The girls and I set out early on Independence Day and spent the day driving up I-35 from Austin. We made plans to hit counties on the way north. I, of course, have them all, but my older daughter doesn’t, and the Texas Two Step means I have new work to do.
We began by visiting an old friend, the Hill County Courthouse in Hillsboro. My daughter got the Virtual at the old Hill County railroad station, the same cache I had gotten all those years ago. Memories stirred in us all while we were there, and checking my old log, we found that they had been with me when I got it in the first place. From there, we continued on to a cemetery for a bison in a tree, ensuring that she had a Traditional and a Non-Traditional. We repeated similar tasks in Johnson County, getting a Virtual at a rural church and a Traditional at a nearby college. In Tarrant County, she needed a Traditional, and I needed one in a town subsumed by Fort Worth for I’ve Been Everywhere, so we killed two birds with one stone and grabbed a bison in a sign pole. It was a happy bonus in my book that it was devoted to the Underground Railroad.
We continued on to Denton for a Non-Traditional. I took us to the Denton County Courthouse to claim its EarthCache, but my caching daughter demurred because of the now midday heat. Instead, we grabbed another Virtual on the University of North Texas campus before continuing on to Cooke County and grabbing a Traditional and a Letterbox that had broken out of its hiding place and rolled well away from GZ.
Luckily, she noticed it and returned it to its original location, and we continued northward across the Red River into the OKest state. I rendered (or inflicted, depending on who you ask) an impromptu performance of the Oklahoma state song and then remembered that I had gotten a Virtual at the grave of its most well-known singer a couple of years ago. Continuing north, we stopped for a highly favorited Traditional. It was indeed worth it and earned one of my stingily hoarded favorite points. We didn’t stop for any more caches after that, though. We’re working Texas, not Oklahoma, after all.
We made a final push for Oklahoma City, where we saw the capitol before heading back to Norman for an Independence Day party with our cousins and fireworks and rest and relaxation in anticipation of…
Geocaching While Black 