Geo-Caching 101 - Lessons Learned by Two New GeoCachers

We are blessed to get to spend time exploring some of the God's best wonders. It's not unusual to see us in the woods hiking. But today we have a different reason for spending time in these woods. We are geocaching. If you're not familiar with that term, it's a bit like an Easter-egg-hunt using GPS. We're pretty new to this form of entertainment, so we thought we would share the lessons learned by two new geocachers.

We downloaded the geocache app on Denisa's phone, and Mark used the web-version from the geocache web-site on his phone. This allowed us to see where caches are hidden in our area. Then it's our job to move the blue dot--that is us--towards that green dot that represents the geocache. This one is obviously in the forest.

Once we got close, we kept our eyes peeled for something unusual in this natural setting. We knew this was a good-sized cache, and Denisa found it camouflaged beneath a tree hidden by loose bark. Score one geocache find for Denisa!

Inside a cache, there is usually a piece of paper that geocachers can log their nickname. This one also includes a bag of trinkets. Geocachers can take a trinket if they bring something to trade. This makes it a fun activity for children as well.

We're still in the woods, but now at a different part of Garner State Park since we're looking for our second geocache. You'll have to look carefully to see the white tube sticking out of the leaves beside Mark. He found this one, so now the score is 1-1.

Geocaches can come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. This one is a 4-inch white PVC pipe, not a small thing to hide in the forest.

There are more geocaches inside the park, but they seem to be high up on Mount Baldy and the trails that we hiked a couple days ago. So we are heading outside the park to do more geocaches. This one took us to the highway bridge.

We really struggled with this one! We knew it was a micro-cache, so it would be tiny. You can get hints, and the hint was simply, "This one will drive you nuts." Does that mean it's in a nut tree, or one of the hundreds of bolts and nuts in this guard rail and bridge? It took us a considerable amount of time and we almost gave up several times. But Denisa finally found it! Score now 2-1 in Denisa's favor.

The bolt and nut that Denisa is pointing at in the picture above is the geocache! It's not part of the construction of the bridge or rail--it is held in place by a magnet.

That bolt has been hollowed out, and a tiny piece of paper has been rolled up inside for the geocache log. That's a very creative geocache container!

One of the best parts of geocaching is that they often take you to beautiful places that are often hidden. So we walked on down to the Frio River to get another nice view of this clear water river that flows through Garner State Park.

While geocachers can log their successes on the pieces of paper at each find, they can also be logged on the app on our phone. Those green geocache markers on the app become yellow smiley faces when we find them!

The next geocache was down the highway, at the old entrance to Garner State Park. It was an easy find, and Mark ties up the score, 2-2 when he found it in the old rock entrance wall.

Part of the game of geocaching is to be sneaky in your search, so that non-geocachers don't find the treasure and spoil the fun. Non-geocachers are called "muggles" and if they move or take the cache it is said to be "muggled." This brightly-colored cache warns muggles, "Do not remove!"

Another stop along the highway gave us the name of next geocache, "B3." What could that mean? Then we saw this unusual sign attached to a tree . . .

and Denisa saw the geocache with a green lid behind it. She again leads this geocache race 3-2.

Sometimes geocaches have stories of the history or the nature of the area. This geocache is named "It's that time of year!" Under the description in the app it reads, "For those of you familiar with tarantulas you may dread this time of year in the Hill Country. Tarantula mating season is May-October. I seem to have more of them around our house, and see them out and about mainly in September. If you don't threaten them, they won't hurt you. They are an important part of our ecosystem."

When Denisa found this large plastic spider hidden in a tree, we also found that it had a hidden compartment for the piece of paper to log the find. If you're keeping score with us, that means Denisa is ahead 4-2.

Our last geocache search of the day is named "Old Leakey Road." The description explains that this narrow road used to be the main highway before highway 83 was built. We normally wouldn't have turned down this road, but it was a great place to see more of the Frio River and more campgrounds that we didn't know existed. We also wouldn't have seen this low water crossing where the Frio River goes over Old Leakey Road.

As we drove the pickup through the water, we looked down the river to get a new view of the old cypress trees and clear water visible on both sides of us.

Mark spotted the geocache close to the road on a tree just on the other side of that barbed wire fence. That will mean our final score will be 4-3 in this new sport we are practicing. We're pretty proud that we found all seven of the caches we looked for today. This last geocache is called a "P&G" in geocache-speak. We found out that there are many acronyms in this new sport, and that one stands for "park and grab." We also learned about UPR (Unnatural Pile of Rocks) and TOTT (Tools of the trade)--it's a good thing to have a flashlight and a leatherman tool when you are geocaching.

The final acronym we learned is "TFTC." That means "Thanks for the Cache" and it's a good thing to say when you log another successful find in the app. The people that went to the effort to hide these caches and make them available for geocachers will see how many times they are found. So we wanted to thank them for their trouble. We end with a special acronym to our readers "TFWGWWU!" (Thanks for Wandering God's Wonders with us!)

We didn't do a good job of taking pictures today! - Lost Maples State Natural Area

Seven years ago, we were in our first year of full-time travel. We were learning what speed of travel we liked, and what kinds of places we enjoyed the most. We were also going through the process of becoming Texas residents. That would include switching our driver's licenses to Texas. In Oklahoma, anyone with a regular license can drive any size motor home. But Texas requires drivers of motor homes over 26,000 pounds to have a CDL Class B driver's license. Our diesel motor home tips the scales just over that limit. When we found that it would take three months to get an appointment for a CDL driving test in south Texas, we headed north to find a less busy DMV. We found one in the Hill Country of Texas. Then we found a park to settle into until we could take our written CDL exam, and get an appointment for our two driving tests. We were in the Escapees Co-op RV Park near Hondo, Texas, for ten days that first year during this rather stressful (for Denisa) driver's license fiasco. Did we mention that part of the CDL driving test is parallel parking our motor home?!?

During those ten days, we were embraced by the residents of the Lone Star Corral RV park, and we still keep in contact with some of them. They showed us the best places to eat, they took us to dances and church in the area, and they invited us into their RV homes to socialize. So when we got close to that area again, we messaged one of those friends that still owns a camp site there. Rich travels all over the world, but we were lucky enough to catch him in Hondo between trips. The campground has shut down activities because of several cases of Covid inside the park. So instead of camping there, we just met Rich for lunch. We are sad to report that we forgot to take a picture today. So we'll have to include a picture taken seven years ago. This is a group that took us dancing in 2015. Rich is the one of the right. (In case you're wondering, a younger version of Denisa is on the left.)

It was fun catching up with Rich's travels while we ate the daily special at the Lost Maple Cafe in Utopia, Texas. We sealed the meal with a slice of home-made coconut cream pie and a brownie. We're still kicking ourselves for not getting a new picture to commemorate the fact that it's possible to keep in contact with people that we met very long ago when we first started these travels.

Since we were out driving today, we decided to stop in at another place we visited seven years ago--Lost Maples State Natural Area.

We are glad to have our blog so we can look back to see where we have been and what we did. We saw that we hiked the East Trail seven years ago. Not that we would remember the details of that hike, but we decided to hike the West Trail this day for something different.

We had another beautiful weather day to enjoy some time outside in this natural area. It is named Lost Maples State Natural Area, because it has a group of maple trees that somehow found their way into this part of Texas that does not have the proper climate for them. However, this little grove of trees has managed to adapt and flourish among the mesquite and scrub oaks. It's the only natural splash of fall color in this part of Texas, and people come from miles around to see them in their fall colorful foliage glory. We have to admit that we didn't get to see these famous lost maples this day because they are on the East Trail, and we chose the West Trail. 

We're having a tough day of taking pictures! We went to Lost Maples State Natural Area and didn't get a picture of the lost maples! If it's any substitution, we did find this little red sapling, still showing us a tinge of fall foliage.

Things are quite dry here, but we managed to find a couple natural springs that brought some water to our trail.

We had hoped to see some wildlife in this state natural area, but we only glimpsed two wild hogs hiding in the brush. They were too concealed and too far away to get a picture. That's another picture that we missed today!

Because of our long lunch, we were late getting onto the trail today. The sun was already behind the canyon walls and we were hiking in the shadows by the time we got to the end of this 5.2-mile hike. We'll have to hurry to get back to our camp site at Garner State Park before it gets dark.

We still have another stop today, as we need to buy some groceries at the little town of Leakey, Texas, on our way home. We should have taken pictures, because this was the first grocery store we have ever visited that had no prices on the merchandise on the shelves. No, the guy behind the meat counter didn't know how much the sausages were either. It was quite uncomfortable to buy that little can of green beans, not knowing that it cost $2.06 until you checked out.

It feels like we failed today in our picture-taking. We didn't get a picture of our lunch date, we didn't get a picture of the lost maples at Lost Maple State Natural Area, we didn't get a picture of the only wildlife we saw, and we didn't get a grocery store picture. Sorry! We'll try to do better next time!

Garner State Park - Better in Summer or Winter?

We often drive through San Antonio on our way to the southern tip of Texas. But this year we are driving the highways west of that metro area. We are on highway 83, heading straight south. That allowed us a stop at one of Texas's most popular parks--Garner State Park.

This state park has 500 sites to rent. That includes tent sites, RV sites, cabins, and screened rooms. Even with that many sites, it's no secret that it is very difficult to secure a reservation here in the middle of the summer. In the middle of the winter, however, it is quite easy to make a reservation, and we almost felt like we had this big state park to ourselves.

The Frio River runs through the park, and tubing and kayaking this three-mile section would be great fun in the heat of the summer. But this winter, the water is too low and too cold for our kayak. So we'll just admire it's clear mint-green color, and the way the trees on the banks are reflected in the calm water.

Beside the Frio River, a collection of CCC-built structures have been around since the 1930's. The CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) was a depression-era program that provided jobs for unemployed young men. It also taught them skills like carpentry and masonry. While they were building this large plaza, they recognized that it would make a great dance floor. They began inviting the locals to come to dances, and it is reported that some of those young men met their future wives at those first dances. Over eighty years later, the summer dances still continue with couples crowding this historic plaza every summer evening. 

Denisa was certainly sad to find out there were no dances in the winter. But that didn't keep her off the dance floor. We managed to get a two-stepping picture even if we just had to hum the music ourselves. At least we didn't have to worry about bumping into all those other dancers on the floor.

Instead of lamenting the fact that we couldn't play in the water, and we didn't get to dance, perhaps we should focus on the positives for visiting Garner State Park in the winter. We had nice cool temperatures, which is important if you plan to make the hike to the highest point in the park--Mount Baldy. That's the peak behind Mark as we started the hike with our jackets and gloves on this day.

Hikers would sure be sweating in the summer heat going up this steep climb, so we are glad to be here in the winter!

Going up those steep slopes gave us some good views of the river valley in Garner State Park. You might also notice that the climb has warmed us up. We don't need those jackets and gloves any more--even in the dead of winter.

This trail lead us right along the mountain face, with great views. Here it is important to keep your eyes on the trail to avoid a nasty spill over the edge.

We missed a turn, and made this .5-mile hike to the summit into a .75-mile hike. But we have pictorial proof that we eventually both made it to the Old Baldy Summit. Old Baldy tops out at less than 2,000 feet, and we're more used to summits that are 5-6 times this elevation.

But we'll still relish this winter mountain climb and its patriotic summit.

From the summit, hikers can join a web of other trails that go up and down the slopes of Texas's hill country.  We headed up the Foshee Trail, where Denisa added a few more stones to the rock cairns at this smaller summit.

Then we looped up to the Bridges Trail, where we got a distant view of Old Baldy. The flat face of this mountain reminds us of a smaller version of Half Dome Mountain in Yosemite National Park.

We had a bit of shade from the scrubby evergreen trees along the trail. But we recognize that this trail is much more fun to hike on this 60-degree winter day, rather than with highs around 100 degrees in the summer!

Our next turn on the mountain took us down the Crystal Cave trail, and then to the opening of the cave.

It's a thirty-foot rock scramble down into Crystal Cave. Once inside the dark cave, we could see that the rocks do have a sparkling crystal glow when they are lit by a flashlight.

It's a bit cooler at the bottom of the cave, but we're glad that we don't need a break from the heat on this winter day.

By the time we finished our loops and made it back down to the parking lot, we had traversed 4.2 miles with a 892 foot elevation gain. That's a respectable hike here in the Texas Hill Country. After a lunch break, we're ready for some bike riding.

We circled the relatively flat Frio Canyon Trail, for another 4.8 miles of exercise. Denisa is glad to report there was almost no elevation gain on this bike ride.

That was much better than the bicycle trails we tried on another day in the park. Denisa would not recommend the steep paved Old Entrance Road Trail that goes straight up. Equally, she would not recommend the steep rocky Wild Horse Creek Trail that goes straight down.

It was a series of uneven rock stairs and slippery rock hills to slide down while holding onto a bike. Denisa didn't actually ride on her bike any of this trail--not exactly our smartest idea. We were sweating by the end of these trails, even with today's cool temperature.

We are glad that we have finally gotten to camp at this very popular Texas state park. We never plan to be this far south in the summer, so there's a good chance we'll never experience Garner State Park when it's hot. Even though we missed out on the summer river and dancing fun, we think we prefer the quiet, less-crowded, cooler hiking and biking available in the winter. Either season, it's a nice place to wander through more of God's wonders.