This was a surprise-ish day trip with my niece Lena. She had no idea what we were doing ahead of time, but she was a good sport and went along with the whole thing.

We started with breakfast at Brothers Cafe, then made an important road trip stop at Gateway Exxon and Pilot Travel Center in Van. This was not your average gas station stop. They had a ridiculous selection of unique snacks and drinks, and it ended up being one of the highlights of the drive. Definitely worth remembering for future road trips when we need to fuel up and want something more interesting than the usual gas station options.

Then we headed to Barnwell Mountain Recreation Area for some off-roading.

We started out on a trail that was harder than Lena was expecting, and she was pretty scared. Once we got ourselves out of that one, though, things got much better. The rest of the afternoon was a lot of fun, with some good trails and plenty of dirt. We even managed to damage the rear wheel well liner, which is about the least important thing you can break while off-roading, so I'll take it.

After Barnwell, we headed over to Martin Creek Lake State Park. The park itself was...meh. Pretty much everywhere we went, there was a coal power plant either visible or audible. There would be a nice bench overlooking the lake, and then there was the power plant. The water level was also pretty low, and while there was a swimming area, it was so full of plant growth that swimming wasn't really an option.

The Island Loop Trail was actually pretty easy, though, and we saw LOTS of armadillos along the way.

Honestly, the armadillos were the real highlight of the state park.

And somewhere along that hike, we found Island Walkabout. It was a nice little addition to the hike and gave us an excuse to stop and do some caching along the way.

The hike also gave me a little personal victory. This was the first time since I was diagnosed with cancer that I managed to get over 10,000 steps in a day. I was pretty proud of that. It felt good to realize that I can still have days where I get out, do things, and actually put some miles on my feet.

After finishing the trail, we drove around the rest of the park to see what else there was to see. We got lucky and saw a deer feeding from its mom, which was probably the best wildlife moment of the day.

Then we headed to The Forge for dinner before starting the drive home.

The sunset on the way home was pretty spectacular.

Not every stop on a road trip needs to be amazing. Sometimes you get a questionable state park, some good off-roading, a ridiculous gas station, a geocache, a bunch of armadillos, and a really nice sunset at the end of the day. And sometimes you get to hit 10,000 steps for the first time in a long time and realize that's worth being proud of, too.

Lena survived the surprise, and I'd call that a successful day.

Not Geocaching in Big Bend But Keeping the Spirit Alive

This was one of those trips that was technically supposed to fit on a geocaching blog, but we somehow managed to go to Big Bend for 11 days without actually finding a geocache.

We had geocaches downloaded. We had plenty of time. We had plenty of opportunities. We just never actually stopped to find one.

Instead, the focus of the trip was night skies and offroading, and honestly, I loved this trip. I would do almost the entire thing again exactly the same way.

We spent a lot of time exploring Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park, including quite a few roads that definitely require a vehicle capable of handling them. We did a 4x4 tour, drove Old Ore Road, River Road, Glenn Springs Road, and a bunch of other back roads. Old Ore Road was probably my favorite, although really I loved all of the offroading.

We also crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico at Boquillas, did some rifle shooting, explored Terlingua and Marfa, and spent a ridiculous amount of time looking at the sky. We had several nights of stargazing, including a star party at McDonald Observatory.

We did have to work part of the trip, but even that wasnice. We worked remotely from our dome, with a pretty fantastic view as our office.

The one thing that did not make the favorite-things list was the Chinati Foundation. I didn't get it. At all. We also happened to be in the area at a time when there was a lot of discussion about plans for border barriers through or near Big Bend's public lands. After spending this much time driving through the parks and seeing how beautiful and wild this area is, the idea of putting a huge fence through parts of it is pretty depressing. The plans have changed several times, but the whole thing is worth following if you care about the future of the area. The Texas Tribune has a good overview of the current Big Bend border-barrier plans.

And then there was the tire.

On the way to Marfa, we punctured a tire on Pinto Canyon Road. It wasn't exactly part of the itinerary, but I suppose an offroading trip needs at least one reminder that you're actually offroading. I would make one change if we did the trip again: I wish we'd had the tires I have now back then.

Despite the tire, the questionable art, and the complete lack of actual geocaching, this was one of my favorite trips. The scenery was incredible, the offroading was a blast, crossing into Mexico was a fun experience, and the night skies were exactly what we had gone looking for.

So, no finds to report.

But we had the geocaching spirit. We explored, took the roads less traveled, stopped at interesting places, and spent a lot of time outside wondering what was around the next bend.

I'll take that as a pretty good geocaching-adjacent trip.

Easter Geocaching

Donnie and Angela planned a surprise-ish Easter trip for us so we could see my nephew and meet his new girlfriend. We decided to make a weekend of it and spent some time together around Bob Sandlin State Park.

This was my first trip with Donnie and Angela since chemo and surgery, and I was still doing immunotherapy, so I definitely wasn't back to 100% energy yet. Luckily, this was a pretty chill weekend, with some time together, a short hike, and plenty of relaxing.

Of course, we also had to find a couple of geocaches while we were at the park.

We found The Jaws of the Grave, which was a quick little park-and-grab. We also found Wood Duck, which gave us a reason to get out and explore a little more of the park.

A short hike, some geocaching, time with friends and family, and a pretty low-key Easter weekend was exactly what I needed.

Geocaching in Santa Fe, New Mexico

We took a trip to Santa Fe that was really meant to be about relaxing. I hadn't finished chemo yet, but I had a break between sessions and wanted to get one more trip in before surgery in the fall.

And relax we did.

We spent 10 days wandering around Santa Fe and the surrounding area, with plenty of time built in to slow down. There were spring-fed pools, jeep tours, museums, food, and a lot of just enjoying being somewhere different. We actually loved the first jeep tour so much that we booked a second one.

One of my favorite things we did was make our own silver pendant. I also really enjoyed the spring-fed pools, which were exactly the kind of low-key activity I needed at the time.

There were a few geocaches along the way too. We found Blue Hole, book case, and Perfect Stop. None of them were really the reason for a stop. They were just nice little additions to the trip and gave us an excuse to explore a bit more along the way.

This was one of those trips where the destination and the downtime were the point. The geocaches just happened to fit nicely into it. A little sightseeing, a little caching, a lot of relaxing, and a pretty great silver pendant to bring home.

Mackinac Island Geocaching

We had planned a trip to Mackinac Island with Rachel and Andrew long before I started chemo for breast cancer, and we decided to go ahead with the trip anyway. It was definitely a different kind of vacation for me than it would have been normally, but I'm glad we went.

There was plenty of relaxing. We spent time sitting on the grass snacking and watching the sun, worked on a puzzle in the resort lobby, wandered around the island, and just enjoyed being together. Rachel and Andrew were awesome about letting things be whatever they needed to be.

We also did some geocaching while we were there. RAS - S.I.T. was along the perimeter road, which follows the shoreline around the island. We also grabbed St. Ignace Boat Launch 2025 before leaving the area. Bird Watching on Market Street was a busy and sneaky cache we had to wait out others for.

The hardest part of the trip for me was definitely the bike ride around the island. The 8.2-mile perimeter sounds pretty reasonable until you're doing it while your body is dealing with chemo. That was a lot more physically demanding than I expected.

One thing I absolutely loved was getting to forge my own knife. That was probably my favorite activity of the trip, and I came home with a knife I actually made.

I also started losing my hair while we were there, which was one of those very real reminders of what was happening even while we were trying to enjoy the trip.

Overall, Mackinac Island was a strange combination of relaxing and physically demanding. Some things were harder than they should have been, but there was also a lot of good in the trip. Time with friends, snacks on the grass, puzzles in the lobby, a little geocaching, and a knife I forged myself. I'm glad we went.