Mistakes Were Made

I went up to scenic L-Town over the weekend. The girls and I went on a bit of a driveabout, as we are wont to do. The first mistake was that I didn’t prepare as thoroughly as usual. Consequently, we played a lot more by ear than I normally would. We just ended up going south because why not.

Rusk County was easy enough. We already got Traditionals there while visiting a wheelchair accessibility Event last year. (I feel bad that I didn’t do a full write-up about it, but it was right in the middle of my Northeast entries, and counties come first). All we did was pull to the side of a wooded road and tromp around for a bit, looking for a Letterbox Hybrid. It took longer than expected because ground zero was bouncing badly, thanks to the trees. This meant we all got scratched by plants and bitten by mosquitoes. The closer we get to the Louisiana border, the more problematically brazen the bugs are going to be.

Mistake number two was underestimating the bugs we would encounter. With Rusk County behind us, we continued to Nacogdoches. Our non-Traditional was on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University at the remains of an old stone fort, which turned out to be not a stone fort, just an old building that fulfilled many different roles over its lifetime, actual fort not being among them. Our Traditional (technically, my daughter’s Traditional, as I already had one) was in a cemetery near a monument dedicated to Thomas Jefferson Rusk, namesake of both Rusk and Rusk County. Once again, the shade gave solace to mosquitoes, and therefore, we acquired more bites. I also managed to do a quick Adventure Lab stage we were standing on top of, but since we were done with the county, we cut and ran. The bugs technically won that one …

Playing things by ear, we continued down to Lufkin. It was only twenty minutes away, after all. We got a Virtual located inside the Texas Forestry Museum. We also took the opportunity to tour the museum while we were there. Had I been alone, this might have been considered a mistake. (Why burn all that time that could be spent going to caches?) However, the girls liked it more than I thought they would, taking time to learn about felling trees, milling lumber and its byproducts, and how the entire industry flourished in Texas. I must concede that it’s not a mistake if it’s enjoyable and educational.

Where the (third) mistake actually lay was that I ended up so hungry and distracted that we got food but forgot to grab a Traditional on the way out of the county! That said, we had already decided to return to visit another museum, so it was hardly a fatal mistake.

The final mistake came in Shelby County. We hit the county because there was a week-old FTF opportunity there, and I’m totally fine with adding a new county to my FTF list. We got to GZ, spotted the cache, and opened it, revealing … a signature! That thing had been sitting unfound for a week, and we missed getting it by thirty minutes! If we had done anything differently (heading there intentionally, not touring the museum, taking food to go, etc.), we would have gotten it! Poopy! Oh well, thus is life.

Unfortunately, that was the end of our caching day. A spill resulting in a skinned knee and bleeding palm changed the scope of our adventures. We only got five caches total, completing two counties and starting two others, but that’s not bad for not having planned the foray with my normal exacting precision.

After taking the Girls home, I performed one final mitzvah on the way out of town. Earlier this month, I picked up a trackable going specifically to Longview. Before making my great trek home, I dropped it off in a trackable hotel just outside town. Once I left, I did a little math in my head: it’s 275 miles each way from Austin to Longview, and the drive to Lufkin and back totaled just over 200 miles. Saturday, I drove 750 miles for six caches. Part of me says I gotta work on my efficiency. The rest of me says it was totally worth it.