Travel Bug Feature Story #2

I love my travel bugs, but I don't want to only cover my own travel bugs in my Geocaching Series #2: Travel Bug Feature Stories entries. That would be pretty self-involved of me, and I want to expose you, the readers, to not just some cool bugs I made up, but also the coolest of the bugs I have ran across.

So this week I am going to present to you one of my very favorite bugs I have ever run across.
Presenting....

Montoya, the Travel Buck.

Now, in order to fully appreciate Montoya, you have to know some of the characters involved in his life. This is one of those character stories, a bug with a back story, a twist of fate, a personal joke, a life reference, and a movie reference. Yes, Montoya is all that and more. He is a bug...excuse me, buck...who runs deep with meaning and sense of mission.

Montoya's humble beginning is best told as a beer story in front of a crowd. In fact, that is the way I first heard the story of Montoya myself, at a geocaching event at a mexican joint on the southwest side of town. In our little caching community where I live, we have these two fellas who are the class clowns of the group. Every group's gotta have a clown or two to keep everyone from taking themselves so seriously. These guys are known for being thread pirates, for hijacking forum threads, and generally cutting up while everyone else viscilitates between laughing with them, laughing at them, or trying to remain serious in spite of them.

Anyway, this night was special. It was the official release of Montoya into the wild, a christianing event if you will. Fivesecrethunters was up in front of the crowd, beer in hand, telling the story of how Montoya came about. I wanted to make sure I told the story right, and who better to tell it than the storyteller himself? So I asked fivesecrethunters to relay it to me again. These are his words:

The real story...........I got up at 3:30am and woke up my two boys, at the time ages 14 and 12, to meet Geekqualizer at the Cinemark on I-10 out in Katy, to follow all the way to 4CL - I had never been. Met Geek on time and decided that we would use 2 way walkie talkies on the route. The whole way up we had a great time, talking, laughing and joking with Geek and TPB. As we pulled off 45, and got onto the county roads, dawn was coming up fast, but still kind of semi-dark with all the tree coverage. Literally 1 mile from the trail head parking entrance, Geek was about 5 car lengths ahead of me, and I had just finished telling my boys a great story (go figure). I looked up, and the poor deer was already in mid jump heading down towards my car. I had time enough to scream out "look out!" and the deer landed into the window and into my lap for about a second, then bounced out over the car and flew 150 feet away into the ditch. The rear view mirror flew off and hit my oldest on the arm. The glass of course fell in on us, embedded into me as it was crushed into me by the deer. I had glass on my face and couldn't open my eyes to see where I was going, so I slowed down and kept my right wheel on the grass of the side of the road, and the left wheel on the road. I picked up the 2-way and told Geek we needed him. By this time, several other cars of cachers came along that road, being so close to time of the start of the walk. Geocachers to the rescue! Water, icepacks, a shirt for me, and some drinks for the kids. Someone called the police for me, then we pushed my car off the road onto a driveway (way to dangerous road to leave the car on the side of the road) and then after much urging, sent everyone on their way to continue their hiking plans. By the time the tow truck, police and insurance were finished, it was nearly time for the group to be back from the hike. The car was towed back to Houston ($275 tow), we hit Enterprise Car Rental, then started driving home - 9 hours after the accident. As I was driving home to Katy, I was overwhelmed with what we had been through, what the kids felt about death now being a very real thing (if the deer had jumped sooner, she would have landed inside the car, instead of "bouncing" off my 55 mph speed, and more than likely crushed me, leaving the uncontrolled car traveling at that speed with the kids helpless) and had to pull over to the side of the road (in a shopping parking lot I think). I began to weep openly, and finally had a "let down" of all my emotions at once. My kids were equally coming out of shock, and my tears brought theirs.Carefully I pulled back onto the hiway, and made my way home, thankful that we were alive.Now, enter TDW, putting together the TB Montoya.......The rest, is well, history.

The use of his acronym "TDW" refers to his partner in crime and the owner of Montoya, Texas Dreamweaver. Texas Dreamweaver initially gave the bug the mission of ending up back where it all began, at the scene of the crime: The Four Cache Loop, also known in these parts as "4CL". This cache is a long hike through the Hunstville State Park and is a favorite of the local caching community, who prefer to tackle it enmasse.
Montoya reached this part of his mission in one of these group assaults about two weeks after this event. Since his release in Oct of 2006, he has traveled an astounding 12369.7 miles! He has been to the UK, to Alaska, and is now traveling through Indiana.
And if you have never seen the movie Princess Bride....go watch it....now!