Today was special. It being Saturday, we traveled out of town for our geocachng adventure. We are in Austin PA. A small town about an hour away from Kane. I have been wanting to come here for a while to see the ruins. Austin was home to a pretty big disaster a hundred years ago. It seems their Dam busted. The resulting floods killed around 75 people, and wiped out the towns paper producing industry. The ruins of the recked dam are still here, and are now part of the Austin Memorial State park. Our cache is also in this park.
Niki, Takoda, Novalee, and DNJC (aka Hawk Eye, aka David) and I arrived at Austin Memorial State Park. We did not drive to the lot at the base of the dam. We could have, but decided not to. We parked in the uper lot near a view. The park road is not wide. Only one vehicle can drive in either direction. The park seemed to have fallen to disrepair. Every thing was over grown and wild looking. I liked it. We piled out of our van got snacks and looked down into the valley. Then over at the ruined dam. Wow is my first reaction. Then again wow. A broken wall. Concrete fingers stabbing up in the sky. Re barb, rusty fingers sticking out of giant broken concrete walls. What is left of the dam is big. I am eager to begin my way down into the valley. There is a trail leading down along the dam wall and then through it, and around it. The feeling that I am witnessing the fall of man invades my thoughts once again. Seems as though everywhere I look there are dieing main streets, and abandoned factory building. Ruined dreams. Ruined infrastructure that was once a promise to so many. Sigh as I ponder this, Takoda has run up ahead dogging DNJCs tracks. Even Niki and Novalee is up ahead. I take pictures of both of em. Them being in these pictures helps me to gain insight, perspective, as you will as to the mass involved. These ruins are testament to the fallibility of man, and a great reminder that even though we often feel the gentle hands of mother nature. She is still a woman and occasionally she just has to bitch slap us to remind us that she can. We wonder about these ruins. I often stand in awe as I marvel a them. I am not sure how long it is that we meander through the shadows of this once great dam, but eventually we decide to look for the cache.
The cache is .5 miles away. Though we could drive to get closer to it we decide that it will make a fine walk. We begin. The dam slowly recedes. More pictures are taken. DNJC, Takoda, and I are in the lead. Takoda is trying to get DNJC to carry him. The boy is tireless with his arguments and his complaints that he is tired. His complaints do not match his actions, and he is very active. I tell him to try and not say anything if he has nothing pleasant to say. He tones down a bit. He is actually behaving quite well and I am enjoying him. I like watching him and even listening too him. I try to figure out how he thinks. I believe he is going to grow and develop into a very clever and smart man some day. He may have been saddled down with autism but he has been given so many gifts that I think maybe this was natures way to balance him out. I hope so any how. Niki and Novalee bring up the rear guard. Novalee does not complain. She just keeps going. Slow and steady. I stop in the middle often, so as they can catch up. The ruins of the dam has long since disappeared from sight. The distance to the cache is small but the going is slow. Must be the uneven grass covered ground that slows us down. Eventually the over grown grass and brush give way to a forested area and this too gives way and we come out onto the road we drove in on. The going is faster now, and the gps is counting down quickly. We are about a thousand feet away. "I love it when we start to get close and the gps is counting down feet." I announce to David. We wait for Niki Takoda and Novalee to catch up. It seems as though Takoda has given up on being carried and so now is hanging back with his mom. We begin walking again Niki is glad, she smiles and says, "I thought you heard me tell the kids that you guys would find the cache before we had a chance to help look for it. "I wouldn't do that, when we get wthin 13 feet we will stop and then we will all look for it together." She is happy with this and we continue on. The count down continues as we move forward. Now we are withing 500 feet of the cache. We have to take a path through the woods and it starts out pretty wet. Niki decides to hang back. She and the kids find a convenient picnic to take some rest. David and I come to the end of the path and the cache appears to be 300 feet away across a swift flowing river. Dave and I look at each other, and then the path on the other side of the river. Then we head back up to Niki and the kids. "Niki, the cache is on the other side of the river. Why don't you guys wait here I will walk up and get the van, then we can look on the other side." She looked startled, "No we are just resting." I thought a moment. "Well all right we will see if maybe we can get across." David dropped off some of his more expensive gear. He was getting ready to fjord the river. "It is going to be cold." I told him. "I know" He said. I believe he would have done it but, I kinda implied it was not such a good idea. Then, "Only if we had a rope." he said. "We do, I have one in my bag." He was surprised when we actually pulled the rope out of my bag. David attached a rock to the end of the roap. We found a tree that over hung the river. The new plan was too swing the rope over the tree branch. Wrap the stone around the tree and swing over to the other side Tarzan style. Unfortunately we got the stone stuck too low in the tree. I climbed the tree and affixed the rope to the tree where we had aimed the rope for earlier. David gave the rope a tug testing it. I'm sure we both came to the realization at the same time that it would not work but I voiced it. David agreed. I unfastened the rope and got out of the tree. Nope don't feel like being Tarzan today. We had a couple other ideas but ultimately decided that we could get to the other side of the river faster if we got the car and drove around. We took the road back up to the van. Niki was just buckling the kids in. We headed out. Drove over the bridge on the way out the park. Before the narrow park road met the main road we noticed the park road branched off running along the side of the river. We took the branch because it took us closer to the cache. This road led to a well groomed picnic area. We parked as close to the cache as we could. A .2 of a mile walk along a well marked path and we were at the cache. Nice and easy. It was a great day in a great setting.
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