Geocaching - The Bad and The Ugly

THE BAD

Not all caches are wonderful and set in beautiful surroundings so we found out on our second foray into the wild wild world of geocaching. Spurred by the success in the cemetery (thanks to our son) we took off for a local park to seek another. A park brings up visions of green lawns, pristine grounds, picnic tables, hiking trails, and maybe statues or other art work....even flowers.

Oh did I mention the two or three dead deer in various degrees of decomposition that marked the entrance to this "park"? The owner is prolific in this part of the country and chose this with tongue in cheek, calling it "Don't Fence Me Out" (GCGK6F) and included the following in her description....

This has got to be the weirdest park I've ever seen. There is a sign here, designating this area as a New Braunfels City Park. I ride my bike by here quite a lot and I have seen the Parks Dept. in here mowing the weeds and tidying up. But the whole area is surrounded by a barbed wire fence and you can't get in!

It has since been archived since they took the fence down and the joke, as well as the cache, is gone..

Yeah yeah, I know it isn't a deer skull but both deer and bison are fuzzy with four legs, get over it and use your imagination - it's the only skull I have.

THE UGLY!

Cold beer and hot chicken livers....how much better can it get?

Off the road to a favorite restaruant of ours, Specht's Store, is a small cemetery guarded by a troll that was kicked out from under the bridge. The cache owner spoke to him at one point and he was not a nice man, claiming we were being disrespectful to the dead by playing our silly little games around the cemetery (no matter the cache was well away from the grave sites and not on the grounds proper). We approached the area, parking well off to the side furthest from the cemetery and started getting our bearings. Keeping one eye open for the groundskeeper with the chainsaw and the knowledge of how to use it, we approached ground zero and once again I aborted the mission. One remote cemetery manned by a demonic troll and I'm supposed to find a film canister here....I don't think so.

Do you see a film canister....neither did I, nor will I!

Baby picture of the groundskeeper

And the groundskeeper's pets

Bye for now...see you on those backroads!

Geocaching - The Good

One of our pleasures in geocaching is finding new and/or unusual places. Some touch our hearts, some tick us off and some inspire us. 99% of them are worth the drive and worth the gas to get there.

THE GOOD!







It was a beautiful day in the hill country so we decided to head to Blanco State Park where there are several different caches hidden. Got the most bang for our entrance fee buck and hit them all. This is one of Texas' smaller state parks, skirting the Blanco River and is just beautiful.




The first one we stopped at was interesting due to the muggle activity. We were pleased to note that there seemed to be no predjudice or intolerance for those different from the majority. However one kept a close eye on us, another got his feathers ruffled, but finally they decided we were harmless and left us alone.









































































We checked out GC19JY0 - Dalai Lama and got so intent on visiting with the Dalai and discussing the meaning of life, we left no time to hunt for the cache. As it turns out it had been muggled and needed replacing, so it wouldn't have mattered had we looked for it. I did suggest to the Dalai that he seek an orthodontist but complimented him on flossing.

One particular cache was in the bushes and will not be identified. I've stated that I suffer from severe snake phobia (can't look at pictures, see on TV, even hear about them without getting short of breath and in a tizzy) so when Henrietta Garmin told me to go look in that hollow tree surrounded by tall grasses I thought..."nooooo way". My competitive spirit and big girl attitude said "don't be a baby". So I compromised and took my hefty walking stick and beat the bejeebers out of the ground surrounding the tree. If there was a snake within 100 feet, it was well out of the county by now. So in I went and learned another valuable lesson - do not expect rotting wood to support your ample girth when reaching for a cache. With a snap, crackle, pop I landed face down in a pile of rotting leaves and twigs. BUT! I did get the cache. Recovering from the trauma and trying to figure out how to use the walking stick to its best advantage to stop the male laughter coming from my right side, I sat in the snake free weeds had a pity party and took photos for awhile..

As we left the park we stopped by one that has now been archived and deleted from geocaching.com. Obviously we arrived at lunch time - such a peaceful setting.








This trip was just one of the many "Goods" in our short caching adventure. I'm going to be hard pressed to come up with a "Bad" in fact.

But speaking of "good" how about a snack to take on your next caching trip?

Armadillo Eggs

24 fresh jalapeno peppers
2 pounds breakfast sausage
1 pound Monterrey Jack cheese, grated
2 Cups baking mix
2 packages oven fry/Shake and Bake, pork flavor
4 eggs

Remove stems from peppers and hollow out the seeds. Stuff peppers with grated cheese. Mix sausage, Bisquick, and remainder of cheese. Wrap sausage mix around peppers. Roll through egg and Oven Fry. Bake 35 minutes at 350 degrees.

For more heat, don't remove all of the seeds or use spicy sausage and/or Shake n Bake.

Geocaching - Kick Start

Walt has wanted a GPS for several years. I balked because of the price and frankly saw no reason for him to have one….well, excuuuuuuuuse me! I finally got him one for Christmas last year and by Mother’s Day was asking for my own. Now, after 8 months we each have one, plus one that is built into the car. Like my cell phone I can’t leave home without it.He went to the Garmin site to register our little Nuvi and saw a blurb about geocaching.com.

After a quick run through there we were off to find our first cache, afterall, how hard can it be to find a film canister along a fence line in a cemetery. Piece of cake, right? It only took two tries before our son found it. A New Braunfels Plot – GCXOH3 is really a pretty simple cache for a non-cocky person. As soon as that film canister appeared I was hooked and couldn’t wait to check out the swag and sign the log. Thanks kzinna! Since I suffer from extreme Ophidiophobia (snake phobia) the SWAG was sorta amusing.

Whew, that little bit didn't take but all day....so we'll work on it bit by bit until we get done.

We did try for another that same day. On a bridge that we had never paid attention to before. After I got strange looks from a bicyclist as I was looking under a bench with my fanny stuck up in the air I found out that this one had been archived. However, we did see a part of our world we hadn't seen before.