[Az-Geocaching] Great idea for virtual cache along a tree-li…

If you're ever in Hilo, Hawaii, here is a great place to visit with famous trees, and worthy of a virtual cache (one has not been established there). Along Banyan Drive near Lili'uokalani Gardens, there are many large banyan trees planted by numerous dignitaries and celebrities beginning in 1933 and continuing up until the 1960's. Each of these trees is marked by a sign or plant noting the name of the person who planted it and the date it was planted. Among the famous people who planted trees included Babe Ruth, Cecil B. deMille, King George V, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, Louis Armstrong, and Richard M. Nixon.

I learned about several years ago while reading a publication of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) which described the Babe Ruth banyan tree that the Babe planted in front of the Hilo Hawaiian Hotel during an off-season trip in October 1993. I visited Banyan Drive in July 2000, during a trip to Hawaii when I attended the Highpointers Club convention in Kona and ascended Mauna Kea, highest point of Hawaii.

If any geocachers do visit the Big Island of Hawaii, I recommend that you visit Banyan Drive in Hilo, and make a virtual cache. I recommend a multi-location virtual, which would have coordinates for a list of trees planted by notable people such as the Babe, FDR, Nixon, etc. To complete the cache, go to each of the locations and identify the person who planted the tree. If I revisited Hilo before such a virtual cache is established, I would make the cache myself.

Ken (a.k.a. Highpointer)