ADVENTURES IN CACHING

Austin

It's no secret Austin is our favorite place to go geocaching. Maybe it's the hills, the varied terrain, the creativity of the hides, or maybe it is just that it is a neat town to get lost following a compass in. We always have a good time going there and discovering new places about the town that we never knew about while pursuing our favorite hobby.

Which is why, since my husband started working there every other weekend, I have been bugging him to let us come up with him and geocache the town while he is at work. Several disputes later, we finally got our trip.

It was a hard won trip. He looks forward to weekend getaways without the kids to just chill out and watch basketball games without interruptions. We got into a heated disagreement about when it was acceptable for me to come up. He insisted I drive up Saturday, I insisted Friday, and we were both being just as stubborn about it. I really wanted to get started caching FIRST thing in the morning Saturday, because I knew a trip to the Texas Memorial Museum and a visit to some old friends would be in order, and I wanted to get in as much caching as possible in between.

In the end, I got my way, but I am not really sure it helped me much. The kids woke up at five thirty in the morning with my husband and did not want to go back to bed, so at seven am sharp, we went down to be the first ones in line for the hotel breakfast buffet.

Guess what? The Special Olympics were going on this same weekend here in Austin, and many of the competitors were staying in the hotel we were in. Maybe beating everyone to breakfast was part of their strategy, too, because there was a long line ahead of us...and it moved very very slowly. It was tragic and comical all at the same time. I know I should leave this alone, but the text messages I sent to my husband while we ate were cracking us both up....Suffice to say, waiting in that line with two young boys by myself was not the most fun.

Finally we got on our way. The first cache I chose was a day-before decision to add to my list - one only a couple miles north of our hotel at Gus Garcia Recreational Area. I was expecting a park, but I should know by know that in Austin speak, a park doesn't mean a place with a playground, but an outdoor area for hiking and enjoying nature. There was an indoor gym that we walked around along the path to get to the cache.

And I need to quit not taking the stroller out with me, because wouldn't you know it, the toddler always starts asking to be carried about 500 feet into anything. This was sort of a frustrating walk with him being a human leg warmer or pressed against my chest. Luckily, on the way back, he was willing to follow brother (into danger), since that wonderful hotel breakfast was starting to hit me in all the wrong places.....

It was a really nice little cache, though, and a great "park" to enjoy.

After this, it was a round and round the town, following the compass every which way. I really need to get some good mapping software and go paperless. I get out and then I get confused about where to go next and what is the best way to get there.

Frustration. In our roundabout travels chasing caches and slowly heading southest, we did accidentally stumble upon Bevo's trailer....

Now, you should know that I am the only Aggie among my high school friends. A "Good Ag" would have all kinds of jokes or comments to make about this beef wagon. But I'll save it....

We found a cache nearby that had eluded me before, and I couldn't shut the lid after without taking the bubbles out of the container, so we just had to take them with us to our next cache, which was at Waterloo Park near the Capitol Building. It was a windy day and that made it perfect for blowing bubbles in the grassy stretches of the park. Which we did. For way too long.

The park itself was very interesting. It had all kinds of interesting statues and artwork. It also had all kinds of interesting "residents". Apparently it draws more than its fair share of bums, and there was a fair amount of litter around. It made me kind of sad to see this beautiful stretch of creek littered with trash, but I made a game out of trying to capture the beauty of the park with my camera without getting any of the trash in the picture. Here are some examples:

Well, you know me, I always have more to say. With our computer having been at the shop, though, for more than two weeks, everyone else in the house is dying to get online as well, and I could spned a lot fo time telling the stories and posting the pictures. So I think I will make this the first installment of at least a few entries about the fabulous things we saw while caching in Austin.