January February 2018

24 The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 41, No. 1 Geocaching By Robert J. Boyer PE, PLS M y F i r s t G e o c a c h i ng A d v e n t u r e S o I’m on my way to the Pioneer Chapter’s annual meeting at Camp 18 in October 2017, so I figure a visit to the PLSO’s geocache near the Willamette Stone should be in order and also kind of on my way. Years ago OSU’s professor Robert J. Shultz explained to me that apparently it is one of the smaller state parks and that it was built by BSA (Boy Scouts of America). He also went into quite a bit of detail about John Preston, Oregon’s first Surveyor General from the mid-1800’s who established this monument. As I’m parking in the space on the south side of NW Skyline Boulevard in the lot for visitors I notice just one other vehicle parked there. It turns out that the vehicle belongs to a profes- sional magician who was on holiday fromworking a lot of cruise ships and Casinos off and on the east coast of our nation. He had just been down the trail and was returning to his vehicle. The interesting thing about him was that he was carrying what appeared to be a rather large duffel bag, and within the bag was a quite exotic looking cat of a species I had never heard of be- fore from Egypt or Africa or somewhere. So interesting looking was this feline that I couldn’t resist photographing it, so above you can see the beast. I informed the magician of what I was up to and being the ad- venturous type he couldn’t resist the temptation of stowing his exotic cat in his car and hiking back down the trail with me to search for the beloved PLSO geocache amongst the brush, timber and vegetation which surrounds said key monument to most property descriptions in Oregon and Washington. I’m sure he is a great magician, however not powerful enough to convert the hailstorm we found ourselves in into some weath- er more amenable to doing this search. PLSO’s own Ryan Godsey had been kind enough to provide me with the geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) for the geocache. However, by virtue of the weather and overhead ob- structions I found myself stumbling around within a 50-foot radius of the monument. Apparently my “theodolite” GPS app on my iPhone 7+ was not as useful as I had hoped it would be. There was enough rain and hail coming down to cause my new found magician friend to suggest that I may not wish to ruin my smart phone over the matter. So after struggling another 7 min- utes and realizing that the magician had succeeded in making himself disappear, I too decided to bag it for the day, and go on without achieving the goal I had in mind of finding our geo- cache and replacing it’s container as necessary. It was certainly a memorable experience. I am determined to try again,only next time after enlisting the assistance of one or more fellow PLSO members.  x