TFTC
What a Grandfather Can’t Tell You About the World’s Largest Treasure Hunt
I was going to tell you about my summer Geocaching adventure.
But when I shared my plan with a Geocacher who may or may not be male and may or may not be related to me, they were shocked.
“You can’t write about that!” they said, pausing in mid-bite of a pizza to make sure I knew they weren’t kidding.
“Why not?” I asked.
Their blue eyes widened in panic. From a few halting phrases, I gathered that, to them, Geocaching is like Fight Club. The first rule and second rules of Fight Club, you may remember, are that you do not talk about Fight Club.
Because I care and respect this Geocacher, I said I was willing to stop work on the piece, no questions asked. But first, I read from a draft on my iPhone.
“That’s pretty good,” they admitted with a smile. “But you still can’t write about it.”
“Okay,” I replied. “But what if I follow your rules?” I promised I would submit my final draft to them for approval before clicking on “Publish.” If you are not reading this, you will know they said no.
The Not-So-Secret History of Geocaching
By Googling “Geocache” you will learn that the game started in 2000 and that there are now more than 3 million active Geocaches hidden in 191 countries on all seven continents, including Antarctica.
When you find a Geocache, you write your username— mine is lenedgerly — on a tiny scroll of paper rolled up in the cache. You can also record a digital log on your smartphone. That’s where you will often see “TFTC,” which stands for “Thanks For The Cache.”
The first Geocache was hidden near Beaverton, Oregon. One was placed on June 17th of this year near us here on the coast of Maine. It has been visited by 45 people so far. Log comments include “Beautiful spot for a cache!”, “Heck ya,” and, “We were out in the jeep for a ride today and stopped here as we were headed to the clam bake for supper. TFTC.”
That last comment was posted by jimandjoanne, who list 7,675 finds and 112 hides. This is a Geocaching power couple! On a single day in 2015 they found 128 caches. You can scroll 10 screens of information about their Geocaching, including the number of finds at different elevations.
Jim and Joanne have hidden caches named “Picnic on a Rock,” “Blue Lobster,” and “A Hook, A Line, and A Stinker.”
Meanwhile, at an Undisclosed Location on The Eastern Trail
“We’re within three feet of it,” Geocacher tells us. My wife Darlene and I have climbed a little hill at the side of the Eastern Trail between Biddeford and Kennebunk to join them.
We find a rusted barbed wire snaking through the trees. I spot a white ceramic object — it might be an electrical gizmo, maybe to keep cows on a farm? Who cares? It is definitely not the cache Jim and Joanne placed in the woods with the hint, “Blue glass and wire.”
On their own, Geocacher would probably keep looking, but they worry that Darlene and I are bored. We assure them we’re okay. We step carefully down the hill to wait by the bike path. They keep looking for another 10 minutes.
“I found it!” they shout.
We scramble up the slope. They are unscrewing a metal container hidden inside a hole that Jim and Joanne had drilled in a granite rock — sure enough, there is a scroll inside. The cache was attached to a wire and the rock, so the clue was precise, if baffling until you found it.
Geocacher writes their username on the scroll and places the container back in the rock.
From there, we continue on the trail, stopping when the coordinates of another cache show up on the iPhone app. Geocacher lopes through the woods and begins hunting until they find it. Casually relentless, they immediately begin searching for the next cache. Darlene, who is younger and more mobile than I am, joins them while most of the time I wait by the bikes.
I would normally check my iPhone 12 Pro Max while waiting, but Geocacher’s older iPhone was getting a poor signal, and they asked if they could borrow mine. I sometimes try to say Yes to every question asked of me during a day, and in that mode I said “Sure, but remember it’s my most prized possession.”
“Really?” they said with genuine surprise.
“Yeah, you’re right. Of course Darlene is more prized.”
“A possession, huh?” she said with a side-eye.
Sometimes I amaze myself with how wrong my words can come out. We move on.
Geocacher rides their bike hands free, checking my iPhone for latitude and longitude. I am glad I added AppleCare when I bought it. I follow my breath down the trail, practicing mindfulness. It’s a sunny, hot day in Maine. I am getting very hungry.
Confabulation in Arundel
My original plan had been to get started early enough to reach Cummings Market in Kennebunk in time for lunch at noon. By 1:15 we still had more than a mile to go. I missed my iPhone. I felt my inner landscape swell — a wave of crankiness was gathering.
As Darlene and Geocacher poked around at yet another cache site, I told them I was riding ahead for a rest stop in Arundel. On a bench by the trail, I set my Apple Watch timer to 10 minutes and sat with my breath. A plan emerged from the silence: what we needed was a chance to check in and move on in sync.
Geocacher arrived eager to find the next cache. Darlene arrived soon afterward.
“We need to do a check-in,” I announced.
Geocacher looked alarmed. “Is anything wrong?”
“No,” I said, “but it might be good for each of us to say how we’re doing and what we want. I’ll start. I’m hungry. I would like to bike directly to Cummings Market, so we can have lunch. Darlene?”
“I’m worried that if you two head off on a mad dash to the market I’ll be left in the dust.”
Geocacher are good listeners, and they immediately got what we were doing. They said softly, with endearing hesitation: “I’d really like to find this next cache.”
With the air cleared, we found the cache in a few minutes, 10 feet from my meditation bench. It was another Jim-and-Joanne masterpiece. Their cache masqueraded as a bolt in a hole they had drilled in the trail shelter displaying a map of Arundel.
As we mounted our bikes, Geocacher reached over to me and handed back my iPhone 12 Pro Max.
At the market, we ordered three Reuben sandwiches for takeout, plus lots of water. We were sweating and did not want to get dehydrated. Sitting on the lawn by the store with my lunch and my iPhone, I was glad I hadn’t melted like cheese back there on the trail.
After lunch, there were more caches to find on the seven-mile ride back. As Geocacher left the trail to head down a road to find one “just a little further,” I knew I’d had enough for the day. I asked Darlene if she could stay with them while I rode to the Southern Maine Medical parking lot where we had parked the Tesla.
Shortly after I’d strapped my bike onto the rack, they arrived after a long sprint. We drove home to Old Orchard Beach glowing with shared satisfaction at finding 20 caches in one day.
Epilogue
It is now September. My grandson James, 15, is back in school in Massachusetts. I emailed him the final draft, and he texted back his approval to publish it on Medium:
I love it! You’re such a great writer and I’m so happy that we had that adventure together.
It turns out there are treasures everywhere, if you know how to find them.
