February is the worst

Mother Nature and my immune system have been giving me fits this month. Alexis and I are in recovery from a cold that’s been going around. She ended up with the worst of it. The weather is conspiring against us with snow, rain, and chilling winds. When I was young I would pray for snow, now it’s just the opposite. Despite it all we have managed to get out of the house and do some geocaching. On Saturday, we had a little adventure in a undeveloped area in McKinney. The parks department decided to put a paved trail in the middle of nowhere.
I’m assuming that they anticipate a neighborhood to spring up around it. We had a heck of a time trying to find parking as the trail doesn’t connect with the surrounding roads. Our final parking spot was at a nearby school which was within reasonable walking distance. Our walk to the trail led us past some abandoned farm buildings.
Then we crossed an overpass with rushing water underneath.
Unfortunately our trip only had a 50:50 success rate. We noticed that some of the trees and brush had been cut or simply removed. Despite the “Did Not Finds”, the trip was fun and we enjoyed ourselves.

I Need More Cache

Here’s another update of our geocaching adventures. On Sunday, we had a great time at a disk golf course, walking through nice country even though it wasn’t green. Out biggest obstacle of the day was mud due to recent rains, previously it has been thorns.

By the way, when I refer to “muggles”, I mean people who don’t know about geocaching. They might think we are up to no good.

1/9/2010 Barkin’ Up The Wrong Tree
Cold day out, but we decided to find this one anyway. Decided to log info about team member’s home town of Lubbock, since we live locally. Narrowly missed a trio of fellow geocachers by a few minutes as they were approaching GZ. Glad we didn’t spoil their turn to find it.

1/10/2010 Out for a Walk # 5
Took a bit more time then the other ones to find. Didn’t know there were two containers, until reading the logs, just now.

1/10/2010 Out for a Walk # 4
Started looking a bit farther off the trail then where we found it. The container was impressive.

1/10/2010 Out for a Walk # 3
We had to double back to get this one to avoid muggles. Hope the people in the houses weren’t watching. TFTC

1/10/2010 Marble Falls
Our GPSr was not being too helpful on this one. First approach of the location was blocked by thorns, but we managed to find the way around.

1/10/2010 Out for a Walk # 2
Nice hiding spot, but couldn’t grab this one at the time we found it, due to muggles. We grabbed it on the way back though.

1/10/2010 Rocket Park
Thorns were huge back near the cache. Snapped a few pics of the park before heading back to the trail.

1/10/2010 Out for a Walk # 1
Out walking our dog while geocaching, this one was nice to find without having to dodge thorns.

1/10/2010 Nuts II
We had fun finding this one despite GPSr placing us 30 feet from the container. Added a wobble hair duck.

We didn’t care much to watch the Cowboys and it was such a nice day out, so went geocaching through the park.

1/17/2010 Near Comegys Creek
We saw chew marks on the container and possibly the culprit hiding nearby. It was a squirrel trying to make himself invisible. He might be guarding the cache.

1/17/2010 The Search Inside
Our approach to this one was not the best. The cache was the first one that we have seen of this type so we got a kick out of it.

1/17/2010 Shortcut
Not where we thought this cache was going to be located. We really enjoyed the hike through the park.

1/17/2010 Nest
Found quickly after slogging through the mud to get to GZ. The log was wet so we placed it into a plastic baggy.

1/17/2010 Bottle Rocket
Tried to find the cache twice and just about missed it. The name surely matches the cache. Creative hiding spot.

1/17/2010 Pipe Tree
Found this one relatively easily. It seemed a bit exposed so we added a little bit more cover.

Geocache Update

Referring to the previous post, the geocaching website doesn’t show the log/profile even though it is suppose to be public. Instead it says you need to be logged in to see everything. I copied the log entries below for anyone who might be interested. I may make it a habit of posting these every ten finds along with a more detailed description for the more interesting ones.

1/1/2010 - We found Fawn Hollow
This was our first find and we almost gave up on it! The terrain was a bit more difficult than we were expecting. The ground was wet and covered in leaves.

1/1/2010 - We couldn’t find Still Holding Out
We weren’t able to find this one, but will try again soon.

1/2/2010 - We found Star Creek
Team’s first find of the day. Nice hiding spot. Tale tell signs of mud on the sidewalk gave a general clue.

1/2/2010 - We found W T D (Allen) # 5
Nice area, enjoyed finding this one. It was in the afternoon, j1mruby must have found it earlier in the day.

1/2/2010 - We found W T D (Allen) # 6
Our favorite of the series. Max, our four legged companion was very interested in the area, but didn’t see the critter.

1/2/2010 - We found W T D (Allen) # 4
We almost gave up on this one, found it on the way back out of the trail.

1/2/2010 - We found W T D (Allen) # 3
All sorts of places to hide this cache, took two tries like #4 in the series.

1/3/2010 - We found Are you sick of the Mormons Attacking??? (LP #21)
It was a pill bottle instead of a film canister. Found with relative ease if you know the usual hiding places.

1/3/2010 - We couldn’t find W T D (Allen) # 2
Went back today to do the caches on this trail south of Stacy after doing the ones north yesterday. Couldn’t find cache after spending about ten minutes on this one. Lots of holes containing who knows what. Just like j1mruby yesterday, didn’t find. Might wait until someone else verifies it’s there before trying again.

1/3/2010 - We found Retrieval 7
Went back today to do the caches on this trail south of Stacy after doing the ones north yesterday. It took some poking and prodding to extract. Team work definitely required on this one.

1/3/2010 - We found W T D (Allen) # 1
Went back today to do the caches on this trail south of Stacy after doing the ones north yesterday. We enjoyed the bit of seclusion this one was hidden in. It’s a nice bit of exploration.