A Different Aim

It’s been a weekend of Events for me. Saturday, I went to an Event to celebrate both a milestone and the anniversary of a caching couple. Toward the end, a few cachers and I (specifically Kittydcota, Krissy4884, and friend of the blog Razorbackgirl) popped away to grab a few caches in a nearby cemetery. This ended up being important because we returned to the Event site to find it closed and most of our cars locked insider the gated grounds. I ended up climbing the fence to get to my car, and when I approached the gate, it opened for everyone else to get their vehicles. I don’t think this was “breaking,” but it was definitely “entering” (though for a good cause). Don’t make our mistake: check the hours of the venue before leaving, especially if it locks up. Nobody expected a winery/brewery to close before sunset on the weekend.

Sunday, I went out to Lampasas to attend an Event with a more specific goal. Organized by The Outlaw, a bunch of us went out not to find caches but to place them. Most of the cachers who had previously lived in the area had either moved or passed away, leaving only a couple of cachers and a dwindling number of caches to find. We went out to rectify that by placing simple, beginner-friendly caches. Unexpectedly, we were joined by a Washington cacher visiting family in the area! After spending a little time jawing and then planning which areas of town to hit, we split into our cars and headed out to make placements.

Several of us crossed paths. I was partially involved in the discovery of one unpublished cache in the morning. I then went off on my own to place mine once I found the right tree. Most people came intending to drop multiple caches all about, but I only intended one. I had been planning a Traditional night cache (actually, a couple of them, but that’s not important right now) for a while, and I decided to go ahead and place it just north of the town. Because I sometimes suffer from the supervillain flaw of being unable to resist explaining how clever I am, it’s a bison with glow-in-the-dark paint applied to it. During the day, it absorbs sunlight and as it grows dark, it glows for quite a while. Of course, if you hit it with a UV light, it glows almost brightly enough to read by. Oh, and did I mention there were fourteen other doodads, each about the same size as a bison and sprayed with the same paint, hanging in the same tree? Once I hung everything in the right place, I headed back into town, stopping at the courthouse I had previously visited so long ago.

I had to be back in Austin and was going to be leaving earlier than everyone else, but it turned out that I didn’t have to be back as early as I thought, so I hooked up with The Outlaw and rolled with him, Moosiegirl, and local resident Adventurekid82 as they placed a Whereigo and scouted out murals for Multi-caches. I took some of that time to write the cache page for my night cache and submit it for approval. Of course, all the cars exchanged scuttlebutt on our various activities. One car placed several caches around a local sculpture park. One car placed about fifty caches along the roads around town. The final car (the one containing the actual geologist) not only placed thirty, but also submitted an EarthCache based on the difference between mesas and buttes. In comparison, I personally was a slacker, but it wasn’t a competition. We all created something new for those who we hope will follow after us.

And, of course, we ended the day by stuffing food in our faces and discussing the day! Isn’t that how every caching adventure usually ends?