As In The Days Of Blessed Memory

So, I should probably start at the beginning. I’ve written about some of this before, so you can skip the next paragraph if it’s already familiar.

There’s a challenge here in Texas called the I’ve Been Everywhere Challenge. Most of you have probably heard the Johnny Cash song (which is actually a cover of a Hank Snow song, which is actually an American version of an Australian song, but that’s not important right now). In the early 2000s, Brian Burns recorded a Texas version with ninety-one Texas towns and cities. Of course, someone made a challenge of it. The log for it lives along with the Texas County Challenge, so at one point, while I was at another person’s TCC signing, I signed I’ve Been Everywhere, thinking I would never complete it. I had already been all around Texas, so why do it again? I figured I had been to about forty of the towns and cities mentioned in the song, but hunting down some of those little towns would be a pain. Fast forward a few years to the present day. With the diktat from Groundspeak that challenges are required to have checkers, someone made one, and it turned out that I was missing just over thirty towns. I looked at the distribution: a couple of them were far south near Edinburg and Corpus Christi; a couple were in the Panhandle near Lubbock; and the rest clustered around Dallas–Fort Worth, Longview, or Houston. I realized this was quite doable, and after wrestling with my feelings about Big D, I decided to take up the challenge in earnest. That is why I got up earlyish on Saturday morning and started driving to Brenham, halfway between here and Houston.

My first stop was in the town of Round Top at a church cemetery (there always is one), where I was impressed to find an ammo can hidden against a rock wall. The chilly morning air filled my lungs as I cracked open the cache and signed the log. I also lingered for a moment to take in the view. Since I traditionally was (and, to an extent, still am) fixated on courthouses, it was less common for me to just take in the sight of the land around me unless it was exceptional. Having a short list of destinations for the day­—all relatively close to one another—meant I could dawdle and enjoy the rolling hills and farmland as I went along.

My second stop was in Mill Creek, on the outskirts of Brenham. While it was a lovely sunny day, it had rained a lot the night before, so most of my stops were marshy, though not thoroughly damp. But the cache in Mill Creek was on a bridge spanning a creek, so the water rushed beneath me, following gravity to the river that would lead it to the sea.  I’m sure it was with intentional irony that the cache was dedicated to a football player named Waters. As I pulled away from town, I noticed a nearby large cache. I can always use another large, so I followed the path to a barbeque joint. A couple of people were there, but they were preparing to open for lunch, so they paid me no mind as I walked around to the back.

I can’t say for sure if it was a large, but I thought it was good enough! The hint provided the combination, so it was easy enough to reveal the hidden bounties. I took a few moments to pull out a trackable that had been languishing there for months despite the many visitors the cache had received. The least I could do was put it somewhere more likely to help it move on its way.

In Somerville, I found myself in another cemetery, tackling a Multi for a reason I might not be able to talk about until after Texas Challenge in March. The good news was that the container was there. The bad news was that the nano was missing its top. I was impressed that the logbook was perfectly dry despite the rains the night before. I was also sad that I had not brought a spare nano with me. I should get back in the habit of carrying extra containers, but I also want to encourage COs to keep up with their own hides. In my log, I let the CO know the state of the cache, and I replaced it a few inches from where I found it, in a place more sheltered from the elements. I pulled up my next location, noticed something on the map I had missed before, and audibly sighed before I started driving east again.

I never intended to return to Grimes County, but that’s where Navasota is. I wasn’t entirely surprised to learn that it’s the Blues Capital of Texas, considering the town’s history, but I was surprised to learn that the cache I had chosen, a Multi at a library, was unavailable because the library was closed on Saturdays. Of all the days for a small-town library to be closed, Saturday has to be the dumbest. Kids are out of school! What a perfect time for family activities and programs! More importantly, what an ideal time for the cache to be available for passers-through! My second attempt was at a blues mural, but the cache had been noted as missing by a couple of cachers I know. I confirmed it missing when I couldn’t find it in the obvious place. I took a few minutes to do an Adventure Lab series and set off for another attempt to find a cache nearby.

I finally found one in my third cemetery of the day. I will note that this visit to Grimes County was better than the last. Navasota, while annoying from a weekend caching perspective, seemed an interesting place. But I’m not planning on going back. Though, I might. If I took anything from Navasota, it was that one should never say never. 

I continued on to my last official stop of the day in Prairie View, home of Prairie View A&M University, a historically Black university and alma mater of both my father and grandmother. There were no caches to be found on campus, which didn’t surprise me in the least. Honestly, I would have been impressed if there had been.

A couple of miles away, at a fire department substation, I found a key box on a metal fence post. It wasn’t easily retrieved because of the marshy ground unless you were cool with being ankle-deep in water. I was not cool with that, so I parked nearby in an apartment parking lot and scampered over via a drier route. With that, I was done with all official “work” for the day. I began heading back toward home, planning to stop in Brenham proper. On the outskirts of town… 

… I took a moment to stop at the Blue Bell Creamery. I couldn’t pass up a chance to find a cache at the home of the ice cream of my youth (though, for the record, I love Graeter’s out of Cincinnati, and I totally want to try Tillamook out of, well, Tillamook). Unfortunately, Blue Bell, too, is closed on Saturdays. I think that’s even dumber than the closed library, but since their raison d’etre isn’t serving the public, I assume they know what they’re doing. I don’t think the cache was there. The hint suggested something that must have either been removed or was locked inside. Either way, there was no joy for me. But there was an Adventure Lab location there, so I did it and then headed into town to finish the series after leaving a couple of trackables at a nearby birdhouse cache.

I was taken to an old friend as I finished the Lab series. A couple of the Lab locations talked about the city’s progressive firefighting measures, which stemmed from a fire blamed on Union soldiers in 1866. I took the representation of Philip Sheridan as a borderline tyrant in some of the plaques with a grain of salt. His view of Texas was well known, and no doubt both that opinion and his portrayal here stem from the frictions inherent in Reconstruction. That said, I’m mostly in Sheridan’s corner. Regardless, after walking around the square, I stopped for a late lunch and then headed out again toward home.

On the way, I stopped one last time in Giddings for one last cache. My old friend there was receiving some tender loving care, which is always nice to see. I parked at the edge of the courthouse and walked around the corner to find a second large cache for the day at the Lee County Heritage Center/Schubert-Fletcher Home. I went ahead and dropped the trackable I had found earlier, moving it a little. I have no clue whether it was closer to its goal because I never bothered to check. But at least it was in a new place with some hope of being moved again soon. With that complete, I finally (and actually) headed back home.

It had been a long time since I made a road trip in Texas. Sure, I go visit the girls in Longview, but it’s not the same. It’s been years (since 2018, to be exact) since I have been able to make a day trip going to different places. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve taken a road trip by my lonesome. I’ve missed it a lot. Don’t get me wrong—I’ve greatly enjoyed traveling with others, but there’s something about the solitary trip that can’t be beat. When I was working on the Texas County Challenge, those were wonderful times. It sometimes felt like the world was new and full of possibilities. And, in a way, for me it was. So maybe it’s time to start thinking about that. It’s well past time for me to get back on the road. Perhaps I can never exactly recapture the magic of my memories, but I can make new memories and new magic. Of course, the question isn’t if but when. Tragically, I know it won’t be soon. Fortunately, I know it will, in fact, be.