On Dec 12th my friend Allen and I took a road trip into central Oklahoma to do a little geocaching.
The OK trip went well, but day-ummm it was cold. Harsh winds and very cold below freezing temps much of the time.
We left my crib (Allen drove up from Dallas to pick me up) at 7:30 and we cherry picked geocaches along the way for Allen so he could complete some specific challenges he had committed to doing. One of them had to do with the Delorme map grid for OK and the other was an alphabet challenge where you had to get a geocache that started with each letter of the alphabet. It is a little harder than it sounds but he completed them both.
We ate lunch at Braum's (ther burgers are pretty good) in Muskogee, OK then headed to the USS Batfish and really enjoyed touring the sub before moving on to do more caches.We meandered our way geocaching until we arrived in Owasso, OK (NE suburb of Tulsa) to stay at the Hampton Inn. Friday night.
We had dinner at The Bricktown Brewery. OMG the food was so good! I had "Big Mike's Meatloaf" (specialty) that was to die for. Super tasty.
I was very tired after dinner so after an Angry Orchard Green Apple Hard Cider, reading a few pages from my newest book, and some internet browsing, I hit the hay by 9:30 PM
The next morning we cleaned up early and had breakfast before hitting the road at 7:30 AM. Allen had a LOT of things he wanted to accomplish before we arrived in OKC.
We drove up to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve to do some "earthcaching" (geocaching that does not involve finding a container, but going to specific areas and answering questions about the specific geological features there and take specific photos). It is a very specific subset of geocaching and there are not nearly as many as traditional caches. Harder to do and more time consuming.
We cached until noon where we had lunch at a Subway in Pawnee and after lunch, we continued caching (in a meandering route) until we got to OKC, where we did more caching until it became dark.
We then did a "night" cache that utilizes reflectors to lead you to the target. It started out fun, then turned aggravating as we noticed many reflectors were missing causing us to wander almost aimlessly until finally Allen spotted the final reflector showing us the physical cache. Getting back to the car was easy as we only walked about 1/4 a mile in a straight line into the wooded area and all we really had to do was follow the highway noise back.
It was only 6 PM but I was pretty tired after being up all day. We checked in at a Best Western Plus and after a very quick washing of hands and face, we went to The Garage for dinner. I had the "Sticky Finger" which has ... hold on to your hats...Peanut Butter, Bacon Bits, Sweet Jalapeño Relish, and Cheddar Cheese.It was really very, very good. I had it with bison instead of beef.
We walked back to the hotel (it was across the parking lot) and I had a beer that Allen had brought along (St. Arnold Christmas Ale) and fell asleep within an hour. Allen was wearing me out with the geocaching activities! He may be 56 but he moves like a 30 year old.
We got up and took our time the next morning since we did not have much on the agenda. The first stop was the OKC National Memorial which was very sobering. I did not go in the museum part (it was not open yet) but we wandered the grounds for a while. Very sad.
After that we drove to a nearby lake to let Allen play like a monkey and climb some trees. He was looking for some specific geocaches, some harder ones requiring some tree climbing. We struck out on a couple that were missing but that did not seem to bother him.The ones we did get were worth it.
Again we meandered our way back towards Allen, TX, stopping at Shawnee for lunch, again at Braum's. I had a chicken sandwich this time instead of a burger like I did last time. It was pretty good for fast food.
After lunch we drove through Ada, OK to get a geocache that one of Allen and my friends (Briarboy) had placed and that allowed me a photo op while there. From that point on we drove straight home, only stopping for gas and to take a leak. We did grab a new geocache at the Texas welcome center that neither of us had gotten yet. It was a breaker box mounted on the back of a tree with a lock but the cache page had the combo listed so it was not any problem. The breaker box was missing a conduit plug and mice had lived in it at one time but they were no longer home :).
I made it home at approx 4:45 PM and chatted with the wife before putting my gear away and getting a bite to eat. I was in bed by 8 PM!
