THE MYSTERY OF HISTORY
each time you'd pull down the driveway i wasn't sure when i would see you again...
On a rainy and wet Friday the thirteenth, the four of us are cruising on into Galveston. Come in on the far end of the seawall, working our way west along the strips of restaurants, hotels, and surf shops. Camper trailers lined the parking spaces along the edge of the seawall. This was a sight previously unseen in Galveston, hard hit by hurricane of late.
yours was a twisted blind-sided highway no matter which road you took then

We were headed for a little place we call "just past reality". See, what you do is you drive down the seawall until you come to an odd little tollbooth in the middle of nowhere. You go on past the tollboth, over the bridge, and drive until you are just past reality, then hang a left and find a beach....

This is what we remembered, three of us girls. Trips out here with boys of significance. A bonding voyage. Pomagranetes, cintronella candles, incense and wine. Now we have grown up concerns and turn to each other in the wildness of nature and the rolling surf.

oh you set up your place in my thoughts moved in and made my thinking crowded

These girls I have known and loved for years. I remember befriending Pegah when I saw other girls, my friends at the time, bullying her. They called her a liar, and a theif, and I wanted to get to know her, because that must have been difficult to deal with, especially when you feel alone. That was eighteen years ago. 1991. I know she is none of those things. She is one of the most genuinely sweet people I have ever met. And just gorgeous.

Lara I had met on the cross country team that same year, or maybe '92. We had several random moments together in high school and the start of college. We lived in the same town while in college and our paths crossed only right at the beginning and right at the end. Then we split for opposite coasts. We both returned home, and ran into each other at the Wal-Mart I frequent some four or five years ago. We've been inseperable ever since, and I love her dearly more each day.

Jennifer is my "sister", my "live in liver", and has been a constant friend since we met at the beginning of college, when we were twenty. She has always understood me best of anyone I knew. In our early twenties, we lived together.

When I was home from college on the weekends, I partied with Pegah. We were all about the nightclubs. Jennifer and I were off on a hippie trip back in College Station. I still had the beaded curtain when I moved off to California...and I had it this night, in my pack...

now we're out in the back with the barking dogs

My big plan was to pull out the curtain and we could use it to draw ourselves a circle of stars, in which we would sit and join together in our mutual energies to help each other. Pegah was going through a rough time, and we've always had those kind of dark energies in our life. We were there to help her, and help each other.

We expected things to be different in Galveston, considering the damage from Hurricane Ike. As we drove west and started to leave "reality" behind, the beach houses looked washed clean to me. They were structurally sound and seemed to be smiling in the light. Jennifer had a completely different perspective, though.

We made a stop at some very odd area just before the bridge, and the toll booth we remember. It was a long walk down a pier that just ended with open hanging ends on both sides, about a six foot drop to the sand below (I was going to attempt to do an earthcache there in the dark). As we turned back, Jennifer talked about how spooky this place was, and we were all a little creeped out when we got in the car.

Then we drove over the bridge, a long trip in misty fog, and hit a "Road Closed" sign. We couldn't get "Just Past Reality" because the road no longer existed. We all kept our eyes peeled for any "Ike Zombies" out there. We were certain they were hiding behind the sand dunes.

Finally we found a secluded beach on which to lay our blanket. Lara had brought the wood, and Jennifer made the fire, with her little headlight on and looking all "Jibber". Jennifer hustled that fire, all eight months preggy, and wasn't afraid to bust that baby belly out when the cops showed up...three times. Four different cars. The first time, I was pulling up my shorts, having been in the process of changing. He drove right up and told us the neighbors would call to complain about the fire. The second and third were buddies, and when Pegah and I got up the nerve to go talk to them, they were laughing and telling us to go on back, we were cool, they talked to the first guy, and now were just hanging out there. Then Pegah and I disagreed the whole way back on if they were saying we could or couldn't have a fire. We just didn't see it the same way.

my heart the red sun

When we were finally settled, Pegah and Lara went to check out the water. Pegah was in her element, I understand. Jennifer and I sat on the blanket together and started singing songs. We were singing old school shit, back from when we first started hanging out, songs from our adolescent youth. We both had a latent Indigo Girls stage. We sang our favorite, "Ghost", then made our way to Simon and Garfunkel, "Homeward Bound," a round of "Romeo and Juliet". She looked so beautiful and "her self" in the moment, and I wondered at how amazing it was that we could still connect like this. How many years we've been singing the same songs.

I ask her what she wants to sing next, and she thinks.

Then she turns to me and says, "What about Mystery?"

It's a song from an Indigo Girls album from 1994, the one I listened to so much freshman year of college, around the time I met her. It is one I can't remember off hand, but know I sing along when it is on.

So she starts it....(lyrics throughout, bold italic)

your heart the moon clouded

When the girls came back, we sat around the fire for a little bit. Lara and I went out to the water. The moon hid behind clouds and peeked out every so often. We waited for it. Lara swore it was beautiful. Meanwhile, the waves kept coming. The shadows of the night air were caught underneath the curl of the foam, and I kept expecting the shadows to continue once the water hit the land, hit the groud running, but they never did, and it was catching me off balance. It was freaking me out. The moon came out from behind the cloud, and I tried to record forever the image of it shining over the waters with the shadows that kept coming, but the camera is in imperfect visual recorder. To the left is how the picture turned out. A blank nothing. Only space held together with little flecks of light. With the flash, it is not much better, filled with "orbs" or some such shit.

I could go crazy on a night like tonight

I pulled out the star curtain, which turned out to be a mess we had to unravel. Meanwhile, another cop pulled up, and shone his lights on us. I was getting freaked out because I kept saying we were going to put the fire out, but Pegah was insistent on keeping the fire going. I kept pouring our water on it when the cops showed up. It is just like us, with me trying to put on the pretense of obeying the rules and her rebelling.

when summer's beginning to give up her fight

But it was the fire that wouldn't die, and in the end, only finished with Jennifer wetting the coals, then covering it with wet sand. And during our time there, we shared energy, passed along affirmations, both for ourselves and for each other, and set goals for the beginning of the new moon, a new phase, a time of growth and new beginnings.

and every thought's a possibility

Together, my friends and I, we dreamed dreams. We shed inhibitions. We talked about what makes us most vulnerable, and how to combat it. We called to the guardians of the watchtowers, and we bid them hail and farewell. I shall never forget the waving arms of four beautiful women wishing away the spirits of the night.

and voices are heard but nothing is seen

And in the end, we battled the sleep monster while driving back to the hotel through the fog of forgotten dreams and reconfirmed visions. We looked around the town for a place to get Jennifer a snack, but all we got for our large circle was to end up back at the beginning, at an Exxon station.

why do you spend this time with me maybe an equal mystery
Most of my friends know how I lament the loss of friendships. Why? I always wonder. How can you be friends with someone for any length of time and then just let that go? I understand that people change, but underneath it all, aren't we still the same people we have always been? Perhaps, though, the bigger mystery is not why friendships end, but why they don't. People don't change, but they evolve, and continuing to maintain friendships involves work, and dedication, and understanding. It involves trust that the person you have evolved into is still someone the old friend can respect and love. In the face of changing life situations, religious beliefs, moral viewpoints, education levels, interests, family changes, children, spouses, how is it that fifteen years later, we can be sitting on the same beach singing the same songs we know by heart as we did when we met?

But I still believe in the importance of history. That's why I hang on. It's like hanging on to it makes it real.

so what is love then

is it dictated or chosen

does it sing like the hymns of 1000 years

or is it just pop emotion

and if it ever was here and it left,

does it mean it was never true ,

and to exist it must elude,

is that why i think these things of you ?

And I am glad we had this night. I will have that image etched in my mind always of Jennifer's singing face in the moonlight, of the feel of the firm beach beneath my body, the incredible feeling of peace when we all closed our eyes and held our minds open to the night, releasing all the negativity pent up inside, of Lara's hair shining with mist in the moonlight.

but i could go crazy on a night like tonight when summer's beginning to give up her fight and every thought's a possibility and voices are heard but nothing is seen why do you spend this time with me maybe an equal mystery

...................................................

oh but you like the taste of danger

We had little bites from sand fleas or something akin when we got back to the hotel, dirty and dusty and dog-gone tired. I think I was snoring before Jennifer and Lara got done with showers. I am so sad we didn't get to sample the liquor Pegah brought from home that I had chilled. I didn't want to bring it to the beach because I had a bag full of candle holders and was afraid it would break. Maybe I was afraid to be responsible for something so fragile.

it shines like sugar on your lips

In the morning, we went down to get some breakfast. It was all too sweet for Jennifer, who has to watch her sugar. As we ate, she decided to see if having a piece of toast with peanut butter would work for her. I don't think it worked out that way. We drove down the seawall going back towards the Strand, and saw people outside everywhere in green and black hats, pulling carts of beads down the sidewalks, climbing out of camp trailers.

and you like to stand in the line of fire just to show you can shoot straight from your hip

Mardi Gras Galveston was about to kick off with the parade on a chilly and misty Saturday morning. We saw the floats as they pulled into position as we drove out into the residential area.

As we drove through the Galveston area, we saw some places that were still badly damaged. Some places that would never reopen. Some were vestiges of Galveston's heyday, like the Flagship Hotel, right off the water.

In the end, I felt like this place had been through a trial by fire, and had come out on the other side stronger. I had told the girls a story I read on the geocaching logs for nearby caches, a story about a man and a woman surviving the storm by clinging to the rafters of their attic. That's bravery, or insanity. I can't imagine risking your life to stay with your home during that storm.

there must be a 1000 things you would die for

i can hardly think of two

but not everything is better spoken aloud

not when i'm talking to you

On our way out of town, we answered some questions for a couple of virtual caches. One was at the Bishop's Palace, which to me looked the same as it did before the storm, except cleaner and maybe with a couple broken windows. The other led us to the ruins of the pirate Jean Lafitte's house, called "Maison Rouge" in its time. Lafitte was asked to leave the US, and fled to the Yucatan. Now his once grand house, with lots of booty, was a few crumbling concrete slabs with a little wild garden of vines running through it. A house nearby had a shed slung carelessly over the fence. The winds of change had certainly bounced things around.

oh the pirate gets the ship and the girl tonight

breaks a bottle to christen her

basking in the exploits of her thief

she's a very good listener

And somehow that makes me think of ourselves, much older than we used to be when we haunted these same parts. I think of Jennifer as a little girl coming here to visit her grandmother. To her, the city is irrevokably changed.

To me, it looks like a stronger version of its former self, maybe with some signs of past distress still, but railing, sallying forth, pushing into a future unknown.

Kind of like us women.

and maybe that's all that we need

is to meet in the middle of impossibility

standing at opposite poles

equal partners in a mystery

we're standing at opposite poles

equal partners in a mystery

ADVENTURES IN CACHING
Austin (Part 3)
This day was not that productive in terms of geocaching. It had a lot to do with children not wanting to get up in the morning. I didn't get them out of the hotel until after nine. We had plans to go straight to Diane's house, an old friend I have reconnected with over Facebook. She and her husband just bought a house on the north side of town, and invited us over for blueberry pancakes and poached pears this morning.
In typical fashion, I was late and harried, and the children were all over the place. I really wanted to get deeper into a conversation Diane, Geoff, Carrie and I were having about art, legacy, and humanity, but the children were making it very difficult. They had found the hole in her backyard fence and were trying to turn the gas pipe into a gun.
So we left, and headed first to Wooten Park to find a cache and play on the playground, and then to an area I had been eyeing on the map, Covert Park, or the Mount Bonnell. This summit was tucked back in a neighborhood with nice houses, big hills, and nice views, and is where I imagined the Hollywood stars who come to Austin have their houses.
It was a short hike (0.15 from the trailhead or thereabouts) up a rocky trail that led to a summit and overlook area. The summit was a virtual cache, and there was a traditional cache off a side trail. The children kept wanting to walk closer to the edge, in typical fashion. The oldest one walks right into danger and the little one follows him. It's a pattern I'd like stopped.
However, the view was very appealing. We liked looking down at the houses below. We kept getting surprised with how grand and impressive they were. All had cute little boathouses built on the waters edge, with shiny fancy boats bobbing around inside. In our minds, we imagined living inside a house like that, or what the people were liked that lived there, or how fun it would be to be riding those boats. We watched the boats zip by and imagined the fun in luxury.
After this two cache adventure, we took a trail shortcut that took us right to where our truck was parked, but on a higher terrain level. As I debating on who to send first down the rocky edge at the last six feet or so, a woman I had seen picnicking earlier offered to help me, and helped hoist Kaleb down, which made things a lot easier for me. This offering of kindness from a stranger really touched me.
Then we started making our way back to Camp Mabry to exchange vehicles with my husband, but on the way, realized we were close to another geocache I really wanted to get. This one was called "Art Star" and was at the Laguna Gloria art museum.
It was a very interesting place. We walked from a studio down a paved trail along a large body of water - a cove of some sort. The local flora was more like Florida than Texas, all large-leaved wet plants and a general mugginess. This may just have been the impending rain and resulting moisture. Lights were strung along trees and over benches decorated in whimsical artistic fashion.
The little one was starting to get tired, and of course asked to be carried the whole way (which, at about 0.30 mile round trip walk over varied terrain, was not something I enjoyed nor would constantly do, which led to meltdowns).
We eneded up in a grassy area surrounded by woods. In the middle of the grassy area stood this piece.
The cache page suggested you bring a piece of art to trade in the cache, and we had brought some drawings done in colored pencil by the boys while we were at Diane's. In the end, we decided not to trade our drawings. We took a back way out, which led to the rear of the main house, with statues surrounding a waterfall. I really enjoyed the scenery around here and would have enjoyed the whole thing more if the toddler hadn't been clinging to me the whole time.
After this, I had some kind of meltdown when my husband and I traded out cars. I was hormonal, tired, hungry, irritated, lost, confused, and generally stressed out. I did feel better after having a cry about it.
After that, we ended up at a park that no one wanted to leave. It was just a small playground area with a cache nearby, and a limestone kiln to look at and check out. However, despite being a diminutive area, it helped calm down our trip in powerful ways.
After this, we drove around Austin one more time. There were many, many caches to be gotten, but I didn't feel like doing any of the, and we checked out the river from near the Congress Street bridge before moving out, doing a few little cultural type geocaches on the way out of town. There was an ABC Challenge going on in Central Austin and we did some recently placed in a cemetary involving the rare letters of "Y" and "X".
Heading out of Austin back towards Spring, we managed to find several more short quick geocaches, bringing the day's total to 13. A decent number, but nothing compared to the find counts of some of those at the top of the game. Thirty for our trip, though, which brought us ahead a couple notches on the geocacher rankings. We saw a lot of cool places we never knew about, and experienced the town and surrounding areas while here geocaching, and it is something I would do again and again.

TEXAS MEMORIAL MUSEUM

ADVENTURES IN CACHING
Austin (Part 2)
It's midday on a Saturday in Austin, and the weather is just right. It is right around seventy five, with a light breeze blowing, slightly overcast. Most importantly, not humid, and that is what makes it perfect Texas weather. The summers are like a warm blanket heavy across your chest, but spring days are lovely.
We've found four caches, which is not a good amount, seeing as how we've been driving around since eight. We also stopped at the Texas Memorial Museum, an Austin tradition of ours. This museum is right along the edge of the campus of the University of Texas. On weekends like this, both parking and museum admission is free, and it has some of the coolest dinosaur bones ever. This is right up the oldest son's alley, who is an amateur paleontologist. We also walk by a statue of galloping mustangs, which appeals to the youngest son and I who share a love for horses.

In between the horse statue and the museum exhibit of glass encased Texas dinosaur footprints from the Jurassic period lies a geocache called Texas Travel Bug University Part Deux. I've actually been to it three or four times now, to exchange traveling items (like this day, when I exchanged one travel bug for antoher). It is a quick trail into a wooded area that is just mere steps from the bone-shaped benches for children. We've been to the museum many times now, but previously had not viewed the Hall of Texas Wildlife. That was interesting.

After this, we had made it over to a gourmet coffeeshop (Jimmy John's) just off MLK near campus. We listened to cellar music as we ate our fancy sandwiches, chips, and lemonade. After lunch, it was time to get serious about caching. We headed straight for the Capitol, where the top picture was shot. There were several virtuals in the area regarding Texas history. We went to various statues and answered questions, such as "How long is the Great Walk?" The boys loved the cannons in the fields around, and in fact little K had a temper tantrum after having to leave one, to go to this statue (which was not a virtual geocache, but simply something that caught my eye):

We also found interesting areas of town, things we had never noticed before. We were headed down Barton Springs towards Zilker Park and found this random piece of art:
The Beer Tree. Go figure.

Finally, we made it into the park, and managed to find the perfect parking spot for our next adventure (which wasn't hard, since it was in the very back of the lot for Barton Springs).We walked about three hundred feet northwest up a little rocky trail across the street from the parking lot, and on the left of the trial, we found a geocache that contained a thermometer, a thermometer which we were going to use to perform the next steps of the earthcache located at Barton Springs, The Limestone Manifold. Centex geocachers voted it the Best Earthcache in 2007.

We had to take the thermometer over to the Barton Springs swimming area and take the temperature of the water. We had to submit photos of us performing that task, and also of the result. In addition, we needed to post photos of us at this plaque about the Springs, and answer a question about the aquifer that required some critical thinking skills.

I was excited to get this cache. I have wanted to get this one for a long time but never had the time or patience. It was a struggle this day nonetheless. AJ was extremely devoted to a "lab" task inside the cave-like "Splash" exhibit attached to the Springs. Kaleb really would rather us have gone to the playground. Basically, though, they were pretty good guys.

Some lady offered to take the picture and then told AJ she was a teacher, and she wanted to tell him he was a wonderful little man who would go on to do great things one day. AJ replied, "I know", in an agreeable tone, and I found it hilarious. Kaleb walked up to a picnic table full of older people and asked them if he could sit with them. They, being mostly grandmotherly types, just thought he was the cutest thing, and we ended up chatting for a bit as Kaleb enjoyed their company.
Finally we got on the move again. After getting turned around and around chasing one cache I haven't been able to find a time or two led to the same fate (darn it! I needed that E, too, for this ABC Challenge they are having in Central Texas. Right now I have 15 of 26, after the 30 finds this weekend. Almost ALL the caches I found on Saturday began with T. Like this cache).Oh man, and then we ended up on the "Lower East Side", and where Sixth Street turns into Pecan Street, with nods to historical interests. We ended up in the Texas State Cemetary, where we have to answer questions regarding the graves and memorials to different heros in Texas History. For instance, we had to name the four adjectives used on the headstone to describe this guy:

Around this time, K fell asleep and A was whining to go back to the hotel room. After a few more random gropings of the wilderness and art objects in the lower east side, we made it back to the hotel.
Our total for the day was 17 caches. This was a pretty good number, although not our highest day. We did have lots of stops and really spent time at each cache.
I considered it a Good Day.
The free margaritas that evening were a nice topping. Next time, day two....

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.

AND THE BEAT GOES ON....
To continue with my occasional riffs on Beat Generation books, and my quest to re-read all of the "Dulouz Legend", I have another book review to share with you....
DHARMA BUMS
by Jack Kerouac

Ahhhh. Very nice. I loved this book.
I actually read this the first time when I was a teenager, but I think I didn't absorb it completely. I couldn't remember many of the details, and my memories were connected with two guys I knew in school that reminded me of the main characters. Perhaps it is just that during that time, my understanding was that they WERE characters, fictional devices used to tell a story about hiking up a mountain and hitchhiking. My knowledge of Kerouac's life is much more complete now, and now, half a lifetime later and reading it again, I understand. I see the character "Ray Smith" as Kerouac himself, telling a story centering around his friend, Gary Snyder(pictured above as he was at the time of the book), known as "Japhy Ryder" in the novel.
Now, granted, Kerouac always told a version of the truth, although probably not all the truth. He certainly made free use of poetic license. He also tended to base his characters on real people, who were "true romantic heroes of the West", but distorted them and blew them up so that what you are seeing is really a caricature, not a character.
Gary Snyder himself said at one point Dharma Bums was not Kerouac's best work, and that "it was written too hastily". It is true that Kerouac was under a lot of pressure from his editors to produce a book to follow up "On the Road" that had more commercial appeal than some of the other things he was working on at the time (like "Visions of Cody", which is a tough read, even for a Neal Cassady (aka "Cody") fan).
However, I really liked this book this time around. It has some of the best descriptions of natural beauty that I have read ever in a novel. He gives detailed descriptions of hikes taken with Snyder, including a climb up Matterhorn, that took my breath away. This is Kerouac laying the groundwork for the "rucksack revolution" he visualized, and probably inspired lots of young people to pick up packs and head for the open road and undiscovered vistas.
The book ends where "Desolation Angels" picks up, with Kerouac on an isolated mountain top in Washington called Desolation Peak (here in the pic). I found it very interesting to read this description of his adventure here, with him painting it in happy tones, instead of the depressing tones of "Desolation Angels". Instead of focusing on his loneliness and inner struggles, he describes the scenery and his place in it with happiness and peace.
Snyder certainly influenced Kerouac in terms of religion. Kerouac was already intrigued by Buddhism when he met Snyder, but here in this book, you see Snyder teaching him more about this religion that they both had in common at this time. Snyder was truly and deeply Buddhist, and teased Kerouac that at the end of his life, he would be praying to his Christian God, with all his notions of "little lamby Jesus", and that teasing was right on. Here in this book, though, they introduce several notions of Buddhism that may have inspired readers to learn more about eastern religions themselves.
Overall, I decided that this was the ONE book I would ask my husband to read. We have been married for ten years and he does not read or have any interest in hearing about the books that mean so much to me, but he told me early in our marriage that he would read ONE book that I selected and talk about it with me. Ten years later, I still had not found that one book that summed up everything I liked about reading.
Well, folks, this one is it.

DOWN THE REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

This weekend, my best girlfriends and I met at a lovely Greek restaurant. We watched the sun set over downtown in a cozy little booth eating hummus. Then our group of two became four and we connected from across wooden tables. I was dragging my friends out to see "Revolutionary Road", which apparently is only playing at the LandMark River Oaks theater in the greater Houston area at this time. Remarkable.

The first show was sold out and the evening found us all united in laughter at a recording studio "in the ghetto", surrounding by interesting people. After this, we sipped hot cocoa in a cappucino bar, then sat in stuffy theater for sad story. There are no happy endings here.

I read this book and I wanted to discuss it with my friends. It was a very thought provoking novel. The movie, not so much. The truth is in the details, and it is difficult to analyze something without all the facts. Just watching the movie, you don't get the tiny little facts.

However, I still want to analyze. I will post viewpoints here.

The first two questions deal with choices and roads...

ADVENTURES IN CACHING

One Cache Loop (with Four Stops)

Sam Houston National Forest

Montgomery, Texas

On the Houston Geocaching Society Forums, the owner of a cache called One Cache Loop (with four stops) announced that he was planning on visiting his cache to do some maintenance, and asked if anyone was interested in coming along. This cache, like its predecessor, the Four Cache Loop, which I have written about, is best done with company. If you remember (or read), the Four Cache Loop is close to a twelve mile hike (with the stops for additional caches along the trail) in the forests near New Waverly. The hike to this cache, the One Cache Loop, is approximately seven miles long.

In both caches, one has to find three different redirectors (like the decon container pictured on right) at waypoints within the forest to be able to get to the final location, at which awaits an ammo box filled with fun stuff. The reward at the end of this journey is a pathtag, which is a little collectable (untrackable on gc.com) coin that many geocachers like to collect. There is also the intangible reward of accomplishing the hike and making all the finds.

I saw the posting on the forums and was undecided on going, until my friend Elisa, aka "Georeynozos", wrote me personally inviting me along. She even offered to pick me up. It is close to an hour drive out to the parking area for the beginning of the journey. This time, I did not get lost. In fact, I showed Elisa a shortcut on how to get out there. The parking area is not far from where my best friend J lives (and now that I know there are more caches out this way, you better bet I'll be dragging J out there with me).

Elisa sweetly even bought me breakfast, and we had a nice little drive out to the parking area, where we met up with GGMorton, Kirbydox, Fendmar, Eric of FiskFamily5, and eventually the cache owner and his wife. It was a brisk Texas winter morning, with the temperature around thirty five degrees at 9:30 ish when we all started to collect in the parking lot. We took a group shot before heading out along the trail, which was marked with colored metal tags. During the hike, we changed trails once, and briefly went along another color, so the color of the tags was important to us.

There are 128 miles of trails in the Lone Star Trail System. The loop we followed is known as the Richards Loop to hikers. Part of it was the Little Lake Creek Loop, and the picture of the White Jeep on the top of this entry is from what I assume is the "little lake". It is a good stop for a brief break.

During the hiking of the Four Cache Loop, I had felt a little "out of the loop" so to speak about how we knew where we were going. I didn't understand how to follow the trail markers or guide myself from waypoint to waypoint very well. This time, I decided I was going to make sure I understood it all, so I led the party to the first waypoint. I looked for the markers during the hike, and tried to find every redirector myself, instead of blindly following the others and letting them lead.

I had lots of energy for about the first half of the hike. I talked with the cachers as we walked, although to the first waypoint, we were almost hiking just fast enough to not be able to talk as much. During the hike, I learned that Larry, aka "HoustonControl", set up the cache in the opposite order as the Four Cache Loop in terms of how the redirectors were placed. In each of the two caches, one of the waypoints is up on a tree that has to be climbed by the use of pegs. Fendmar climbed that tree for us. Another redirector is placed so that it has to be lowered with the use of a rope, and another is simply hidden in/on a tree.

The terrain was somewhat varied, although not as much as the 4CL. There were three water crossings, compared to the, I don't know, 30 of so on the 4CL. I forgot my hiking stick and Elisa let me borrow one, which was greatly helpful in keeping a pace and my balance. This picture on the right is one of the water crossings. Elisa, who is known for falling down when caching, only fell down one time, which I totally missed and perhaps they were only teasing her about that after all.

We saw no wild animals, although we saw scat from a carnivore, possibly wild hog, and deer and horse. Even though the signs along the way marked the trail as off limits to horses (and cars, which we thought was funny, the idea someone might try that), we did see two sets of trail riders when we made it back to the parking lot. I think some of the trails are for equestrians and some are for hikers, but horses had gone our way before us for sure, although some time in the past.

In the end, I decided that long hikes like this are a bit like sex. It always starts out as something that seems like a good idea and exactly what you wanted, but by the end of it, I am just ready to get it over and done with. The last mile was probably the least enjoyable. By then, the spot on my toe that bothers me on long walks was just starting to hurt, and I was just about done with the scenery.

I did end up leaving one of my coveted White Jeeps in the final. I thought it would make a fun thing for someone else to find, a great reward for making the long trek. Also, having that awesome icon next to the cache name is a good lure for some folks like me who love that kind of stuff, and will go find caches just to be able to move that Jeep themselves.

I kind of got caught up at the final. I had this idea that I could make it out of the brush and back to the trail a different way than the rest of the group took. Halfway in, I realized they were getting further away, and frantically I went back the direction they were instead of the way I was going. It is hard to explain what I did, but I still think my way would have hit the trail later, only I didn't want to chance it. This little adventure of mine put me way behind the others at the end, and although I was the first one out the gate, I was the last one to go back through it.

When I got home later and posted on Facebook where I had been, some non-geocaching friends expressed an interest in going hiking. I am going to plan an all-inclusive hike for people like me and my friends, who just want to get out and get some exercise, enjoying nature while doing so.

This next time, though, I am thinking about keeping it to around five miles. I think that sounds better!

I had a really nice time with this group. Eight is a perfect number for a hike like this. We made the whole trek in about three hours. At the end, Kirbydox pulled out a wonderful snack she had prepared for us all of toasted english muffins with chicken salad (with cranberries, golden raisins, and celery) and chips. It was really awesome of her, above and beyond. I also got to catch up with Elisa on the ride there and back, and somewhat along the trail as well. My friends I have met through this activity are just really good and interesting people.

Here is us at the end, just after finding the ammo can. Happiness is only a quarter of a mile away now (the end of the hike, our cars, and refreshments!).

ADVENTURES IN CACHING

George Mitchell Nature Preserve

The Woodlands, TX

This day, I met up with two girlfriends to go for a walk in the George Mitchell Nature Preserve. This 1700 acre nature preserve out in the Woodlands was opened officially in October of 2007. At that time, there was only a one mile round trip trail along the trailhead parking that we used today. Since then, another two mile loop has been added on the other side of the creek, accessible by another trailhead. Numerous little trails have been opened up along both creek sides, and volunteers from the parks department have built a new bike trail, as well as maintained the trails since Hurricane Ike did so much forest damage.

My friends who joined me today are not geocachers, but one of them goes caching with me fairly regularly. She is frequently willing to go out to explore nature or walk our dogs together. We brought both her dogs and both mine, putting us at probably three hundred pounds of dogpower between us.

Early along our walk, I convinced her to let her dogs run off leash, as I wanted to let mine loose. My dogs like to explore nature at their own pace, and always come back when called and to "check in" frequently, and I know her dogs well enough to say they will stick with mine. This way we could enjoy our walk more thoroughly without being hampered by excited dogs. There was no one else out on the trail this brisk afternoon; otherwise, I wouldn't have suggested it. My dogs only need leashes in the wilderness to appease other people who feel uncomfortable with large dogs running loose. I have total trust in the fact that they will always come back when called, and will stay within earshot. If they run ahead on the trail and I lose a visual, I just holler for them to "wait" and they always stop and turn back to look at me, as if to say "well, then hurry already!"

They especially like swimming in creeks. Here are my dogs exploring the waters of Spring Creek. One of the two caches we were after today had sort of an interesting first couple of days. Typically, caches around here are found within the first 24 hours, no matter what the difficulty/terrain rating is (this one is a 2/2). This one, Knarly, was published January 7 and gave people fits. Here are the notes back and forth on the cache page. See if you can figure out what happened (now, mind you, the cache page states it is right off the trail, and gives parking coords...for the north trailhead):

January 8 by Team Troglodyte (2856 found)I spent about and hour wandering around the pleasant trails in the preserve looking for the one that this cache might be "just off of." The closest point I could find was about .21 from the cache, and the terrain was very inhospitable appearing. I applied my theory of "if it's that hard, it's probably not the way." and decided to keep looking. Finally ran out of time and abandoned the hunt. When I get a chance I'll be back with more time and/or a bicycle.

January 8 by HuntersKeepers (468 found)My apologies to Team Troglodyte!!!! I put the wrong parking coordinate in when I set up the cache. You were on the wrong side of Spring Creek.

January 8 by Team Troglodyte (2856 found)So, attempt number two goes down in flames with me standing 220' from the cache on the wrong side of the creek. I should have trusted my mapping software which was showing the cache on the other side. Upon returning home to log this failed attempt, I found that the parking coordinates were incorrect. Hopefully the third try will be the charm.

January 8 by rchaag (36 found)LOL, I was on the wrong side as well. Was trying to figure out if the trail had been extended past the creek.

January 8 by HuntersKeepers (468 found)I guess I could have left the wrong parking coordinates and just increased the difficulty of the cache to about 4 1/2. I'm just trying to help everyone's New Year's resolutions of getting more exercise.

January 9 by Nathan_Texas_Taylor (88 found) FTF!! Looked a while before spotting it. T-TB L-TB

January 9 by Team Troglodyte (2856 found)This cache is getting to be my nemesis. Looked for about 15 minutes before throwing in the towel. It was particularly annoying, knowing that it just been found minutes before. On the way out, I re read the cache page and noticed it was a small - for some reason I was thinking ammo box, but it still should have turned up.
In any event, I had the pleasure of meeting Nathan_Texas_Taylor while en route to GZ.

So, after all that, poor old Team Trog gets pounced by a newbie! And, after all that, the cache page still lists the parking coordinates on the north side. However, I could see from looking at these logs, and knowing which caches these same people had hit in the preserve on those days, that the parking lot listed would not get me on the right side of the creek. Hence, we chose the south trailhead today, and were successful. It was about 0.80 miles back along the trails from parking.

Before we found it, though, we made a stop at a cache called The PileUp. Before today's logs, this one only had a 50% found ratio. It was five for five on finds/did not finds. I had previously dismissed it on another caching adventure out on this side of the preserve, but the cache owner recently updated the hint and then a newbie found it, so I figured I could certainly find it.

It is an ingenious hide and I certainly don't want to give it away to any local cachers who read this blog. I almost didn't find it myself but 1) I was determined to find it, since every time I try to show one of the other girls I am with about caching, I can never find the darn things and 2) I had a moment of insight when I saw something just a little...different...

So, two caches, a nice walk outside in a peaceful nature environment, some good conversation, and a chance to let the dogs burn off some energy made for a relaxing spot of time in the day. After this, they followed me to a park in the same area for a quick park and grab style cache near some shady benches, and then it was home again. This bit of peace that I find on walks like this is what helps me through times of stress during the weekdays.

Amy Ray - Measure Of Me

This song reminds me of a "friend". For those unfamiliar with Amy Ray, she is one half of the Indigo Girls, my favorite band for about half my life now. She has gone on a solo adventure and I am loving it.

JEEP RESURRECTION

So I am on gc.com looking at the list of Yellow Jeeps out there, and something strikes me as odd. One particular cacher has his hands on a lot of Jeeps. Jeep hoarding happens, but the weird thing is many of the Jeeps are listed as having 0 miles on them, and some of them are listed as dropped by him, which means he's not just hanging on to them. I go to where the Jeeps were "dropped" and they are not events, so it is not that the Jeeps are just being shown off at events. They are actually being moved. One of the places the Jeeps were dropped is called Jeep Paint and Body Shop. The Paint and Body Shop I can't look at because it "hasn't been published yet" - (is this how people have "home" caches? I could never figure out how to do that before but I think I am on to something....).

I don't know, I am curious, so I write the cacher and ask him what the deal is. This is what he writes back:

"I, and others, search for jeep tracking #s to find jeeps that have been lost, stolen, or just being hoarded by cachers. When we find a tracking #, off to wal-mart we go and buy us a matchbox jeep, make up a TB tag and send the jeep on its way....(he then explains the process for getting the tracking numbers, which I don't want to post here) I find it interesting and a thrill when I find a jeep that has not been placed into service. I claim it as a find and stick it in my paint shop. From there, I’ll search the stores for a toy jeep, paint it if necessary, attach a made up TB ID tag and put it on the geocaching road....

Something about jeeps will turn an honest cacher into a thief....

.....I’ve had a few people say that when I put out counterfeits, It takes the thrill away from finding a real Jeep. I just refer them to my cache “Yellow Jeep Hangout”. Good luck and happy caching. "

So, basically he has a system for finding tracking numbers from Jeeps that fell out of circulation, and then gives them new life.

Technically, the Jeep TBs belong to Chrysler, who probably doesn't care what happens to them after the contest is over. It's not like someone's personal TB that has the ID number hacked. I don't know, I am sure people could interpret this any way they want. Is it legal? Is it moral? What do you think?

Personally, I think it is ingenius. I like the idea that someone else likes Jeeps this much, and will go out of their way to put them back out in the geocaching community when they get lost, stolen, or otherwise disappear.

It's a Jeep Resurrection! Now that he explained his process, heck, maybe I'll give it a try....or at least try to find that Yellow Jeep Hangout next time I'm out near Dallas!

Beep Beep! A Tale of Two Jeeps

For four years (2004-2007), Jeep Chrysler ran a promotional campaign involving geocaching and photography. During the months of the contest, which usually ran for half the year, the company released small model Jeeps attached to special travel bug tags. If you found one of the Jeep bugs, you could use it to enter the contest by taking a picture with the Jeep involving that month's theme. Typically, the monthly winners won a free GPS unit, and the overall winner won a brand new Jeep of the model featured in the contest.
They decided not to do the contest anymore, which is slightly disappointing to me, because I was always watching for those Jeeps, taking pics, and trying to win the contest. However, the Jeep Tbs are still in circulation. The most numerous are the 2007 Red Jeeps, then the Green Jeeps from 2006, and more rare are the Yellow Jeeps from 2004 and the most elusive of all are the White Jeeps from 2005, a larger die cast model of the Rubicon. (For accuracy sake, I just checked the site again, and saw there are actually 93 Yellow and 96 White Jeeps left out in circulation, and I have less Yellows than Whites on my profile, but anyways...)
I have seen White Jeeps at events, but I have never seen one in a cache. I like to joke that they are "only found in captivity, never in the wild". Sometimes they are listed in one, but they are never to be found in one. There is a lot of disgruntled cachers out there who complain that some cachers are "Jeep hoarders" or "collectors", and hold on to them and simply take them from event to event, or never share them at all. Each of the Jeeps has it's own icon when logged, so they are more akin to geocoins than other travel bugs.
Well, at our annual White Elephant Gift Exchange event, the gift I ended up with was a wooden box filled with supplies to hide a new cache, and one of these rare White Jeeps. Each of these Jeeps were given names that year, and this one is called "Reynold". I was super excited. We looked online to see how many White Jeeps were actually in circulation still and the answer is only 96 of them. (For comparison, there were I think 4500 Green Jeeps and 5700 Red Jeeps released each of those years). I decided I wanted to hang on to this one just a little bit to enjoy it thoroughly, take some pictures, and show it off to other cachers at events.
Then, this week, something very odd happened. I found one in the wild! It was a total surprise. It was not logged into the cache, because the cacher had accidentally done the virtual drop into a different cache. I was out caching with one of my friends and our kids, and when she said "There's a White Jeep in it!" as she opened the cache, I was hoping she would let me hang on to it, and she did.
So now I have two, two White Jeeps! It is like the Holy Grail of geocaching travelers doubled! I think it is really neat. I've been scouting for photo ops and events to take them to for show, and thinking about where, in the end, I might finally leave them...