Visitors From Up The Street

Traditionally, my daughters do not come to Austin during Thanksgiving because of the peculiarities of their mother’s side of the family. Consequently, they come down every Christmas, and we usually end up in some cache-related shenanigans of one kind or another. This year was no different. Unfortunately, because of the schedule of events over their extended stay, we have not been able to make a road trip to other counties thus far. But opportunities for finds still abound in normal daily caching.

One day involved an FTF in neighboring Pflugerville after being chased off the grounds of the capitol. And no, I’m not kidding. A state trooper gave us a siren and bullhorn announcement that the grounds were off-limits because of the Christmas holiday. It turns out that the entire complex is now closed after 8:00 p.m. This is insane because (a) I have tons of memories of showing up at the building at crazy hours of the morning to film things and to walk across the grounds late at night—sometimes drunkenly but usually not—on the way somewhere else—usually home from a show, and (b) there are more than half a dozen entrances in the outer fences, which means stationing a lot of troopers each night to watch them, which seems like a terrible waste of taxpayer money. But I feel I’m losing the thread here. After being chased from the capitol, we went for an FTF north of town. I was a bit surprised to see several available but quickly realized why. The local FTF hound who lives in that area was out of town (New Orleans, I think), so the rest of us had a chance at some. My older daughter and I scampered up the side of a waterfall at the entrance of a subdivision. I took the high road, and she took the low road and found the cache before me.

Another day involved one of the previously available FTF caches that had been found by another cacher. This time, my height allowed me to reach a hanging hollow bolt concealed on a telephone pole.

Yesterday, we went to avenge our expulsion from the grounds of the people’s house. A fairly new cache (a magnetic doodad) was hidden on a park bench. We sat down and did a quick search to find our quarry. I did not expect to find a blank logbook inside, but we noticed that the first finder had very few finds, so I questioned if they had actually found it. The second finder mentioned they didn’t have a pen and took a photo of the log as proof of find. Either way, though we were the first to put ink on the log, we were not entitled to FTF. No matter, though. A cache is a cache is a cache.

At some point today, we’ll find one, and I have no doubt that the trend will continue over the weekend until the girls leave. And there is a remote chance that we might even go get a few counties. I wouldn’t bet money on it, but I wouldn’t let losing that bet stop us from continuing with my daughter’s project, either.