Huck Fin woz ere Traditional Geocache

This cache has been archived.

Khoda: Time to go
Removed cache

More
Hidden : 4/22/2009
Difficulty:
3.5 out of 5
Terrain:
2.5 out of 5

Size: Size: micro (micro)

Join now to view geocache location details. It's free!

Watch

How Geocaching Works
Looking for a different adventure?

Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions in our disclaimer.

Geocache Description:

No need to go into or over the river!!!

It's funny how certain places can dig up feelings, thoughts, and emotions from your childhood. This place did for me.

The adventures of Tom Sawyer and of Huckleberry Finn, ranked I would say in the top ten favorite books of my childhood. So vivid were the descriptions of adventure that I remember myself imagining building a raft to float down the nearby creeks and rivers where I lived. These creeks and rivers were lazy, and to a child it was easy to imagine paddling across one of these rivers or creeks to an island, like Huck Finn did in his book. Well, King's Island, as this location is called, is the idyllic island of my childhood Mark Twain fantasies. It has woods that are deep enough, but also open enough where you could run around and play pretend battle with friends. This is a place where Huck Finn would have been in his element. The river is right there, close enough where I could have, if I had the inkling, taken off my boots, and dangled my feet in the water. One only needs to imagine the raft pulled up on the bank, and you have the exact setting that played in my head as I read Mark Twain.

Except, when you look at the river. Mark Twain either:
  1. never saw the river that he wrote about,
  2. never ventured into the water either by swimming or by riding on a raft, or
  3. was writing about a superhero child.


That is because the Huck Finn of my childhood illusion paddled a long way to get to that island, but NEVER across a fast moving expanse like the one here. I have seen the river in Missouri, where Huck Finn is set, and it is by far, much stronger than what it is like here in Minnesota. At Upper St. Anthony's Falls, the northernmost Lock and Dam, the average flow rate is 12,000 cubic ft/second! When you stand on the banks here at this location, I cannot imagine being a child pushing out from the banks on a makeshift raft, and attempting to paddle to the other side. I don't think that as an adult I would successfully make it across. I would end up as flotsam on the lower side of Coon Rapids Dam. Seeing the river up close truly shattered my fantasy from that book. I feel that I need to dig the book out again, to reread with this new reality set into my mind.

The cache should be a fun hide, and when I set the cache, I thought, it would be the most obvious place to look, and thus not too difficult. As it turns out though, this hide has stumped a few. What you will also find tough, is resisting the urge to bring a tent, deckchair, and make a camp fire, while you read a little Mark Twain. Unfortunately, the island in other places shows signs that others have felt the same way (albeit less Mark Twain, and more Bud Light if you catch my drift).

Please be careful removing and replacing the cache, it may take a little technique.

Remember, no need to go into or over the river!!!

Additional Hints (No hints available.)



Advertising with Us

Inventory

There are no Trackables in this cache.

View past Trackables

What are Trackable Items?

Bookmark Lists

View all bookmark lists...