The TXGA puts on two events every year. The more well known one is, of course, the venerable Mega-Event Texas Challenge (the 24th Challenge will be in Taylor TX on March 14th 2026 #blatantplug). The less well known of the two is the yearly Texas Roundup. Long ago some folks were turned off by the competition aspect of Texas Challenge so a smaller, more sedate Event was created so that people would have a reason to gather and cache, usually in a more natural setting. I had only been to a couple of them myself, once in Bandera, once in Mineral Wells. Ironically, I actually put one on myself in 2023, but didn’t actually attend it since I got cholera a couple of days before. Real life interfered last year so I wasn’t able to make it out to West Texas so, super early on Saturday morning, I got on the road going east. Three hours later, I came to a stop in Huntsville.
I hit a breakfast Event at a donut place. For those of you who don’t know, I’m pretty much genetically predisposed to liking donuts. I arrived at almost the same time as one of my own local cachers, Kcleve, and we talked and ate over the course of the Event while I took opportunities to stop and hand out ads for Challenge in Taylor. Once it ended, I had some things to do. There was a souvenir available for Adventure Day so I needed to find some Adventure Labs. Luckily, there was a series on the courthouse square. I bumped into a cacher I met at the Event, TexasTechBrat (though apparently we met once before and I forgot), and she and I did some of the labs together then walked down the street to get the bonus cache, picking up a Traditional along the way. Afterwards, I headed out to Huntsville State Park where the main event would be happening.
I arrived early and ran into Kcleve again. Whenever I attend TXGA Events, I never really do any caching because I’m too busy working the Event, so I decided to take a little time and find some. Kcleve and I went off to grab a couple of nearby Letterboxes. I have it on good authority that we didn’t get out to the best ones, but the ones we got weren’t bad at all. Heck, I even gave one of the one of my stingily hoarded favorite points. Once I returned to the lodge were the Event was being held, I helped with setup and stood ready as the Event officially started.
Another downside of working an Event is that I don’t always get a chance to take too many photos. But we had between 75 and 100 cachers come through to eat, talk, and spend time with others of our kind. I missed the talk about Sam Houston as I was busy working the merch booth, but enjoyed some of the freshly grilled burgers at lunchtime. A lot of cachers were out doing a poker run. For those of you not familiar, a series of “caches” containing envelopes were placed around the park for cachers. Once the coordinates of them all were published, folks went out to find them, taking an envelop from each one. The envelopes each contained a playing card, and once they returned, we (and by “we” I mean I) would open each person’s envelopes and put use the cards they brought back to make the best poker hand possible, with the top three hands winning prizes. The winning players each came back with three of a kind, one with 3 eights, the others with 3 kings. Congrats to Kpip1066 for walking away with the big prize!
As the day wore on, there was an opportunity to see some regional politics in action. The TXGA holds meetings every month; the two meetings in the months of our Events are held at the Events themselves and open to the public, members and non members alike. So the Board, headed by President K13 and Vice President MsPatt, sat and discussed the pressing issues of the moment. Four of us regional reps in attendance along with some of the other board positions gave updates, presented reports, and discussed future plans and actions. If you ever wanted to see how the proverbial sausage is made, we give you all a chance twice a year to see it in person. It’s not for everyone, but if you can do so, serving in your local or regional geocaching association is an excellent way to give back to the community. Someone has to do it and you are all someone.
But all good things come to an end. There were old faces (Carrot Killer, sorry you couldn’t do dinner; Dealfarms1, thanks for asking after me when I wasn’t feeling well) and new faces (thanks to 2xrCody and Marleyj19 for lending me a knife when I needed one; apparently Myrthman makes comics about geocaching), veteran cachers and newbies, child cachers and vintage cachers. A good time was had by all. I helped with the breakdown and cleanup and then got on my way home. I look forward to the day when I can just come and enjoy one of these free from responsibility, but that will have to wait until I’m no longer on the Board. On the way out of town, I swung by the Virtual at the big statue of Sam and then made my way back to the City of the Violet Crown.
Geocaching While Black 