Max at the spring
Photo courtesy of John Combs

Yet another geocaching story. Brett, my regular geocaching partner, Max and I traveled east of Columbus, Ohio to Buckeye Lake in search of some fresh geocaches. As we arrived at the designated pull-off we spotted a silver pick up truck with a woman bobbing up and down near its tail gate. Geocaching etiquette dictates we do not locate the geocache while a muggle (non geocacher) watches as they may remove it once we depart. We cooked up a plan for Max and I to distract this muggle while Brett quietly looked for it.

The woman was quite intrigued with Max and we wound up talking about dogs we owned through the years. I eventually asked the woman why she was filling up the numerous jugs including the blue 55 gallon drum. The street she lived on did not have running water so every week year round for the past 35 years she came to this natural spring to retrieve water for her home. Drinking, cooking, dish washing, watering flowers, bathing, flushing the toilet, it all came from this aquifer. The city offered to run a water line to her home, but the cost was far more than she could afford.

Brett signaled me he had found the geocache, so it was time for us to go. I snapped this photo before leaving. Max was his typical stubborn self and refused to look at the camera. 5/25/22