Who Are These People?

This morning my husband, Brad, woke me up by asking, "Do you want to get up, get ready, and go geocaching?"  My reply was to dash out of bed and into the shower. 

We were trying to decide where we should go that would only take about half of our day.  Brad works for an ambulance company so he was looking forward to getting a little more familiar with some of the smaller towns outside of Bangor.  After pulling up the maps on the geocaching website we decided to head toward Dixmont.
  

After turning onto Moosehead Trail, an old green building came quickly into view on the right.  We pulled over across the road at a small turn off.  At the turn off, you can see a small "fountain" with a dedication plaque to Benjamin Bussey.  Mr. Bussey has an interesting history.  He was originally a merchant from Boston who made a nice fortune trading to England.  He acquired vast amounts of land between Boston and Bangor which he used for farming and agriculture.  His interests in these areas led Harvard to create the Bussey Institution which focused on agriculture and horticulture.  The Arnold Arboretum has a nice article for further information.

Brad and I tracked around in the bushes for a few minutes, even walking through what Brad thought might have been poison ivy.  Knowing that this geocache was a micro, meaning it was about the size of a film canister, I had a feeling we were a bit off.  After stopping to think about where a cache would likely be hidden, we quickly located its whereabouts and signed the log. 





Down the road a piece is a narrow dirt road not suitable for a Kia to be driving on.  Brad parked the car near the end of the road and I followed my compass to a small intersection of two dirt roads.  The path on the right was marked with a sign and happened to be the direction in which my compass was pointing.  I followed the path and my needle down the path and into the bushes.  I was so focused on my compass that when I looked up, I was startled to see a single gravestone sitting in the middle of the overgrown trees and grass.  I couldn't make out the name but the description of the geocache says it belongs to Thomas Luce.  Without being disrespectful, I walked around his grave and found the geocache.  It was a bit eerie doing so with "company" watching me. 

 

Thomas Luce

I think on our trips through Dixmont and Brooks we saw more cows and horses than we did people and homes.  One horse actually watched quite attentively as I looked for and signed the log for a guard rail cache.  One of the best things about geocaching is that you never know who or what you'll run into while on a hunt.