Kids Summer Group - Week 1

It's been a very busy week! After what seemed whirlwind event attending things were starting to calm around the navigator home and then came the time for me to start leading a group of kids in the summer SBMH (School Based Mental Health) program. I had kids from kindergarten all the way to eighth grade.

The kids were of course separated into groups. The first two groups that I had were all older. I had several meetings with the program director and he basically said where we go was up to me. Now at first that sounds fairly simple, but this would be many of the kids first time out in the woods and of course their first geocache! See the problem. A lame experience and it could turn them off of being outdoors altogether. Not good.

I found a nearby cache that was perfect. A great cache at a historic old dam with a roughly one and a half mile hike in along a trail. As the day approached I was very excited. We all met at the school and after introductions we loaded the bus to begin our adventure. Of course the bus wouldn't start! After half an hour of wondering what we were going to do it was discovered that the rear exit door had been improperly closed. Apparently that triggered a safety trigger not allowing the bus to start. On our way finally I talked to the kids about geocaching and what is involved. They asked all the usual questions about what a cache was, are they buried, is there money, etc. Everything was great until we got about half way there. That's when the rain started. Ugh!! That's what happened last year!

It rained all the way to the parking area and I knew it was going to rain the whole time. I was surprised to see that it didn't bother the kids one little bit. They were actually excited! We made our way from the trail head for the Bomber Trail which we would follow to The CCC Dam Bomber Trail cache. We had a great hike in and made wonderful time. The kids were so excited when we arrived at the Dam. One thing that shocked me was that as we hiked in I talked to them about what the CCC was and about trail ethics. When I asked them about the mountains we all call home not one of them knew their name. It was sad really to see such great kids deprived of enjoying everything nature has to offer.

I took them in groups across the Dam and they loved the hunt and of course trading! I'm glad I brought an extra large bag of swag for them to go through. They cleaned me out!! LOL. The looks on their faces as they found the cache and went through the contents was priceless. They had a blast! So did the therapists that went along. They asked more questions than the kids did.

I took the younger group out the next day. The therapists were still tired from the day before and really didn't want to hike very far. I decided on taking the kids to Talimena Treasures - Pioneer Cemetery cache. After my orientation we walked the short distance to the cache. Some of the kids from yesterday had asked permission to go again today which I thought was cool. The did have fun! Anyway, the kids hunt for awhile and i finally go to show them where the cache is hidden. Only I can't find it!
Oh no. I'm starting to freak out a little and my mind is racing for an impromptu plan b when one of the grade school kids looks at me and says " I see a white Tupperware, is that it?" Yep. it was. I was shown up by a little kid. It was hilarious. We all had a great laugh and the look of pride and accomplishment on that little boys face was all worth it. I'd go through a thousand little embarrassments to see that!

It was great taking them out and we have two trips planned next week. Culminating with a trip to Mt. Magazine State Park. It's going to be great.

National Trails Day CITO Event

This past weekend we attended the Natinal Trails Day CITO Event hosted by lake Ouachita State park. I honestly didn't expect to have as much fun as we did. It was just a quick cleanup and then I figured my family and I would hike some trails, grab some caches, and then go swimming finally settling down at our campsite for our favorite dinner: hot dogs and s'mores!

What a surprise that event turned out to be. There wasn't a large turnout but everyone that did had an incredible time! Our host for the event was park interpreter Susan. She did a marvelous job organizing the cleanup and keeping a bunch of easily distracted, sweaty geocachers on task. Of course after all the trash was collected we settled down to a wonderful lunch provided by the park. Afterwards, she even took us out on a enormous tour boat to grab some caches. How cool was that!

Susan's just starting out geocaching and is working on hosting another event this fall at the park. This one will be a campout also. Oh yeah! Our favorite!

We made some new friends over the weekend also. It was the husband and wife caching team of QuartzCachers. I'd spoken to Bruce briefly at other events but had never had the chance until this one to hang out and just chat. Both our families hit it off. Especially the kids! We're going to hook up in Hot Springs to do the Tah-Ne-Co earthcache located in Hot Springs National Park. It will take the better part of a day to do it and ging along with friends just promises for a great day.

ArkGeo 2008 Annual Social

It's been awhile since I updated anything. We've been having a blast!!! So many things going on and so many places we've visited. You just have to love summer!

We were recently featured in an article about geocaching. It was published on May 30th in the Exploring Arkansas insert of the Arkansas-Democrat Gazette. I have to admit it was pretty cool to be interviewed and see our family pictured in the newspaper. You can't see it online anymore without paying for it but I saved it on Photobucket.

We were lucky enough to attend two really spectacular events recently. The first was the ArkGeo 2008 Annual Social. The event was a campout held over the weekend at Lake Catherine Sate Park and it was great. The event Saturday was filled with catching up with old friends and making some new ones. One of those is the caching team of likestocanoe. They are great people. Just some of the nicest , friendliest, I could go on but you get the point. They brought their boat out to the lake and offered to take everyone tubing! WOOHOO! You know my family was first in line. Well, my wife and kids were the only one's who went. A fun day was had by all. The ArkGeo CITO event held the next day wasn't as attended as I had hoped but there was a good turnout. We picked up all the trash we could find. That was a very clean park.

I did get to squeeze in some caching on Saturday night. I hunted the LC Distant Night Cache by SJClimber with a group of other cachers about 11:00 at night. I love night caches. They are really a fun way to hunt a cache. Especially down a trail. It was awesome. We grabbed a couple more caches on the way back before returning to the campfire for some more s'mores, hot dogs, and relaxation. Until the racoons came...

There must have been over a dozen of the late night raiders. Big ones too! They had no fear of humans. You'd chase one off and he'd run and stop just ahead of you and wait for you to give up. It was a war of attrition. They won. After securing all our food stuffs we just sat back and listened to the trash can lids fall. It was hilarious!!

It was a great weekend and we look forward to hopefully more similar events in Arkansas.

Kiamichi Caching

We've had the opportunity to do a little caching in Kiamichi country lately. I used to travel to Poteau, OK. usually at least once a month and have recently started again. Poteau and the surrounding area has quite a few nice places to visit as well as beautiful scenery.
On 29th of April my seven year old played hookey from school and accompanied me on a little trip. We were first to find on a couple of caches in Monroe but our favorite of the day was Old Frisco Trail - Forgotten Trestle by Kiamichi Muskrat. It was hidden on an awesome little bridge that was once part of the old frisco rail line and is now converted to a walking trail.

Our most recent adventure in Kiamichi country involved an afternoon hunt for theCLB's Secret Stache by theCLB. We had previously DNF'd this cache due to being unable to find the right road (reason #214 why I want a GPS with a map on it!) and after being lost for quite some time we gave up. When we started our hunt this second time we ended up lost in the same area. But after awhile and some keen navigating by my wife we found our destination. It was a short walk from the parking area to where the cache was hidden and imagine our surprise when we were greeted by a beautiful waterfall! It was such a wonderful little out of the way spot and is the type of cache that reminds you why you started caching in the first place. It's kind of funny when I think about it but had we never gotten started in this game that would be one memory that our family would have never been able to share together. I love this game!!!

I forgot to add in my previous post that I planted a letterbox in Clarksville during our trip. They have a lot of amazing caches there so hopefully our box "Doolin's Stash" will be a good addition for all of us that letterbox also.

Caching in the Ozarks

It's been awhile since I updated anything. I'm still getting accustomed to this site and while I have a lot more to learn I believe I like it better.
We recently attended the Clarksville or Cacheville, You be the Judge event in Clarksville of course. We had a wonderful time. We stayed from Friday the 18th until retuning home on Tuesday the 22nd. We hunted quite a few of the many creative caches here. That city is like the perfect storm when it comes to caching.

After the breakfast event on Sunday we made our way to the GCG0P0 Glory Hole cache. It was absolutely amazing! While hiking along the creek we were treated to several smaller waterfalls. I love finding older caches also. It's fun to read through the logbook recounting the adventures of other cachers who have visited in the past. I did note that while we do well in recording our adventure in our online log I've sadly been very lazy about writing in the logbook. Learn as you go I guess. I plan on doing much better in the future.

I've been in the process of replacing or removing all our caches. I really want ours to be real quality that cachers enjoy finding. So far I haven't really achieved that but I think with the new ones we place will be enjoyable for everyone that hunts them. They will be more difficult but I think in our area that won't matter much at all.

We're still enjoying all our other activities like Letterboxing and Terracaching. So much to do and so little time. It's a blast!

Scout Falls

This is a little late but it has been so busy here. I finally got the time to write about our little adventure.
On the 20th my wife and I decided that with the kids in school that day it would be perfect to go and hunt the Slate Falls cache (GCRRD0). There had been a record amount of rain recently and had even stormed the night before so we were excited at being able to see the falls flowing.
We hadn't traveled far up Poteau Mountain road when we met some Forest Service workers clearing debris from the roadway. They told us that due to seeing some other vehicles heading the other direction that they thought the road was clear ahead. Well, after driving a few miles we sure enough met with a large tree blocking our progress.
Another Forest Service worker pulled i next to us a short while later and together we waited for the work crew to reach us.
As we waited, she told us about a cave nearby known to locals as "Belle Stars Cave." It was also known as the boy scouts cave as they used to camp there in the 40's and 50's and had even built a rock fireplace for warmth inside the cave. She told us how to reach it and after seeing that we wouldn't have time to reach Slate Falls we decided to visit the cave.
We began our hike from the road and hiked down the mountain to rock creek. With all the recent rains it was REALLY flowing, enough to take your feet out from underneath you if you weren't careful, and it was cold! After crossing the creek it was a short distance to the cave and suprisingly a wonderful 20+ foot waterfall!!!
The whole area there is a protected archaeological site. We explored the cave behind the falls for quite some time and even hiked further down for awhile just to see what was there. Time was getting short though so we had to haul back up the mountain which was rough.
My wife and I had a wonderful time and we plan on returning later. We found another trail leading in from the North that hold who knows what treasures.