CASINO NIGHTS.... AND THE GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT
I had high hopes for Reno. I think I was looking forward to this part of the journey more than anything else. We had made reservations at Circus Circus, and it was going to be this great big fun fest in "the Biggest Little City in the World".
And I don't know what happened, but it didn't happen like it was supposed to. The drive there was not terrible, but maybe because we had stopped to grab some geocaches along the way, it took longer than it should have, and we were all a little grubby, hungry, and tired when we got there. The whole finding the parking spot, checking in, unloading the luggage, and getting up to our rooms in the face of so much temptation (in the form of glittering lights and games for the kids) was grueling. Then there was showering and getting ready for a dinner our bellies were ready for hours ago (didn't see any Taco Times along the way this time!).
Try taking two young kids who don't listen very well to a huge buffet, agreeing to a plan with your husband, only to find him not listening to the plan very well (go figure) and losing absolute control over the dinner table. That was a nice start to the evening.
Circus Circus was our choice because of the great big Midway for the kids, which was crowded and boy, was that a challenge to keep up with everyone in there when we made our way down after the buffet. The kids were super stoked and running all over the place, and I kept losing my husband and/or one or two of the kids, and eventually my frigging mind.
It was time to calm the kids down and get them ready for bed. Good luck for that at a casino hotel! The husband took the money and ran...down to the casino, and left me in charge of the kids, which was a bad idea. I was way too tired and they were way too excited, and this is how that scene unfolded: the phone rings sometime close to midnight, and the front desk is on the other end of the line saying, "Are your children disturbing the other guests?"
How am I supposed to know? "It's possible," I said, "They are disturbing ME!"
Apparently there were two complaints to the front desk about the noise in our room. Butts were kicked and kids were shoved under covers with the threat of death if they made a peep, and when the husband showed back up, $20 richer, I made him give me that and then some so I could go let out my frustration by pulling some levers on the slot machines.
And girl can't get a break. He told me the waitresses would come by and offer you free drinks, but yeah, that didn't happen. I had to chase down one haggard waitress to get a cocktail an hour into it, and I stayed up too late feeding all my money to the nickel slots, slowly....
Anyway, I had these big plans for the morning, back when I was dreaming about this trip, about how I wanted to go find my childhood idol's grave, and read the poem I wrote in tribute for her (the one at the bottom of this blog), leave some flowers, say some words to her spirit. I wanted to cache my way out of Nevada, and all the way south.
It didn't happen like that, either. The town is kind of confusing to me, doesn't seem like the map at all, and I had lost all sense of direction and specifically where we needed to go to get to the cemetary where Mrs Velma Johnston is buried, and, I didn't feel like it anyways anymore. We were all tired, and got a late start, were fairly grumpy and discombulated, and just wanted to get out of town....
Long way down the most congested road I could have found to get us out, and finally we were free...stopped at Virginia City to not find a cache that should have been easy, and wasted too much time here by this big prospector searching in vain for a Golden Nugget that was too elusive for us, only to end up spending too much money in the nearby candy outlet on sweets these hyper children did not need....
That day was probably the worst of our road trip. Part of my disappointment lay in the fact that I hadn't planned very well for this part of the road trip, geocaching wise. I had been counting on the fact that we were going to have the laptop with us, and I would be able to load a Pocket Query from the road to have caches in my GPS unit to find. We ended up not bringing it, and I had only a sparse amount loaded as a precautionary measure. As a result of this, I missed some caches, lots of them, that I could easily have done. We also spent way too much time going after a planned cache that turned out to be too rugged for us, vehicle and/or hike wise, a fact we realized after spending an hour or two in the efforts.
The day after Reno ended on a sour note as we passed up several decent looking hotels, in the interest of making such good time, and then had to settle for the only thing we could find at the end of a long day of driving. It was the worse motel I have ever stayed in, seriously. I was so disgusted, and made everyone sleep ready to roll at a moment's notice because I was completely convinced there were bed bugs that would attack us as soon as we went to sleep and leave festering wounds on the children. I did not sleep well that night. That part of the journey was really bad, but we got to see some fabulous sites along the way, too. More on that later.

Yeah, it's been there a long time. What should be done about it? Should we talk about it? Should we address it? Should we shoot that fucker down?
Tried confronting it head on. It's ignoring me. We'll see where that takes us.
Stay tuned.....

And, speaking of tuned...don't look at those comments on the past few entries. I am fairly sure at least one of them is a virus bot. Only bots leaving comments these days....
Maybe my friends don't want to talk about the elephant either.....

HIGH ENTERTAINMENT

IN THE UPPER SIERRAS

My sister in law, Crystal, lives in the middle of nowhere. There is no internet, no Zynga games, no malls or shops or social events. There is cows and hay and mountains, trees and rocks and grass. And sometimes an unlucky bug or two....

This day, meaning one of the two days back in August we were visiting her, her man Danny had caught a black widow spider and was keeping it in a jar in the kitchen until he figured out what to do with it. He mentioned this to us in the morning, and the thought lingered.

Midmorning, we were sitting outside watching the kids play, and watching the wasps fly in and out of a nest by the carport, and the men came up with an idea. These were some bad, nasty wasps. Someone said it, "I wonder who would win in a fight between one of those wasps, and the black widow?" And it was on.....

The trick was in catching one of the darn things without getting stung, a task the men gladly engaged in. Then there was the struggle to get it in the jar with the spider without anyone getting hurt. Once those objectives were met, we sat back and watched the action. There was much talk about who the winner would be, but no one was very sure. For a long time, it was impossible to know. The fight to the death lasted about three hours, with kids alternating between watching attentively, and wandering off to play. Us grownups were transfixed.

Even though in my heart I felt like it was somewhat sad and cruel, my scientific curiousity got the better of me. They went back and forth, with each one holding the advantage shortly, then the other one taking it back. The spider injected venom, but the wasp had its stinger handy. The last ten minutes were valiant.

And if you want to know who won......ask me next time you see me......

CEDARVILLE

We headed out down Fandago Pass, on our way to explore the wilderness with our family, geocaching style. I had the GPSr tuned into a cache out that direction...but as it turns out, it was more a rugged hiking one, and we had the kids with us. I wish I could figure out how to get to that one, I tried it last year as well. Do we have to go over the stream and uphill 0.90 miles, or is there an easier way?
We passed it up, and kept going. I considered what else was out there. I wish I knew how to put in here what my "geocache map" looks like for this area. Even better, I would like to have a topography map when I get out in that National Forest. I get out there and then I get confused about which tiny forest road takes us closer to the caches, roads unmarked and unpaved.

There was an easy cache back the way that we had to pass up because firefighters were napping and having lunch. They deserved a rest. We could just keep going over the Pass until we got in the right direction for a geocache.
And we finally did.

This one.

GCYTE5

Surprise Valley Hot Springs Cache

The first picture is the view from the top. This is the view from the bottom. Kaleb was resting, and it was too rough for him, so AJ and Ted went up the rock formation looking for a traditional sized cache. They are the blue and white specks on the upper left. I suspected I knew where the cache was hidden, and they were not moving towards that area, but I was watching Kaleb and it was pointless to yell or point from that distance. Eventually, they came down, and I headed up, straight to where my "geosense" was leading me. This would be the rock formation on the top middle-right. Once I got close, I had to climb and shimmy up the rock face, but I found it, the elusive ammo can! It was full of goodies, but no travel bugs. I left a geocoin - one of my personal ones, which then got grabbed by another cacher before I could log it in the cache to record its starting point, which was frustrating to me, but I didn't make an issue of it when I found out later.

After this , we began driving back, and had an amazing encounter with a bald eagle. Below. We got several shots. That was a high point of our summer vacation on our Great Western Road Trip.

VIEWS FROM MY SISTER IN LAW'S HOUSE

Mt Shasta

5000 acres of alfalfa fields.....

The DAMNED HAM Sandwich...

and other tales from the road....

So, back when we were heading into St George this summer, Ted's grandma was planning ahead. She doesn't like to cook often, and figured she would be efficient when it came to preparing food for the few days we were going to be bumming around, give or take. So, she decided to make a twenty pound ham. That should last four adults and three kids quite some time, especially when paired with potato salad, jello, and rolls. This was dinner the first night, lunch the second day, and dinner the third night.

Meanwhile, I was going crazy with a lust for Taco Time. Did I mention before how much I love Taco Time? I had no idea there were so many in Utah. One was practically flagging me down the moment we drove into town. We passed it and passed it, circling like hungry buzzards, until we finally swooped down the evening before we left, hiding crisp meat burritos in the console for later.

And the morning we left, bless her heart, that Bonny pulled out the ham one last time. We had to make ham sandwiches for the road, she insisted. I made us six sandwiches, sure that I would never again eat ham.

That afternoon, though, somewhere in the backcountry of Utah, miles from the nearest small town, the damned ham sandwiches were dealt with. They were exactly what we needed at a certain point. But darn if hours later, and us famished, we pulled into the first small town, and saw....Taco Time!

We'll have ten crisp meat burritos.....

Dinosaur Tracks at Johnson Farm

St George Utah
We ended up taking a two day hiatus on our journey in the little town of St George. This stop was primarily the reason we planned such an extensive road trip, as T wanted to see his grandparents from his (step) dad's side of the family that he hadn't seen in the fifteen years since his dad died.

St George was a nice little town, but the way the streets were laid out was driving me crazy, and resulted in us getting lost, a lot. It should have been very simple. Each street was named with a number and a compass direction. Streets running north and south intersected with streets running east and west, each with a number, usually increasing or decreasing by degrees of one hundred, like 100 W, then 200 W, etc. How could that possibly have been confusing? I have no idea. I think part of our problem was that the street the grandparents lived on was a 40. We would go from 200, to 100, and then the streets would hit the other direction and start going up again, 100, 200, etc. Where the heck was 40? Turns out we were on the wrong side of the highway when we first came into town (my fault), and that the streets started up again on the other side. However, this continued to confuse us the whole time. It should have been an easy pattern to figure out, but the deviations were unnerving. It must have been the work of some Mormom engineer whose brain works completely different than mine.

While we were there, there was a cousin (?) staying there as well who was a few years older than our oldest son. We took him with us on our excursions to discover some of the interesting facets of the town. The Dinosaur Tracks at Johnson Farm Discovery Site was one of those places. In this particular region of the country, many distinct and unusual dinosaur fossils had been found, and were on display at this museum. This included two noteworthy artifacts - the Sitting Dinosaur imprint, and the largest single track of a dinosaur walking that had been found. People come from all around the world to study these historical remnants.

The Sitting Dinosaur imprint is unique because one can see where the pubis bone rested, and the tail as well. It is the only one like this in the world, and has helped scientists understand dinosaur behavior and body use better. There were many different dinosaur footprints at this museum that had been found right in the general area, as well as some other parts of Utah.
As much as our kids like dinosaurs, we learned from our visit here that they actually prefer to see life sized replicas of dinosaurs, and their bones, more than they are interested in their footprints and impressions. They especially don't have the patience to hear us read aloud from the information kiosks why the items we were looking at were unique. Frankly, their interest in the entire place lasted only about an hour, and mostly revolved around the videos playing in one room, the interactive display where they could "search" for dinosaur eggs, and the gift shop.
The best thing about going to this museum was that we earned another geocache find, a special one called an "earthcache", from answering a question about what other kinds of animals left tracks here. This answer was not readily apparent when we walked up, but something we had to keep an eye out for when looking at the exhibits.
I think I found the site more interesting than the children did, but they were very happy with a small token from the gift shop and ready to move on to the next sightseeing stop.

GREAT WESTERN ADVENTURES
Slow Death of the Pocketbook
It's a small trading post, established 1850, perched at the eastern edge of the Grand Canyon. Two Native Americans sit outside, drinking a soda, and watching the people walk by...into the much larger, modern day trading post next door. filled with several native crafts and tourist type knick knacks, with a deli in the back. There was a virtual geocache at the end of the parking lot, and after spending some time there, I spent an even greater time period shopping inside the doors. Pottery of every type imaginable, with many different textures and colors, lined the shelves, most with steep prices reflecting the degree of craftsmanship. Dream catchers, moccasins, beaded necklaces, furs, and coffee mugs with western designs grabbed the eye. Torquoise necklaces and totem animals gleamed from display counters. Showing economic restraint in the face of such temptation was very difficult. I finally fled the store after purchasing two small vases and a little souvenir for Kaleb (AJ had gotten one at the Grand Canyon store), considering myself very lucky not to have broken the bank in that place.
Then, as we were making our way around the twists and turns of the Marble Canyon area, we saw many little stands, flea market syle, out along the highway, or down a dirt road off to an overlook. Many stood empty, but a fair enough were doing a bang up business out there, selling crafts off the side of the road.
We watched cliffs in the distance come closer, and followed the weave of the road as it struggled to stay next to the winding river. There was a man in an old RV we followed for some time before being able to pass him, with all the curves, and T got frustrated because of the view we could not fully see. We got in front of him just in time to get some nice views of the Vermillion Cliffs, which might have been my favorite spot along the drive.
As the road and river curved steeply to the west, we came upon two very interesting virtual waypoints, The Navajo Bridge and Cliffdwellers. The historic bridge was a sturdy steel bridge constructed in the late 1920s, and had a nice interpretative area and gift shop.
The Cliffdwellers was nothing formalized as that, but a trading post set up in the shade of one of the boulders that had shelters carved into them was doing a booming business, and got some more of my cash. I was hoping now just to get out of Utah so I could stop spending my money on Native American crafts. T kept teasing me about this, since I had been giving him such a hard time about pre-trip budgeting, and AJ kept pouting about things he wanted as well.
I thought initially that the Cliffdwellers abodes had been inhabited by Native Americans, but the sign nearby one of them told a different story, which I found most interesting. A woman traveling solo by automobile in 1928 had broke down at this location, and was so interested in the property that she bought it, and in the 1930s, invited friends to come live there and turn the boulders into dwellings. So it was a white girl thing after all, who knew? The automobiles at the time were manufactured with the gas tank in a location that would run empty if the cars made their way up the canyon road in the normal fashion, so travelers during that era had to drive their cars backwards up the incline to avoid running out of gas! Based on this information, I would say that woman traveling solo who bought the property sure had a lot of courage.
Both of these places had a great wind factor, and with the air being much drier than we were used to, we kind of wanted to stay inside the car for a while. After a much needed caffeine break, a driver switch, and a couple of pathetic attempts to get some more geocaches on this leg, we slowly made our way into St George, Utah, where we promply got lost.
Personally, I was very glad to make it out of Arizona without losing all my money to the Navajo, and to reach our destination, and a bed. Now, on to Utah's adventures...

VERMILLION CLIFFS

Great Western Road Trip Adventures:
Grand Canyon Style
As much as I enjoyed the Grand Canyon, I must admit our trip did not go as I planned. There were many things I would have changed, mainly revolving around the interest of time.
For instance, check out our hotel, the Best Western Grand Canyon Squire Inn. It had all these great things to do there with kids (like the Family Fun Center, and bowling), only we were so tired from traveling all day that we did not have the energy to engage in it fully.
Then, when we made it to the Grand Canyon, we spent so much time checking out every overlook along the way (Ted's idea) to the Village that the children were worn out by the time we made it to the line for the Red Line shuttle to go out to Hermit's Rest (my idea). All the geocaches along this side of the park were either scenic virtuals that we could have reached via the Red Line, or lengthy hikes down the trail into the Canyon. Both would have been nice, but the shuttle bus ones would have been the only ones possible with the kids.
We ended up lunching at this diner type restaurant inside the Grand Canyon Village area. The decor included menus from the 1940s and '50s framed on the wall next to us, and we laughed over the prices and the language used (Riding Mounts All Types 1.50/hr). The children each picked out a souvenir, and Ted bought a hat with an elk on it. (Earlier that morning, he had spotted a huge bull elk sauntering across the highway, and had been tripping out on it all day).
We had spent quite some time in a converted studio that now sold souvenirs. I picked up an interesting book in the gift shop, and want to tell my friends about it later, so next time you see me, ask me the story about Glenn and Bessie Hyde, who disappeared in the Canyon on their honeymoon in 1928...
And then we were off, with sleeping kids, around the eastern side of the South Rim and into Utah...

GRAND CANYON #2 - PEOPLE PICS

CHURCH OF THE HOLY DOVE
So, we're driving down a small Arizona highway. It's raining outside. T tells me this probably means geocaching is out for now, but I am still kind of tracking upcoming ones with my GPSr. I see that we are coming up on one, but figure we won't be able to stop for it...until we see the door, the door of the Church of the Holy Dove. Wow.
We zoomed past it, but were so intrigued we turned around and came back. The door, which you see in the first photo, was unusually small, and took up the entirely of the front of the small building. There was a geocache somewhere behind the church, but the rain was coming down, so we ran out of the car and in through the unusual door. As we shut the door, a woman in a pickup pulled up and parked next to our vehicle. She came into the church, too.
Turns out she is a local, and frequent visitor to this holy place. She pulls her windbreaker off and begins telling us the history of this unusual place. She indicates a guest sign in book, and tells us to write a little prayer in the notebook by the altar and leave it for the next guests to share. She often comes here, she says, to celebrate her faith. Sometimes she has company, but mostly she enjoys the place solo. This woman has been helping with the wildfires in the west, and tells us of her job refueling the helicopters that bring the water to fight the fires, and of eating her meals in the town outside of the Grand Canyon we are headed to next. She shares history of weddings and baptisms that have been held in the place. Then she writes down her own prayer and leaves us to enjoy the place alone.
The inside is remarkably roomy, and stark, but fills one with a sense of peace. One does indeed feel closer to God in a place like this. The children check out the altar. I read the verse that the Bible on the altar is open to, and write a prayer in the book. I notice that the woman's prayer was one of thanks for the rain, and left ours asking for a safe journey and strength for our family.
As we left the sanctuary, the rain had stilled, and so had all our tension from the first day of our journey. We all felt at peace and calm. I was able to go behind the church and to the side to find the geocache, which was an ammo can filled with trinkets and holding a sparkling gold keychain travel bug, which I was excited about.
We all climbed back in the car, feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the next couple of hours of driving before we reached that night's destination. That calm stayed with me the rest of our trip, though, and so did the appreciation for this tranquil stop on our crazy journey.

MISS ME MUCH
I haven't been around here much lately.
There's a lot of places I've been wandering instead....

You might have seen me sitting at a soccer game
Or making phone calls for snack and team photos
Or in my minister's office
Trying to understand my life and faith
Or outside reading a book watching kids play
Stuck in high water, driving in the rain
In Willis TX with a GPS
Or in Goodrich, Texas, looking at a mare

Or wiping sweat off my brow,
walking through a blacktop parking lot
Loaded up with kids, and groceries, and worries

Exploring the wonder of flowers in the gully
Or at a park, watching children laugh
Or in a forest, going for a walk

Or leading a white horse down a dusty trail
Or at a fast hand-gallop along the arena rail

Walking in boots,
in tennis shoes,
In sandals down the street with a kid or two
Maybe scrubbing a dog in the Sunday sun
In prayer, or in church with a friend
Watching a little one turn three
Or teaching some kids how to steer a horse
Or some just to hang on
You might find me with a birthday cake

A bridle, a brush, a birdhouse, or a burrito
Or a pocket western in hand
One Louis L'Amour treaded for another

Talking on the phone to an old friend
Or shaking hands with a new one
Driving and crying, or leaving it all behind
Having a smoke and a Sprite on a country road
Or a burger and coke with an old friend and our kids

I might be walking in the forest
following a compass and leading a child
I might be saddling up as you read this
To teach a child, or go for a ride
I might be reading a book to a boy in bed
Or walking next to a kid and a dog on a summer evening stroll
I might be around here, somewhere

ADVENTURES IN CACHING

Texas Challenge 09

Fredericksburg, TX

This year's Texas Challenge was much different than last year's, both in the individual and collective experience, and in format and style. Now for weeks the weather has been gorgeous and I have been dying to go camping, and go on a wild caching spree. Of course, as Nature would have it (she is such a bitch), it turned nasty and cold the weekend of this much anticipated event. There were a lot of cold cachers out there (172 logged the event last I looked)!

I planned on caching on the way out there on the five hour drive or so from northwest Houston, but the very first one I stopped at, it just got me pissed off and not wanting to cache. It was so cold and the rain was just biting into me, and I took one look and said "&^%$ this!"
Luckily for us (me), the rain let up when we hit the other side of San Antonio. I was able to grab a handful of caches around Blanco, off 281, before Ted reined me in and said we had to get going. (My favorite one was Kokopelli's Hangout. It is a really cool area and I am glad we stopped there.)

We had to get to the campsite in enough time to check in, pitch our tent, get situated, and then we had to get down the road to go to an event nearby, in the little town of Luckenbach. Don't tell me you don't know the song! (If you do, sing along...let's go to Luckenbach Texas, with Waylon and Willie and the boys). Here are my boys outside the old post office, converted to a country store with a bar in the back (smoking area only). Around the corner was a dance hall with live music, and a little feed shack to buy some food. Elisa bought me a beer while we were here and we looked for a cache together. I really wanted to spend more time with her but both of us had our families pulling us different directions.

Last year I took my oldest son to the Challenge, and he and I camped it. This year, we went as a family and took our new tent our friends Mari and Todd gave us for Christmas. Boy was it cold! The first night the wind about blew our tent away. I saw vacancies at the local hotels and kept trying to convince Ted we should reconsider our accomodations, but he was insistent that we camp.

When I went last year, it was the sixth Annual Challenge based on a system that had worked over the years, but had generated a lot of geographic rivalry. Last year, there were a lot of disgruntled cachers, particularly from our area, seeing as that our last (or was it third?) place ammo can was kicked over to us instead of being treated with respect. Many people also felt the scoring was sketchy. There was talk of torn chads like you hadn't seen since Bush's brother helped him with the election....

This year, "Mrs Captain Picard", aka Julie, along with several Central Texas cachers, organized a different kind of Challenge. You could enter the competitive event, which previously was the only event, or you could choose to do "casual caching". The Challenge Hide Team hid around seventy caches all around Fredericksburg and surrounding areas. For each one that you found, you stamped a card, and when you returned that afternoon, you received a ticket for each stamp. The competitive challenge was not based region to region (usually we have four: North, Southeast, Central, or West) but team to team, with divisions for coed versus single sex teams and different age brackets. This competition was held at Enchanted Rock, which is a beautiful big dome shaped rock (technically an exfoilation dome) in a scenic spot in the Hill Country of Texas. Instead of my doing the competitive cache with other SE Tx cachers, the four of us did the casual caching together.

The town of Fredericksburg itself has its charms. It is an old German town that stood by its roots and still has a Main Street filled with unique stores that caters now to a tourist crowd who come to enjoy E Rock, German food, antique shopping, and wineries. This sleepy hamlet, albeit Spring Break and German festivals, boasts to be America's #2 Wine Destination. It also hosts fascinating eateries, such as the original Porky's restaurant, at which we took this photo at the end of the casual caching.

My husband kept telling me about this awesome pulled pork sandwich he had there about two months ago when doing more processing of soldiers for upcoming deployments. I wanted to check it out, but when we got there, I had to order a cheeseburger instead of the pulled pork. He says I was missing out, but really I had missed out the night before, because I didn't realize the Luckenbach "feed shack" was cash only, and we were only able to get chili dogs and water with the dollars we had on us.

Now, my caching experience was not what I thought it would be, but it turned out all right. Originally, my friend Elisa and I were going to ditch the guys at a fishing hole with a child, and take the other child caching with us. We were going to hit it! Unfortunately, the weather did not favor that plan. ):

It was blustery and cold that first morning, the morning of the Challenge, so instead of cooking a hot breakfast over the grill that we planned, we all piled in the car to head into town for some kolaches...Now if there is one thing I love about German food working its way into Texas consciousness, it's the kolache!

So we were all in the car and I was texting Elisa, but she didn't get my message until she was at the campsite looking for me. She had to come there to pick up her card anyway, but I felt bad about missing her. By the time she called me, we were finding our first cache of the day.

We spent the day driving all around the town hunting caches. My plan for maximizing our cache find went out the window with the change of plans to go with our families instead of us girls. We managed to find a lot right in the town before the kids started insisting on going to a park. We decided to deviate from the Challenge caches and go after two non-Challenge caches there in town that were at a park. When we did this, I realized that the little one's diaper had gotten wet and leaked out all over both the pairs of pants he was wearing (we were all layered with clothing due to the forty degree temperature outside).

I had new diapers with us but not new pants, so we decided to go back to the campsite and regroup. This took about half an hour out of our day and really threw us off our rhythm. After this interruption, we headed south instead of north to town, and started grabbing some of the caches "off the beaten path" on back roads. The back roads made Ted nostalgic for his hometown and he started going on and on about how much he hates living in the city and we should get a place in the country. Our route led us to many wineries (the Hide Team hid a bunch outside these places), and once he started wine tasting to pass the time while I hunted the cache, he got even more nostalgic.

Some of the caches were hidden outside old school houses from earlier last century. These were double ticket items, in an attempt to generate more visits to them. At one of the ones like this we stopped at, an elderly German lady who went to school there as a child had some treats out and gave us tours, telling us stories about her days there at the school and what life was like for her growing up in the area.

At our last cache of the day, I ran into some friends of mine from back home who had done the competitive Challenge that morning. They were out hitting casual caches now, but they were very worn out! These women are also my friends on Facebook, which has turned out to be a good vehicle to get to know people better. At this stop, there was also a lady who was videotaping people finding the cache for a documentary she was doing.

By the time we finished eating at Porky's, it was time to turn in our cards at the pavilion near the campsite. It seemed like everyone in my family was ready to take a nap now except for me. I wanted to be there to see what was going to happen next. We put the twenty three tickets we had earned in the raffle. I was hoping to end up with the grand prize, a weekend getaway at a Bed and Breakfast there in Fredericksburg, but my friend Joy won that instead. We ended up with a duffel bag, some kitty cat tiles, and a couple kids toys. I am sure Julie did not plan on spending hours up there on stage giving away prizes, but there were just so many of them! It made everyone feel like a winner to get something.

They actually had to put the raffle on hold to get to the rest of the event, which was announcing winners of the creative cache contest, and then the main event, announcing the winning teams from the competition earlier. To everyone's surprise (most of all, the four people on the team), one of our teams won their division! This team was comprised of three fellas and a girl that actually I met about a couple months ago, right after she moved to the area, and encouraged to come to a local event, where I introduced her to one of the other guys (my attempt at matchmaking), who invited her to come play with them this weekend. It was exciting for me to see them then go on to win the prize together, which was the geocoin minted for the Challenge on a necklace.

The whole weekend, what was so amazing to me is that I didn't hear a single complaint. Not about the scoring, not about the way things were run, about the organization, nothing. Well, maybe the weather. It astounded me and I think was a testament to how well this year's Challenge Team did at planning. There was no regional animosity, and I think that was a benefit of moving to the different format. I hope they keep this format in the future.

As for us, we made it through the weekend without anyone freezing to death. We got about 39 caches for the trip, which was a decent amount. It is actually an amazing number when you consider that my husband who has about a four cache limit was with us, and we got an average of 13 caches for the three days we were doing this. We got another handful of finds on the way back, until we went after one in Sequin that not only was off the beaten path but was a tough micro to boot. We didn't find it but we lost a lot of time, and suddenly all caching was halted so we could make it back home in a timely fashion.

We made it through a weekend camping with a fight or an injury, so I am pretty happy about that. The children all said they had fun and are interested in camping again, which I am also happy about. I think that anyone who didn't go this year because of previous year's experiences really missed out. It was actually a really great time.

ELUSIVE
Black Friday. Most people go shopping, I went geocaching, as far away from the maddening din as possible.
We meant it as a family trip. I had been putting a bug in their ear all week, the same bug that had been put in mine. I had a certain destination in mind.
There was a geocache a few weeks ago that came out close to my house, and I saw the notification right away, which meant I had a good chance at the "First to Find", FTF. Our FTF competition is fierce around here. Caches don't usually make it an hour without geocachers descending upon it.
Anyway I was robbed on this FTF. I looked and looked at the place that matched the clue, and had to give up after 30 minutes. As I was getting in the car to leave, a biker came up and hung around suspiciously close to GZ. I kept my eye on him as I began to drove away, and I saw he was hanging out in the general area a bit, an unlikely place to spend time. I circled back around and tried to catch him. I wanted to ask him if he was the cache hider, but when I got near him, he was too far way to stop without screaming at him. What would I even say?
Anyway I left a note on the cache page talking about this, and the next day, after two other cachers stopped and FOUND the cache, I got a message from the hider. That was him, and when I saw him, he was placing the cache. Usually they are supposed to be in place before they are published, but this guy waited for the notice before going out to put it out.
Okay, so I was robbed of my FTF, so this time, he gave me a heads up about a new cache of his. He was going to let me get the FTF before he published it, to make up for my loss. I needed to get out there before the end of the holiday weekend. Plus, I have been dying to go caching, with the weather during the workweek just beautiful, and I feeling stifled locked away.
So I mention, and I hint, and I plan, and I scheme. I want to all four go out on an expedition and have a picnic lunch and spend time together. We agree on a time and a day, and then it is the time to leave, and suddenly my husband backs out. Oh, he doesn't really want to leave the house, he doesn't want to go anywhere. Suddenly then the oldest son would rather go play with friends. Suddenly my plans were all unraveling.
I made adjustments. The little one got strapped in his carseat and the oldest dog got to come instead. We headed off to Tomball.
First stop was a micro hidden in a very tricky location near a bridge in a man-made pond. This fellow local cacher Raven has been placing a series of caches called "Crossing Over" out at interesting and pretty bridges in the area. On the cache page for this one, #15, it says you might have to use acrobatic techniques for retrieval. Let me tell you, doing this while trying to watch the kid and the dog raised the difficulty level to about a four!
Then we went to find a large "park and grab" cache behind a movie theatre. A "PNG", for non-cachers, is a cache that is supposed to be less than 200 feet from the car. This one was trouble. First I thought I could park in the abandoned parking lot behind the theater, but the gates were locked, so I had to double back around on the highway and come back, and then I looked and looked and felt silly for not being able to find something so simple. I was about to leave when I decided to call a friend for a hint, who had found it last month. She told me where it was supposed to be, but I was looking there and it was, most definitely, not there. Rats!
After this, we headed to a nature preserve for a short hike into the forest to find a nice big cache I could leave some travel bugs at. This was the most fun of our day. The dog went swimming in the pond (yuck, I was thrilled about this, since he was riding in my car!) and we checked out the wooden overlook that stood out above the water.
It was time, now, to head into Tomball and go look for this one I had a notice for. It was at the old railroad depot, where now a big red caboose stands on display. Christmas lights wrap around the light poles, and a big Christmas tree surrounded by gifts decorates the lawn. My little one loved this one and looked all around, and so did I. Try finding a little black nano ( a cache the size of a button), when coords have you all over the place, from the base of the train, which is all black, to the black benches and fences. I bumped my head a few times and inspected every nook and cranny to no avail. The dog just laid down near a bench with a look on his face of pure irritation. "Let me watch you try to find a nano, this is great fun", his sarcastic eyes seemed to say.
Well, I had to give up on that elusive sucker. Then, as we drove around the antique stores (as I was trying to figure out where a multi-cache final was), the little one spilled Sprite in his eyes and we had to make a quick stop at the parking lot for the stores. He wanted out, so we all got out and walked around - me, my little one with granola crumbs on his shirt and a snotty nose, and the dog, with his ragged coat that may have seen better days. What a contrast we made to the old, well-to-do ladies with their fancy purses and business casual clothes! We left the dog tied in the shade of the fancy garden area and went into a locally famous restaurant for lunch, but the white tabelcothes and shimmering table service freaked my little one out, so we made an exit quickly after being seated.
Instead we walked across the street to a dive mexican cafe, where we watched Rascal lying in a cool tile terrace as we ate soup and beans. We were the only customers in this dark and cool place, where there are three menu choices that change every three days. The charro beans were more like a soup than anything, and the little one wanted to have it all to himself, but couldn't finish it all. We walked outside with the styrofoam bowl in our hands, and I wanted to give Rascal the rest. Little K insisted he be the one to do the honors, so I let him lower the bowl to Rascal's waiting nose...and then he turned it over and dumped it, instead, on the ground. Rascal's fine aristocratic mouth licked beans off the ground instead of lapping the dark meaty broth from a bowl, and I felt sad for him, one more thing to add to his list of laments about his lot in life. Rascal, so happy and joyous in youth, has made an art form out of pouting in his later years, demonstrating his great sadness with being replaced by two kids, and then supplanted by a younger and stronger dog. I don't need a pet pyschic to tell me how he feels, and yet I am powerless to change it.
Later, I went back out to find that nano again, alone, during a solo caching expedition, only to come up at a loss again. Finally the cache owner sent me a very specific hint, and if I get a chance, I will try one more time before the weekend is over.
I just might want to stick, though, to what I am able to actually find.

TEXAS RENAISSANCE FESTIVAL

What's Missing?

(Answer: My Shoes)

When I got dressed this day, the black boots seemed like a good idea. I remember wearing them all day and never feeling uncomfortable, even though they have a good heel on them.Combine that with a lot of walking. Combine lots of walking with carrying a thirty pound toddler most of the day. I have never been so tempted to buy $70 leather sandals in all my life. Finally I decided I didn't want to buy shoes, nor did I want to continue feeling such pain. Boots, go in the bag. Lots of walking in bare socks, luckily all in the direction of the gates, and the car, (parked a million miles away). Oh my aching dogs...

Scenes from the Festival

Friends: This is Lara, Kelly and Kathy.

Lara came with me and the children. Kelly used to work here for a long time. She also grew up in my neighborhood and went to high school with us. Kathy also went to high school with us, and her sister was a dear sweet friend of mine who was on the cross country team with Lara and I. Kathy (brown jacket) has been working for RenFests for about a dozen years full time. If you ever attend one, look for Big Time Jewelry, and it'll be her face you see...

Foes: The little one was very scared. He was seeing another reality, and didn't understand that it was all costumes and acting. I can imagine how terrifying some of this would be to someone who couldn't understand it was all in the name of fun.

Fun: We rode an elephant! There were pony rides, new swords and little plastic dragons, and checking out booths selling gems, stones, incense, jewelry, costumes, and custom made sandals and boots.

Food: We shared a muffaletta sandwich, steak on a stick, fried turkey on a stick, a pretzel, and an apple dumpling.

Fantasy:

CENTAUR

And Fighting! We saw the first part of the joust, in which they engaged in games on horseback.

I have been going to the RenFest at least once every year or two since my teenage years, and of course would recommend it to anyone who visits this time of year (Eight weeks in October and November). I just wish I had umlimited supplies of money to spend...but I would proably come home with all kinds of stuff you can only wear once a year!