Caching at the dog park

Since we haven't had such lovely weather, we took Zinny out for the second day in a row to the local dog park. Since I wanted to walk around, I pulled up the handy-dandy geocaching app and noticed there was a cache just off the path around the park. So after Zinny ran off her energy for a bit, we went for a walk to locate it. Sadly, the only thing left was the lid: Strong Fences.

Post-Valentine's Day Caching

We had to get out to work off the Valentine's Day chocolate, and had a beautiful day to do so. We met up with Andy, Lisa, and James at a nearby lake where there are several caches. This was our second trip to this area, and we walked past some fond memories on the way to making new ones.

There were lots of thorns today, if the names of the caches we found give you any clues:

• Stangelina's - I've actually meant to find this one on numerous occasions when dining at either of the two places this references, but it was likely much better to have come from the direction we did.
• Shoreline 7 - This one has an innocent enough name, but there were plenty of thorns, even in the winter.
• 1 Is the line we like to sign another FTF... - And, you guessed it, more thorns :-)
• Fishing #04 - Thorny Poison Fishing - Thorns in shoes, hats, pants, everywhere. The name isn't lying. Ran into some muggles on the way who asked why we were in the area, but then their dog distracted them.
• Overgrown Street Ending - No thorns this time, but a really cool tree growing on a barrier at the end of a road.
• Off the trail - Not a bad find, and easy enough to give Evan and Zinny time to sit and chill.
• Shoreline 6 - A little bit of a walk since we didn't find the right path right away, but not too bad to find even though there were a few thorns and it was broken. Downside really was all the burrs that got stuck to us.
• I Just may stick you! - More thorny fun, and our last find of the day.

Out with the team on a warm January afternoon

Surprisingly, we had another warm and sunny Saturday afternoon. So, we met up with the team (chemqueen, eolyn, stargazer216, and lysax13) for a day of caching with Zinny. It was a great afternoon, starting with several park and grab caches near the point we met at. Most of these were really simple, but we did enjoy Just the Right Angle for the challenge it presented. I stared at the cache for several minutes before I realized what it was that I was seeing. This one blended in very well.

We then headed to a park nearby to grab some more difficult caches. The first is my first find of difficulty 4 and terrain 3: Fishing #02 - Bushwacking Swamp Fishing. And, boy, wasn't it swampy. We loved finding this one and have the muddy shoes to prove it.




We then headed to another nearby cache and dropped of a travel bug while we were there.

Walking out in Little Elm

It was a beautiful day, and we wanted to take advantage of that as a chance to take Zinny out for a walk. Met up with some friends and took their kids caching for the first time. I was very impressed with them both - so excited and really good at looking for a cache. Ethan even found the first one of the day before any of the adults (Little M #4).

Hot day of DNFs

We wanted to get out and about again, and were very happy when Jared and Gabby wanted to come, too. What we weren't counting on was how hot it would be out. Combined with the humidity, it made the time spent caching much shorter than normal.

We started out with one that I really thought should have been fairly easy (McInnish Windmill), but we looked a while with no luck. We did, however, get covered in little burrs and stickers. This included the dog, who I was still finding them on later in the evening. She loved the wide open space to play it, at least.

Our next cache turned out to be another DNF (Pile of Rocks). It was just too hot in this location to search long, and there wasn't really an easy way to keep the dog, so we spent maybe 10 minutes there before taking a walk to another nearby cache.

We did finally find a cache (Bridge Over Nutria Waters). A lot of up and down on the bridge; I was the first daring enough to go under it (it really wasn't bad). A sneaky little bugger and that is all I'll say to keep the mystery for others who search. Let's just say we were relieved to finally get this one.

So, next time we will either do boring and easy caches if it is 100 out, wait until the evening, or perhaps our Labor Day trip will be someone up north with cooler weather...

Caching with Burrowfamily at Family Reunion

I needed to check on a nearby cache and the kids needed a walk, so we took a quick walk to the two caches closest to my house. With four adults, four kids, and a dog, I'm sure we were a sight. Good thing is that it was a very empty day, with everyone out celebrating the 4th. We opted for geocaching :-)

Introducing Jared and Gabby to Geocaching

If you know us, you know that we love sharing the things we love with our friends and family. So, when Jared expressed interest in geocaching, we were all about showing him. And it was a fun afternoon where we of course lost track of time and got plenty of sun and the dog got plenty of a walk in.

We met at my house and headed to a nearby park that I've found a lot of caches in before, but headed in a different direction for some new finds. The very first was a 5/5, and nice to have others in the group who didn't mind being a tree monkey. We actually found it quite quickly, so that was a relief: NYEDWINT: Tribute to... BEVIKING (Bonus Cache)

We found another easy cache (once we got in from the right side...) and then kept on walking. We got to one I thought would be easy, but it looked like someone had thrown a party there recently and messed things up. But, we found a ducky eraser on the ground, so knew we couldn't be too far off. With some persistance, we found the cache: First Contact

Caching with Evan, Fred, and Zinny in Oak Point Park

A while back, Evan, James, Lisa and I spent most of an afternoon walking through this park and finding most of the caches on one side of the park. There are few others dispersed in other areas that I've been wanting to get back and find, so we set out (Evan, Fred, Zinny, and I) to find a few of those today.

The first we got fairly close to, but then determined we'd have to cross the creek to find. Since we had the dog and clumsy me, we decided to wait on that one, and found two others that weren't too far from parking (light fading fast at this point). The second of these had great hiding ability:







Red Wood
The Perfect Cut

Caching in Breckenridge Park with Fred and Zinny

Fred is back in town (yeah!), so we went out caching for the afternoon with a short walk. Since we have the puppy, I made a nice little path in the park and we had a nice and relaxed afternoon. All of these caches were quick finds once we approached from the correct side, and it was a nice day to be out.







Caches for today that we liked:
See Dar Dropoff?
If you gotta go in the woods

Caching with my mom

So that I could keep up with the progress I've made toward goals over the vacation, once back home, my mom and I went out with Zinny to find a couple of caches near her house. Both were easy, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the nice weather had followed me home to Texas. We headed to Ponds of Lucas # 16 - Rock Ridge before wrapping it up at OFTN - Exchange.

Geocaching with my new puppy

So, we figured it was about time to introduce our new puppy, Zinny, to geocaching. I mean, we've let her arrival impact our goals enough now :-) So, we went for an easy nearby PNG first, and quickly determined that she (like most geocachers) has very little interest in these. She tried, but failed, to get back into the car. The next one she showed much more interest in, even though it was also a PNG. But this was a PNG 100 feet from the entrance of a dog park. Since our ultimate goal was to let her play there for a while, this was a quick and easy diversion. So, not a bad day for getting back into the swing of things, but next weekend we'll have to find some in a park for walking her.