Caching our way back home

Had an early start today since it is a pretty long drive back to Dallas (especially since we plan to stop and find caches along the way). We decided to pick up a few more caches in the series we found last night, since they were scattered along the way back to our route home. We headed a *little* out of the way to a cache with Evan's name in it (Pitches -- Evan). It wasn't really any different than the others, but still kinda neat that it had his name. It also ended up on a pretty neat college campus, so it was neat to explore that one.

Heading south, once we were on the road in Kansas, there wasn't much opportunity to exit without paying a toll, so we were pretty happy when we found a cache just ahead of us on the road and a log that said free exit and great view. So, we took the exit and took a quick break. The cache was pretty easy to find, but the view was awesome (photo below taken on a bridge going over the highway.



We continued south and decided to grab some dinner in Oklahoma City. Pulled up Yelp and found a place with a good rating and headed that way. The area was packed; turns out there was an art fair setup and tons of folks around. We got a table fairly quickly at the restaraunt and peeked out the window into the booths setup around us. I decided to see if there were any nearby caches that might not be blocked off or surrounded by people. To my surprise, there were two less than 200 feet from me (with the .1 mile rule, I'm not sure how this was possible). We headed to one (stopping at booths along the way), and were glad to see there weren't any folks around. Grabbed the cache quickly and put it back just as it was. Walked over to the other cache, but it was in the middle of a group of people, so we skipped on that one.

Neat caches for the day:
Pitches -- Evan
Bazaar Cattle?
Que Paseo, Hombre

Caching in Missouri, Nebraska, and Kansas

Because the neighboring states were so close to where we were staying (or, at least compared to how things work in Texas), we decided to spend the day driving to Nebraska to find some caches. This ended up being quite a day, as we found some neat things and met some neat folks along the way.

First thing after breakfast, we hopped in the car and headed to the closest cache I saw in Nebraska (other than one with a bunch of recent DNFs). This cache ended up being perfect, as it gave us an excuse to hop out of the car at the state border and read the plaques. Pretty easy to find the cache, and it must have been around a while, as the glue was actually gone from part of the duct tape and all that was there was some fabric.





After our stop at the border, we headed a little further into the state to Falls City, where there were a few caches around that seems were placed and maintained by some of there school classes. All of these caches we pretty dang awesome. The two we spent the most time at we probably could have spent more and still enjoyed them.

The first of those was at some tanks on display, which we spent a bit of time at before leaving without finding the cache. The second was an old train on display, also pretty neat to explore. At the training, another vehicle drove up and a family climbed out, also geocachers. So, we searched together and talked, of course, about geocaching. They were headed to a nearby park for more caching, so we wished them luck there. They gave us a hint about the tank cache and we went back and found it pretty quickly with that hint (in fact, cannot believe we missed it the first try).





After these, we decided to head south again and drove through the Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge. We didn't end up seeing much here, sadly. A few bigger birds, but since it seems like it is quite low on water, we didn't see what were expected. But, still a nice detour on a long drive.



We also stopped for a few easy finds on the way back into town before grabbing dinner in the plaza and taking a carriage ride (hey, I always want to and we are on vacation, so why not!) On the ride, learned a bit about the history of the area and the Spanish influence and architecture. Decided to walk around a bit after and we found three (pretty easy) caches in the plaza area.



Grabbed some quick dessert and started heading back to the hotel, but we weren't really all that tired yet, so we decided to do some more caching (of course :-). Grabbed the car and decided to drive around and find some more of the caches from the series in the plaza. These were all actually pretty easy, but took us to a lot of different areas of the city that we would have completely missed otherwise. At night, there was something quite nice about some of the areas. We got to drive through a fully lit Power & Light district, by the courthouse, and a ton of night areas.

A great, fun, geocache filled day and good way to explore the area. Some of the more interesting caches from the day:
Arbor Day 937
Speedy Delivery
Tanks for the Ladies
Eagle Stop
Pitches -- Courthouse District

First caches in Kansas

Evan and I are on our second "Geocaching over Memorial Day Weekend" trip, this time landing us in Kansas City.  We are staying in a hotel near the plaza in the MO side, but our first caches of the took place in KS while driving about exploring the area.  We decided to dedicated the first day to touristy things, since so many of those places are closed Sundays and holidays.

A first, and very necessary, stop was at the car wash.  The drive from Dallas to KC left us with barely any area of the front of the car not covered in bugs.  Unfortunately, we took the vinyl travel bug logo off my car and when we came back hours later to look for it, no sign it was ever there.  Guess it is finally time for us to splurge on getting this permanently adhered.

Our next stop was a visit (and guided tour) of the Toy & Miniature Museum.  This place is fantastic!  Lots of old toys, dollhouses, and little furniture.  I think I enjoyed the marble room the most (they said there are over 1,000,000 million marbles in there.  I'd recommended trying to catch a tour through - they give a lot of details (especially about the dollhouses) that I never would have gotten on my own.  I could have spent probably the whole day there.  When we left, a little girl (not with us) exclaimed "we were only supposed to be there for 30 minutes but we were there for hours!"  I totally agree with her.

Found a very neat little store called Mash with lots of handmade and interesting things inside.  The owner (mom and daughter, mom was there) was very nice.  We picked up a housewarming present for a friend as well as some cards for special events (if you are the first of our friends to become pregnant in the near future, funny card coming your way).  The owner suggested a place for us to grab lunch, which was a short walk down the street.

We headed to the hotel to rest and decide what to do next.  There are a ton of museums here, many of which I visited in college and others that on normal weekends we'd probably visit.  For example, there is a flight history museum, but we elected not to go because we went last weekend to the 1940's terminal at the Houston airport, which is a museum.  Too much flight history for me for one...year (Evan, on the other hand, would likely have enjoyed it anyways).

Since we forgot to pack shorts, headed to grab some, and grabbed a couple of caches on the way back.  The first was way cute and one I found it the description made sense.  It was also my first cache in Kansas, which is great cause the second was so boring :-)

Notable cache of the day:
Grasshopper Pie