From Brisbanian Shores

From time to time, we are known to gather for stuff and things (and, on occasion, things and stuff). We never need a reason to have an Event. Yesterday, however, we had a pretty good reason to have one. We heralded the visit of an old friend from the area (whom I’d actually never met) and a new friend from far away (whom I’d also never met)!

Semik, pictured above in green, was a longtime cacher in the area before I even started. I’d seen her name in ancient logbooks and other places, but she left the area before I even found my first cache. She left American shores for Australian ones after meeting her eventual husband, Oddiewan. He had never known what geocaching was until he met her, but he took to it with a gusto that anyone would find impressive. The two came to visit her family and road-trip around Texas and the Southwest. They had been in New Orleans just the day before and were waiting to pick up an RV and head for the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, and other points west of here. Being that it was his first time in the States, she wanted to take him to a good barbecue joint, so they chose to have an event at a downtown barbecue restaurant and music venue (the music part isn’t really important, but Buckandi and I had a conversation about some of the best shows we had seen there). I would have chosen a different barbecue joint, but I’m a local with opinions, so consider that a discussion for another day. All that mattered was that a dozen of us took time to commune with our visitors from across the bigger pond. Some were newer and, like me, had never met Semik, while others were old friends with her and shared stories of adventures had and caches gone. Heck, one of the cachers in attendance (someone I had never even heard of because he had been out of the life for so long) came out of the woodwork just to see them. Oddiewan came and joined us newbies. He told us a little about his adventures and what caching is like in Australia and offered us the pickings of one of the biggest collections of personal pathtags I’d ever seen. We all had brisket, carb-loaded sides, and the sweetest tea as we enjoyed a lunchtime meeting.

A long time ago, I was told that if you want to be assured of a place to stay anywhere you go in the United States, you should be one of four things: a Mormon, a Mason, a Marine, or an Aggie. You will always have someone to connect with if you are one of those. The same is true (perhaps to a lesser extent than with Masonry) of being a cacher. It doesn’t matter where you’ve been or where you’re from: once you’re one of us, you’re one of us. We speak the same language, have the same experiences, and know the same travails. And it doesn’t matter if you’re from Austin or Australia, from near or far. We’re all connected. We’re all one of us.