Saturday, I did something that almost qualifies as new. I took my daughters out to find a few caches, most of which I had found long ago but one of which I had not. You might be forgiven for thinking this is no different from any other entry I’ve ever penned about taking the girls out to grab a few. You all know that my older daughter is a cacher, now with over five hundred finds. A few weeks ago, my younger daughter, who is too cool for the proverbial school, told me she had also registered her own account. When I took them out on Saturday, it was perhaps the first time we three cachers went out to make some finds.
I decided to run them down to the capitol to grab a few. It was a nice change to get a walk before the heat of the day (that never really materialized because of a lingering threat of rain) and grab a few Virtuals. A new Adventure Lab series and some overlapping Virtuals had recently appeared on the grounds, and a new Multi had dropped a few blocks away, so it was a perfect time to get them some finds and find my cache for the day. We started across the street at the State Archives for a Virtual devoted to the Texas Archives War. For those of you not acquainted with Texas history, at one point, there was an attempt to move the state archives from Austin to Houston, which would have the effect of moving the capital. Local residents prevented the removal of some of the documents and then managed to shadow the wagons carrying them until an armed force from Austin recaptured the stolen documents and returned them to Austin the next day.
The benefit for us, though, was showing my younger daughter how to do a Virtual. After that, we continued to the front lawn to another Virtual at the monument to the defenders of the Alamo. It also overlapped with one of the Lab locations, so while the girls busied themselves with figuring out the answers to the Virtual, I was busy counting inscribed names for the Lab. We continued around the back to a Virtual at the monument honoring Texas school children, and then I pointed out the front of the Texas Supreme Court (another Lab location and the place where I signed the Texas County Challenge). Finally, we grabbed a Lab at a monument for peace officers who fell in the line of duty. I enlisted the girls’ help finding one name among the hundreds etched there. And find it we did. Finally, because of intervening construction, we jumped back in the car and drove over to the Multi. A former street had been torn up and turned into a walkable mall leading from the capitol to the University of Texas. We noted various bits of Texas trivia along the route to get coordinates and find our final quarry: a magnetic key box. Once the log was signed, I was good, they were a few caches further along, and we were ready to head home and eat some lunch.
Sunday was a different kind of special for me. Even though I no longer officially support it, it was day 2,500 of my caching streak. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out what I chose for a cache. HQ went to all the trouble to create a Locationless Cache devoted to the 25th anniversary. The least I could do was claim it for myself. I also added a little embellishment to make it conform to my anniversary, measured not in years but in hundreds of caches. Of course, I keep saying I’m going to give up the streak, but I’m so close to seven years at this point that I might as well keep on going a little while longer.
That’s it. That’s all. I’m done here.
Geocaching While Black 