DOWN WITH CACHING
Regular readers may be wondering why, after writing about geocaching for months, I would not have a single story about caching on the entire page.
I'm down with caching.
But I'm not the only one around here who has lost that lovin' feeling.
It is catchy, collective, contagious.
It's the post-Ike caching ick.
In the Houston Geocaching Society forums, someone else summed up the general feeling.
This is bbqbob2's comment in response to Georeynozos's thread asking if anyone had started caching in Houston after Hurricane Ike:

"I tried a new cache in Clear Lake yesterday and the mossies were small, nasty and plentiful. Couldn't get into the hunt though - two houses missing fences looked out onto GZ and the people were working moving debris in their back yard. I walked away. Seemed like there had to be something more important I should be doing."

Last night, I got my first smiley in two weeks by meeting up with some other cachers at a hamburger joint. The mood was solemn.
At our first get together at this place a few months ago, about seventy people showed up. The atmosphere was raucous. We were all talking excitedly about geocaches, the runs we were planning, the puzzles we were solving, the trackables we were trading.
This night, some fifteen of us sat around and talked about other places, other things, but somehow coming back to the same subject over and over.
"You got power yet?"
"Yeah, finally. You?"
We talked about clearing up tree debris, about camping out in our house, about how we had been hunkering down, or trips we've been on lately. Noticably absent was the talk of caching. When asked if they had been caching lately, most people shrugged their shoulders and said, "I've checked on a couple of mine, but that's about it."
The reasons are fairly simple, but I find it interesting it would effect the community in such a similiar way.
With Hurricane Ike's 100 mph winds, everyone assumes that most geocaches were damaged, moved, destroyed, or simply disappeared. It is going to take some work to build our hides back up again. No one wants to trudge through wet grass and fallen forests with the premise that they "might" find what they are looking for. We are waiting for owners to check their hides before we go looking for them.
As hiders, as cache owners, we are somewhat reluctant to leave our houses to go check our caches because of the post-Ike traffic (which HAS to be said like you are Jimi Hendrix singing "Cross Town Traffic". This amuses me every day. Oh, to be easily entertained...). Full power has not been returned to Houston and the surrounding areas yet. Traffic signals are on a blinking red all over town, causing congestion. Gas stations are back online, but most people have in the back of their minds a memory of the lines backed up for blocks.
Oh, and the rain has brought out a force of Texas sized mosquitos. I half-heartedly went after a park and grab style hide on the way to the event and although I was only going fifty feet from my car, I was swarmed with so many mossies that I sprinted quickly back to the safety of my Camry. Screw that.
For the entire month of September, I have a grand total of ten finds.
Usually I try for ten finds a week, otherwise I find myself slipping on the Grand High Poobah List.
I haven't even looked at my rank on the Grand Poobah List in at least a month.
I was excited about caching before Hurricane Ike. I had great plans to spend my birthday engaging in this pasttime, ending up at the HGCS September Birthday Event. I wanted to get to my #1200 find in one fell swoop.
Now, though, I am feeling like freysman, who said this:
"I just can't get excited about being eaten by mossies for a string of DNFs and bad news..."
I'm hoping things turn around soon.

WALLYWORLD WONDERLAND - The Sequel
Scene: Wal-Mart, surburbs of Houston, 1:30 pm, five days Post-Ike.

Feels a little like getting-back-to-normal at first glance. Lights are on. Shoppers are everywhere.

We talk to a neighbor coming in who also has her two boys with her. She is still without power but is "doing fine", the common refrain in our area.

Bread is back up. Stockers are everywhere, loading supplies on to shelves that disappear soon after arrival. The fruit is back in full force, including the plums.

We walk past the beer aisle without looking. We are simply on a quest for dairy products today. We saw a man in the parking lot with milk in his cart and exchanged gleeful pleasantries with him.

We find the milk, but it is going fast. A few pudding and yogurt items sit forlornly in the dairy shelves. Butter is not back online, which dashes my hopes for finding ingredients to make cookies. Eggs are nonexistent as well. Guess I will have to postpone further baking urges.

Canned food aisle is packed with shoppers. We don't even go there.

Meat case stands obscenely empty, as does the frozen foods. There is ice cream though, which we get, with cones to go with it. At least the boys will have some sweet treats.

We hike all the way down to the pets section because my husband's pre-storm estimate that we had "lots" of dog food was, in fact, false. I am sure the dogs are glad that Wal-Mart is back online, although maybe they secretly hoped we would run out and not be able to get more dog food, in which case we would have to feed them what we were eating.

Which, tonight, is pizza, because now I have cheese again. Last night we had company, a couple we are friends with who still don't have power, and I made chicken soup with biscuits on top. Before that, we were still trying to finish off leftover casseroles and foods prepared over the grill, skillets of hash browns that were going soggy in a powerless freezer, meat we had to use or lose.

Large groups of shoppers talk excitedly about their experiences, joyful to be alive and see some semblance of normalcy return.

The traffic lights are working on this side of town, and the lines for gas are down to only two deep per pump. All the fast food places seem to be up and running a booming business.

We are still glued to the Hurricane Ike Aftermath on the TV, now that we have power, and the radio before, our lifeline to the world outside our door. Kids haven't had school all week and I was told not to return to work until further notice. This day, 1.3 million Centerpoint customers are still without power. Overall, the reporters say it may be close to 3 million still in the dark, without A/C or ice.

We are adding words to our cultural lexicon, things like "FEMA pods" and "LED lanterns". People are finding that camping skills come in handy, and sometimes flattened fences open boundaries with their neighbors. Generators are in short supply.

And meanwhile, we are all in suspense, waiting. Waiting for friends to call us and let us know they are okay. Waiting to see people come back online, on forums and networking sites. Waiting to go back to work, to school. Waiting to not talk about Ike anymore.

Waiting for life to be "normal" again.

WALLYWORLD WONDERLAND

Scene: Wal-Mart, surburbs of Houston, 10:45 pm,

Less than 48 hours before Hurricane Ike's projected landfall.

Feels like a third world country. Entire bread aisle stands empty. Stockers bring out towers of bread from the back and don't even bother putting it on the shelf. Shoppers are grabbing loaves and big bags of bagels straight from the racks.

There is no fruit left except a handful of plums, which one woman looks through languidly.

Beer aisle is completely disintegrated into wide white shelves upon which rest orphaned cans and dismantled cases.

Canned vegetables rest on their sides, rolled over from giant stacks that stand no more. Mixed peas and carrots give shoppers the hairy eyeball from their side profile. Soup cans have been carelessly flung about, in random order on the shelves.

Shoppers walk by, most in groups, with frozen faces and wandering eyes, huge pallets of bottled water stacked high on their carts. Bags of chips, dip, crackers, pretzels and cookies beckon from the side "special" aisles.

Dairy section stands untouched, the lower caste of the nonperishable item rush. Frozen section stands lonely and ignored.

Mothers look through cheese and lunch meat sections as young folks grab for hot dogs and great rolls of sausages. Entire cases of tuna are elusive, only seen in rare shoppers carts. There are exactly two packages of beef jerky left. Nuts and trail mix are surpised to find themselves still standing.

The only size batteries left standing are the C's, who feel unwanted. Duct tape has become extinct.

Large groups of shoppers mill restlessly in long check out lines, too tired to make small talk.

Beep...Beep...Beep...Beep... is the only sound we hear in this long dark night, waiting.

Waiting for Ike.