The time for me to find my 1000th cache was fast approaching and I needed to formulate a plan. My brother, Mark, aka Devylboi, was going to be visiting my sister, Carrie, aka gvnagei, in Mikado, MI for the weekend. I had to work 4:00 pm until midnight on Saturday and Sunday, so I would not be able to reach this milestone with my siblings. It was definitely going to happen this weekend, though.

I had been holding off from finding any caches for the previous week and was hanging out at 998 finds. I had plans for too many caching trips in the near future. A lot of new caches were being placed close to home and I was chomping at the bit to seek them out. Yes, I would definitely reach the milestone this particular weekend.

My girlfriend, Sherry, aka Boaterchik, was coming down for the weekend, so I wanted to find it while she was there.

I had to come up with two caches. Saturday was going to be unseasonably warm for an April 3rd day in Michigan; about 60 degrees (we actually received a few more snow showers in April and early May, if you can believe that).

After sorting thru the abundance of new caches in the area, I decided that the most unique cache of the bunch was dinoprophet's new N 42...Something Something Something cache. It was a multi-stage cache that used pictures of his GPS tracklog in each stage in order to find the next stage. The method sounded intriguing. That would be my 1000th cache.

There are more "No Find" entries for this cache than there are "Found It" entries, which had me worried. I am not very good at spotting tiny micro-caches. But, what would be my 999th? One cache had been on my mind since TEAM 360 placed it way back in December. He'd come all the way from Arizona to visit relatives and wanted to meet some Michigan cachers, so I organized the Cabela's Confluence geocaching event on December 28th (it was just a get-together type event; I didn't actually do much organizing).

While he was in Michigan, he found several geocaches and placed a few micro-caches for his friends and relatives to watch over. One of them, NORTHERN EDGE OF INSANITY had been receiving raves. It is located on a vacant lot across the street from an abandoned insane asylum in Northville, MI. There are more "No Find" entries for this cache than there are "Found It" entries, which had me worried. I am not very good at spotting tiny micro-caches. I needed a backup plan, and chose a nearby cache to be my 999th find, should I bomb on the Insanity cache.

Now that I had a caching plan for Saturday, April 3rd, I had to wait. It was only Wednesday. I spent the next few evenings in the MiGO (Michigan Geocaching Organization) chatroom. Consequently, there were about a dozen cachers who knew of my upcoming milestone.

I also constantly checked on geocaching.com to ensure that my planned caches would still be there when I searched for them on Saturday. I hate it when I plan a cache day a week in advance, only to find that some of my planned caches have moved, been disabled, or have disappeared. The cache pages can change day by day and I continually tell myself that I should check the cache pages just before I leave on the caching trips.

Since this was my 1000th (and 999th) cache find, I wanted it to go smoothly.

While in the chatroom Thursday night, I was happy to engage in a chat with dinoprophet. I let him know of my plans; that his cache would be my 1000th find. I couldn't wait to get out there and enjoy the hunt. He wished me luck. I also chatted with another caching team, olepaint & co. They had already found "NORTHERN EDGE OF INSANITY" and were going to be caching in the area Saturday morning. We made plans to meet them at the cache site. I still had the backup 999th cache in my mind, just in case. I didn't want to ask olepaint for hints. We had met several times before, and I was looking forward to meeting up with some fellow cachers.

I knew it was unique, but how would it work? All of my questions... and more... would soon be answered. Friday was a day like any other day. I worked my regular 4:00 pm to midnight shift and returned home to Boaterchik. On Friday, she makes the 1.5 hour drive from where she works in Saginaw to my place, but only on weekends that I work.

After a few hours of sleep, I was ready for some caching. Thoughts were going thru my mind. Would I be able to find "NORTHERN EDGE OF INSANITY"? Was "N 42...Something Something Something" tougher than it looked? I knew it was unique, but how would it work? All of my questions...and more...would soon be answered.

Boaterchik and I left my apartment fairly early in the morning. I was wearing my work uniform, as usual. I didn't expect to make it home between caching and work. We met olepaint at the "Northern Edge" only a few minutes late. It was about 9:10 am, and was cloudy and cool, but pleasant outside. I know olepaint was laughing at us as we searched all over for the micro cache.

After about 20 minutes of searching, another cacher arrived. I had met Superdad a long time ago, but hadn't seen anything but online log entries from him since. This time, I got to meet Supermom and Supergirl, too. They started in on the search with us.

Fifteen minutes later, I was fiddling around and the cache appeared in front of me. Boaterchik was standing right next to me. I was so surprised that my jaw dropped and my gaze fixed. It was only for a few seconds, but seemed a lot longer. I was totally stunned. I looked up at Boaterchik. I then realized that the Super-family was with us, and had not looked our way. Alas...just as I rehid the cache, Supermom spotted me in the area of the micro. Superdad located it a minute or two later. If I hadn't been stunned into stupidity, I might have re-hidden it fast enough to escape Supermom's attention.

We all logged the find together as olepaint & co. looked on. "Not too bad," they said. "It took us about 30 minutes to find it." The Super-family sped off to a meeting and left Boaterchik and I chatting with olepaint & co. We finally parted company as they headed off to seek out their day's worth of planned caches, and Boaterchik and I headed off to find my 1000th cache.

"N42" is in a park at Ford Field. Parking was plentiful and it was obvious where the first stage of the cache was. After we found it and retrieved the picture of the face of dinoprophet's GPS, complete with tracklog, north, and Determining north was the hardest part. I still am not sure which end of the needle on my $200 pocket transit (fancy compass) is north. scale, we tried to duplicate it. Determining north was the hardest part. I still am not sure which end of the needle on my $200 pocket transit (fancy compass) is north. My eMap does not show north the same way as dinoprophet's eTrex.

After we walked down the street towards another section of park, I exclaimed, "I don't think this is north". This mirrored Boaterchik's earlier impression of which way was north. Then, we found out that dinoprophet's GPS was not set to "north always facing up". So, that is what that arrow means...aha. Now we had it.

After that, it was easy to go to the successive stages and, ultimately, to the final cache. We had a lot of fun trying to figure out what the little jogs on the tracklog corresponded to. There were ducks swimming in the river and the pond. The stages were hidden nicely, but not terribly hard. It was a well thought out cache. In all of my 1000 finds, I have never seen anything like it.

When Boaterchik and I finally found the small ammo box in a gorgeous location, I opened it up to find an envelope addressed to me. Inside was a hand-burnt, wooden "VM 1000th" finder's plaque, complete with my MiGO avatar. Dinoprophet does wood burning, and must have done it Thursday night after we chatted online. He later confessed that he had done just that, and that he placed it in the cache Friday morning.

Boaterchik manned the camera and took several pictures of me at the cache site. Afterwards, she told me that she'd talked to my sister, brother, and mom, and they'd told her about dancing at caches. I think they twisted the first finder's dance into something called the 1000th finder's dance. Boaterchik wanted pictures of the dance. I stood on the bluffs overlooking that muddy little river and danced a little jig as she snapped a few pictures. What can I say? We were having fun...and that is what geocaching is all about.