WE FOUND IT!

What a difference just a little time makes. Thanks to our good friend red ink we have an upgraded GPS and we got a new vehicle that everyone can ride in. If you had ever seen us pile into our previous car (camping gear included) you would get an idea of how excited we are. Imagine six people, plus a large eight man tent and cooler with various other supplies cramming in a four door Ford Contour. LOL.

To top off a fantastic week we were thrilled this past Sunday to have finally found Dripping Springs Falls. We were so excited. I've looked for that waterfall off and on for at least a year! I think in total there were about six or seven serious attempts. Many of which involved quite a bit of bushwhacking. It was worth the wait though. The falls are amazing. It is hard to describe just how beautiful they were. It's a least a twin set of falls. There were three when we visited though. Each side also had a small upper falls. It was just breathtaking.

We climbed down the gorge to check out the bottom of the falls. The boys were busy throwing rocks in the water while Mom got up close and Dad shot some pictures. Our oldest was climbing around making us both extremely nervous. But he did fine. We played at the bottom for an hour or so and then decided to climb out and find a suitable place to hide the geocache we've been carrying around forever.

My original intention had been to hide the cache at the bottom of the falls but with the steep slopes I was afraid future hunters might cause damage to them. I believe this will be (if approved by the forest service) the first geocache placed in the Ouachita National Forest since they instituted their new cache placement policy. So I was understandably nervous. Of course my lovely life partner (AKA: Mrs. Navigator) is quick to point out that I'm ALWAYS nervous. LOL.

We were so thrilled to have found the falls that on the way back to the truck my wife announced we were having a celebration when we returned home. It was then that our six year old son informed us that it was Fuzzy's (his teddy bear) birthday. So we did what any responsible parents would do, muddy and wet, we stopped at the grocery store to buy the foodstuffs for taco salad and of course purchase a cake and candles for Fuzzy's momentous day. He was turning five after all. :-) It was just one of those wonderful days that make you feel warm and.....well fuzzy! LOL.

Today we stopped in at our local ranger station to turn in my cache permit and had an impromptu two hour meeting with them. It went great! I'm excited about the future of geocaching in the Ouachita's! Another district is supposed to be sending me some information which I thought was awesome since I have never contacted them. I'll post about all that later though.

We'll be posting February's featured geocacher soon and it promises to be another great one so watch for it. I'm also going to be updating the links over the next week so be sure to check back. We also wanted to thank everyone for their words of encouragement during our dismal period. The friends we've made geocaching are what we enjoy the most out of this game. Okay, maybe I like getting little smilies to. :-) Happy Caching!