Caching in Oklahoma

Took a weekend away with Evan and Dylan (my nephew), making it into a fun weekend for Dylan and some caching for me. This was actually Dylan's first time out with us, and so far I'll leave this with mixed reviews.

Friday night, we checked in and just hit the hay - or tried to. Dylan wasn't much in the sleeping mood, so really only some of us slept. Had to bribe him in the morning with the indoor pool to get him out of bed, but it was still quite amusing. He is at the age where he can hold his breathe in water or propel himself forward, but not quite both. But he sure thinks he can so this is a source of frustration.

After lunch, we drove up to Arbuckle Wilderness and took him to the drive through wildlife park. Quite fun, especially the llamas. Dylan was quite amused, said he liked it cause his legs didn't get tired, and that the donkey was the best animal ever. Quite funny to think he likes donkeys best.

Grabbed a quick lunch and headed to Turner Falls. Very glad I remembered the life jacket and swim shoes. It was quick fun, a lot of kids and music. Swam in the river and under the waterfall. I thought it was really fun, Dylan liked most of it except the sand in his shoes.

After the swim, took this as a chance to go get some caches. This being Dylan's first trip, we headed out to find some of the larger caches so there would be goodies in them. This took us to a cemetery, also a first for Dylan. I spent much more time explaining things to him than looking for a cache. Why do these people have the same last name? Why is there a tractor on this man's place? A lot of questions. Thankfully he didn't wander to the little lambs and I didn't have to think about that (that is by far my least favorite spot). Found the cache and he took a whistle, I left a glow in the dark lizard. He still has this whistle and loves to blow it, especially indoors...

Also learned on this trip that taking a four year to a port-a-potty is not a fun experience.

More swimming at the pool, and better luck with sleeping after wearing Dylan out all day. It was really fun and I'm glad this all worked out. Especially glad to have gotten some sleep.

The next morning, we hung out and swam some more, grabbed breakfast, and relaxed. We headed back around lunch and picked up a couple more caches on the way.

For this weekend, some goodies in these:
The serpent WAS here!
D-Best-B-B-Q

Caching in Arkansas

For Memorial Day this year, we decided to take a trip to relax in Hot Springs, AR. This was a great idea, so Lisa, James, Evan, and I packed up and headed out there Saturday morning. We found several caches on the way there, our favorite being one INDOORS. Took us a while to even think to look there - was different from what we were used to, and we appreciated it.

After settling in and relaxing that night with a boat tour of the lake, we got a good night's rest and set out Sunday morning with no particular aim in mind other than exploring the area. This of course meant driving in the mountains and finding geocaches. We ended up seeing some great sites, including the impressive gallery of a rock shop in the area (the quartz is quite amazing). We also found some rather large puddles of water as a result of the recent heavy rains, a couple of which forced us to turn around (we are in a CRV, but an old and grumpy one).

We visited the science museum and spent a lot of time there - very nice place, especially if you had kids to bring. Grabbed a cache placed outside of it, but wish we hadn't, as three of the four of us discovered ticks over the course of the next day.

We headed back to town and walked around the main drag (and, of course, cached along the way). I've been caching in a downtown environment before (Ft. Worth, TX), but this was a quite different experience. These caches are quite out in the open (to us, at least), but they've been there forever untampered by muggles. Quite impressive.

We also picked up a few things on the way back to Dallas, but more than anything, I got ant bites...

Some of my favorite caches from this trip:
Rock Hounds (owners are nice and helpful if you need it)
Upon The Arrival (great story)
Travel Bug Outhouse
GOOGLING HRPTY HRRS (neat carving on site)

Easter egg hunt - GPS style

So it's Easter Sunday and my beautiful girlfriend and our very close friend Judy setup a little Easter egg hunt for Evan and me. Today we were given instructions to meet up at the DART park and ride at the Parker Road Station in Plano to join forces and navigate around the city collecting eggs. At the end of our journey, a treat to share was promised.

So the ladies sent us to the park and ride, each with half of the required coordinates for the first find. Once we met up, I hopped into Evans fly ride and off we went!

It took us a little while to get warmed up, not knowing really what we were looking for but after the first egg.

Someone tampered with my hide

I apologize in advance if this comes across as a rant...

While doing some checking in on caches near my house, I stopped at one of my harder ones to see how it was doing. Everything looked normal when we pulled up. However, after getting out of the car, right away it was obvious that someone who had searched had disregarded the cache instructions and disassembled it. Inevitably, they did not reassemble it correctly. Now, I have disabled the cache and have to head and out repair it sometime soon.

Thank you to everyone who did this with respect to the cache. I have some other, inappropriate, words for whoever broke it.

UPDATE: This was fixed on 6/8/11.

Math school - part one

Lesley wanted to go out and do something active, so while searching in the area, I found this puzzle series called Math School. I printed out the pages - a LOT of math - and headed her way. Thankfully the guys were there too. After about an hour of math fun, we successfully completed the first nine coordinates in the series. We did not have much luck with the more advanced stuff, but we'll come back to that another day.

Since our heads were now sufficiently sore, we decided to head out and find the caches. They were actually pretty easy - the ones we could find.  Some PNGs, some worth spending a little more time at, some we couldn't find at all.

Our favorite was the one with the friendly llama, Stanley.  The cache was about 20 feet from him, and he sure was a friendly llama.  I'm betting he has seen a lot of us cachers, and he sure seemed to enjoy the attention we gave him.

All in all, that part of the series was pretty simple, and we'll finish up the others when our heads recover.  Mainly we just have one left for each of them anyways.

After that series, we made a few quick walk-in grabs near the Muddy Creek park (great park with some night caching, too).