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I wanted to tell you about a cache I hid last year (GC10615). When we hid it, the park was very overgrown and neglected. It's a very, very small park, but it has historic importance. The area was hit hard by Hurricane Ivan, and many of the residents had to move away. The park was in such disorder that one of the two cannons was completely covered by brush. Since the cache was hidden on the second cannon, our clue was "Have you seen both cannons?" because it was very easy to miss the second one. There was trash all over the tiny area, and even though we tried some CITO, the heavy trash kept reappearing. While the park is a national historic site, very few people knew about it, and certainly hardly any tourists ever went there. I would guess the 32 logged visits over the past year was more tourism than the past 5-10 years combined.

I was very pleasantly surprised when I returned to the park recently and saw that the brush has all been cut back. The cannons are now clearly visible, the trash is not as bad (though there still remain some bottles and things), and the area was even decorated for the holidays. At first it seemed unrelated. A few days later I was speaking to a clerk inside of a store about what geocaching is when she said, "Oh! We have one of those hidden in Boddentown at the cannons!" I was shocked she knew about it. When I asked her how she knew, she said word of mouth from the people in the area. It seems that the increased tourism at the park had gotten the residents curious. They had spoken to some of the cachers, and the word had spread. Now the park is being maintained and seems to be a source of local pride.

Anyway, I just wanted to share that since it was so nice to see and hear about it. I changed the hint on the hide since the cannons are both now visible, and added a little note. It's great to see what a positive effect geocaching can have on an area!

Xiao_tuzi

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Erik,

Thanks for the heads up on the garbage situation at one of my geocaches on lake Allatoona that you visited last weekend. I went by this afternoon and removed the trash along with another bagfull throughout the park. Turns out that someone had been illegaly camping in that area and left the trash along with an old tent and sleeping gear. While I was there, I ran into a couple of the park caretakers who were busy setting up fish habitats at the lake. They were happy to learn about geocaching and were very impressed to learn how I was notified of the trash problem. They are pleased to know that the geocaching community helps watch out for and take care of this park, along with other places throughout the state. I feel that we have made another very positive relationship between geocachers and the community. One of the caretakers could not wait to get home and learn more about our sport, looks like we may have another cacher soon in this area. I also ran into some folks from Zoo Atlanta that were there collecting driftwood for the Zoo's reptile habitats, very cool talking to them!
It was a great day for me, I just thought you would appreciate this story. I am so pleased how geocaching has had such a great impact on my life, and my community.

Many thanks Erik, and as always, thanks for all you do for geocaching!

Nuggs-n-Huggs