Geocaching in Illinois

A couple of weeks ago, I took the scooter in for its first service. While I was waiting, I went to look for a few geocaches in Illinois nearby. The photos in this blog entry were all taken with the camera in my cell phone so they are not very high resolution. About 0.2 miles south of the bike shop that servicing the scooter is a confluence observation tower. This tower is about a half of a mile from the Illinois side of the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. There is supposed to be a great view from the top. The cost is $4 to go up the tower. There is an elevator that you get to ride.

The bike shop is to the left of the tower in the photo above. There are supposed to three geocaches very close to this tower. I could not find the one that is supposed to be between the tower and the bike shop. There is one close to where I took the photo, but it is on a structure that was surrounded by mud and water about knee deep. I chose to save this for a dryer time. There has been a lot of rain and flooding in the last few weeks. There are more examples of that to come. The next geocache I came to was supposed to be about 10 feet into the woods, but the poison ivy was so thick I decided that January would be a better time for that one.

I next went north to the Melvin Price lock and dam. There were a few geocaches there. I found 2 of the 3 that were close by that I looked for. The one I did not find was called “Headwaters” The clue was “Warning, You might get wet”. This is where it is supposed to be.
At first I thought that they did not really expect people to go into the falls and get wet finding the cache, but then I saw the sign.
I thought this one would be better another time when I was dressed for getting wet.

There is supposed to be a geocache within about 30 feet of John’s eagle project but I could not find that one either.

There was also supposed to be another one less than a mile from John’s eagle project near Ellis Island. There was no statue visible on this Ellis Island. I only saw birds. I also did not find the geocache. On my way back I saw some interesting views of the flooding. I wonder if the water is affecting the transformer in this photo. It looks like this land/marsh/lake is for sale. If the water drops just a little more, the phone number will be fully visible for those interested.

I ended up finding 4 of the 10 geocaches I looked for. I got to walk several miles, getting some good exercise and I got to see some very interesting sights. Next time I go to these places, I should take some help to spot the hard to find caches.