Adventures in Caching: Memorial Park

Or: The Non-Event Event

This year, the members of the Houston Geocaching Society decided we were going to start a tradition of meeting once a month to celebrate that month's birthdays with an "event cache". An event cache is basically a gathering of geocachers in a specific location that is posted ahead of time, and it counts as part of a cacher's "find total". I didn't get a chance to attend the Birthday events in January or February, but this latest one was one I could make. However, the host of this month's event was not able to get the event cache listed in time to be approved by the local reviewer, so it was not an "official" event - we didn't get our "smiley" for attending (when you log a cache online, the website gives you a "smiley" next to the "found it" log, therefore part of the lexicon of a geocacher is to talk of earning smileys as a way of saying getting another find).

This month's event was planned for a Saturday morning in Memorial Park, both a good time and a good location for me. Memorial Park is a large urban park very close to the downtown area, and boasts 1,466 acres of recreational green space used extensively by runners and bicyclists...and geocachers. Remember in my earlier entry about Challenger Park, when I mentioned that it was cited as a good park for "numbers hounds"? Scratch that - this IS the number hounds park, with a grand total of 38 caches in the park. I've been on two caching expeditions in this park before today, and had only scratched the surface of what this park has to offer.

I was planning on taking my youngest child with me today and pulling him behind me in the wagon (the oldest is on a Spring Break trip with Grandma), but as it turns out, our truck needed to go to the shop and the wagon doesn't fit in my car. That left the stroller, but he has little patience for riding in the stroller, and my husband graciously offered to keep him at home and let me go off unencumbered. I am so glad we made that choice, because I would not have gotten to do the type of caching I was able to do today pushing that stroller around.

After some hiccups getting on my way, finally I was rolling down the freeway, blasting the Indigo Girls with the windows open and feeling pretty happy about having the chance to get out and relieve some stress. I've been having some issues lately with stress and I can feel it's effects on my body, and I've been working on solutions this week. Here is one. I can't completely escape life's stressors, though, especially in this town with Too Many Damn People. I got caught in some traffic issues on the way that put me even further behind schedule, and I finally got to the park 45 minutes after the event was supposed to start.

When I arrived, I thought it was already over until I noticed the cupcackes on the table and recognized the husband of a fellow caching mama I've met this past year. He said he was guarding the table and that everyone had gone caching, with one group going one way and another group the other way. I was itching to get out there, and instead of waiting to find someone to go with me, I struck out on my own, water bottle hanging over my right shoulder and GPSr loaded with waypoints, hints for each cache in my backpocket. I left him with my cell number with instructions for his wife to call me if her group came back.

As I walked, I starting thinking I should have gotten his number, because suddenly my battery power dropped. I had a vision of me getting lost out on a trail, out of batteries, or getting bit by a snake, and having no way to contact anyone. Luckily the way to the first few caches I was after were right off the main road, and I starting memorizing landmarks for reference points in case.

The first cache I went after nearly had me stumped. The hint was "multi-trunked tree", and there were a lot of places that hit that description. I kept zeroing out in one area and went back to search there three times during my circling of the area. I started to feel pretty dense, like maybe I should be with a group because otherwise I was not going to accomplish any finds today. I decided to be persistent, though, and widened my search area, and then I found it, 60 ft from where my GPSr told me it should be.

Each successive cache I had downloaded was between 0.2 and 0.3 mile from each other, which meant some walking. I've decided that urban caching spoils a person, because you get so used to being able to park within 0.11 of a cache that anything over that seems like a hike. Especially when there are multiple caches and it is hot outside (isn't it still winter, or spring? Why does it feel like summer already?). I could park closer to each of these first three I was hunting, but it would seem pretty ridiculous to drive to each one when I was out here to get exercise in the first place.

The second cache was a pretty easy find. It says on the cache page that GPS reception is spotty here, so the cache page directed you to look for the fallen tree. It took me all of three minutes to locate the cache. Can you see it in this picture?

As I walked to the next one, I ran into Kathy, a fellow cacher, one half of the team Muddy Buddies, #2 in our area in terms of total finds. This husband and wife team is a caching powerhouse and I dare say even have a little celebrity status in our group. Whenever they show up at an event, a little ripple of sound and applause ensues. Everyone is always glad to see them.

"Are you out here caching alone?", she asked me, concerned, and I told her everyone had already left but I had been hoping to catch up with one of the groups. She told me which cache they were heading to next, and it happened to be the one I was going for, so I felt confident I would meet up with them there. Sure enough, as I got within 150 ft of the cache, I saw them standing just inside the woods. They joked "Oh, did you want to find this? Let me put it back...hold on...where'd it go again?" Not too long after we all began walking off together, Stan, the other half of Muddy Buddies, got a call from Kathy making sure I had found them okay.

We had decided to head back north again, and on the way, there was a mass hunt for the first cache I had found, as our group converged with the other larger group and everyone hunted together. I had already found it, of course, and Stan was the one who hid it, so we kinda stood back for a second waiting for either the cry of "found it!" or "can we have a hint?" The littlest cacher in the group was the one who made the find this time, and everyone agreed about the coords being slightly off. Here are the two pictures side by side of the cache site, the one on the left from when I was hunting alone and the other with the group.

Looking at those two pictures now, it doesn't even look like the same place, but that is because the one without people is the area the cache actually is, and the one with the people is the area I searched three times, because they were zeroing out there, too.

After this, we all went back and had cupcakes and conversation sitting on the shady pcinic benches. I was excited to get to know another female cacher today who had posted a note in our forums saying she was looking for a caching buddy. I wanted to make some new friends myself, so I took the time to talk to her and get to know her better. Snoogans (our top travel bug mover in this area) had shown up by this point with his wife and new baby, and there were some dogs there with travel bug tags hanging from their collars for a fun discovery. This is what I love about events: the chance to talk to other people, to be a part of a community who understand the obsession, who share a common pursuit. Fellowship is an important feature of human life, and it enriches and develops us.

After our snack, a group of us headed out ostensibly to go after one particular cache, but on the way a few of us made small side trips to get two caches that were along this trail, the purple trail, on the way to the ultimate goal. Our walk became a sort of surrealistic adventure, as we walked around the roadblock fencing off a part of the trail from bikers, due to the erosion and a washed-out trail. One person remarked "well, didn't realize they had these kind of hills in Houston", as we found ourselves walking downhill along a narrow ledge in a ravine, and climbing up large uneven places bordered with steep sides. I am so glad I didn't have my kids, because I never would have been able to make this trek, but as it was, I was happily trucking along the trail with some really neat people. A couple of us checked out this cool fort you could see across the bayou as a couple of the others went on ahead and found the cache just ahead of us. The cache was named for Camp Logan, an army camp that existed here in the 1910s, and we talked about the history as we signed the log and discovered some coins and travel bugs people were holding.

After this, we headed back, and I walked alongside Whippettx, or Janet (funny thing about cachers - we go by these "handles" online, and it sometimes takes a while to learn someone's real name, or come to know them as that rather than their online identity) and we talked about her upcoming move to CA, my upcoming trip to that same area for GW6, and dog shows. Janet shows whippets and she watched me show my Aussie last summer at Reliant, and I would say she is a friend of mine, and I will miss her when she moves. I feel glad I had the chance to meet her.

That is what these events are all about - the chance to meet people face to face, and form relationships with people who share your interest. Funny thing about this one is that I still don't know whose birthday we were celebrating or if any of them made it out to the event (I think I heard a rumor that Houston Control was one and was there, but I only briefly saw him). All in all, I got a total of six finds for the day and was hiking for two and a half hours, minus the cupcake break. I had drank all my water and got more on the way home, but between that and the festival I took my little one to when I got home, I felt a bit dehydrated in the afternoon and wiped out. Emotionally, though, I feel wiped clean. I am happy that I found this community of people that I belong to, and I have pride in them.

Next week, our group is competing against other Texas regional groups for bragging rights at the Texas Challenge 08 at Lake Mineral Wells State Park. I'll be there with my oldest son, and I will post a story of how our group does. Go SEtx cachers (the "Mean Flamingos" - that's our mascot - isn't that hilarious?).

I love my caching friends and I can't wait to meet more and have more adventures with them!