After a cursory investigation, I determined I was in the wrong place and headed back into the Lake Norris conservation area. I was able to drive to stage 2, which I was grateful for, since it was a little humid. Stage 2 was a quick find, and 3 the quickest because of the hint. The GPSr was a little jumpy at the final, but I used a previous log photo to narrow my search. This was the hardest I’ve worked for a CAA cache so far, but I enjoyed the experience.

Florida

We split up the drive from Orlando to Atlanta over two days. On the second day, we made the detour to pick up Georgia. It was a lot like Maryland (except I was able to park much closer): in the woods, no hint, but still a quick find.

Georgia

Two days after Thanksgiving, I set out at 6:00 a.m. I was surprised to encounter Atlanta traffic at 6:15 on a Saturday morning, but if anything has surprised me about this trip, it’s been the traffic. The thing that has surprised me the second most is the weather. I expected Florida to be hot and humid, but I did not expect Atlanta, just a few hours north, to be so cold, and Alabama to be below freezing. I arrived at Cheaha State Park before it opened, but the gate was open and I drove through. (I did the honorable thing of paying on my way out). The gate to Bald Rock was closed, despite the sign saying it would be open at sunrise. I walked past and made my way along the long wooden walkway. Once I got to the end, I began my search. I don’t know what is the intended route to the final, but the path I took earned all of its 2.5 terrain stars, if not more. Once I got relatively close, there was a tree that stood out, and sure enough that was the one which housed the cache. I signed my name and began the trek back. This time I found what is likely the intended path (funny how that always happens. I think it’s because when going to GZ, the only measure of progress is distance away and one is reluctant to make any adjustment that deviates from the direct path. Once the cache is found, the goal now becomes a safe return to a known location).

Alabama

For Christmas, my wife and older son went to Korea, leaving me and my younger son without plans. My wife asked him, “Do you want to come to Korea with us?”
“No.”
I asked him, “Do you want to go to NYC with grandma and your aunt?”
“No.”
“Well, where do you want to go?”
“I want to go to Death Valley.”

My heart melted and a boys road trip was planned. We spent almost a week in Las Vegas and made the 2.5 hour drive to the Utah cache on our second day, before a brief visit to Zion National Park.

Utah

I had toyed with the idea of getting two CAA caches in the same day for the second time this year, but the early sunset made me realize this was a bad idea. The next afternoon we set out for a hike in Red Rock Canyon, a short drive from Vegas, on a surprisingly cloudy day. We even got rain on our drive back.

Nevada