Caching our way to Knoxville

Moving to Tennessee was a lot of work. First there was all the work getting our house ready to go on the market, then packing up stuff, arranging moving our stuff, figuring out what route to take. Geocaching played only a minor role in this process. A welcome relief from the stress while packing up. But more practically, a helpful guide for where we might stop along our route. The route was planned around having decent places to camp in parts of the country we've never seen before. I used a series of PQs to look for interesting caches, and therefore interesting places along this route. But the goal was to move to Knoxville, not find a gazillion caches or even interesting caches. In fact, for the whole 4 day trip, we only stopped at 9 caches, half of which were virtual or earthcaches. But the stops were all memorable, and indeed, the caching provided good entertainment.

Day 1

We left Las Cruces, NM and headed North-East, through Alamogordo and Carizozo and up to Santa Rosa, where we made our first stop at the Blue Hole. Not only is this a fantastic spot to take a dip, but the surrounding parks were ideal for a picnic and playing around. 

 After being refreshed by the bright blue waters of Santa Rosa, we zoomed East to Amarillo where we made a stop at the famed Cadillac Ranch. This is actually one of the stops that I found as a result of my PQs, since this Virtual Cache has racked up a ton of favorite points, and just looks like an awesome spot to stop by for a visit while traveling I-40. We didn't stay long though because we needed to make it to our camping destination at Palo Duro Canyon state park.

 Day 2

Despite Palo Duro Canyon ahving hundreds of caches, I did not have any loaded into my GPSr or Nexus before the trip started, so I didn't log any finds there. What, enjoying a beeautiful camp site and park without finding a geocache?! Funny how I link logging a cache to enjoying a location now, but I do find myself thinking that sometimes. It really is an awesome park, and it was a shame we didn't have time for a hike.

 Driving east along I-40 through the Texas panhandle and Oklahoma was windy. And not a nice tail-wind I was hoping for, but a cross wind that buffeted the cars all day long. I bet folks are used to that in these parts.

 We needed a lunch stop in Oklahoma and looking for a nearby geocache once again paid off, but not in the way I imagined. We pull off the highway in the little town of El Reno, and head to a cache a little off the highway near a State Historic site. We stop for this first cache, GC36G4Q, but it is way too windy to have the picnic we were planning. However, we are right at the entrance to the State Historic site, so we head over there to see if we can find some shelter. I run into the visitor center and ask the woman there if there is a sheltered spot for us to have a picnic, and she invites us to use the basement of the Fort's Chapel. And wouldn't you know, there happens to be a geocache in that same building! GCGFD5 is actually in the chapel, and is one of the older geocaches I've found, dating back to 2003. We had the place pretty much to ourselves, and had a splendid picnic out of the wind

We make campe in eastern Oklahoma at Lake Eufalah state park, but only because the winds had died down by the evening. Despite there being caches enar our camping spot, we don't go looking for them. Our camp by the lake is all the entertainment we need.

Day 3

We quickly cross into Arkansas and begin our traverse of that state. But not an hour into the state the kids are whining up a storm, so we pull off at an exit. I whip out the Nexus and take a look and sure enough, there is a convenient geocache in a travel stop just a mile ahead, so we drive over to discover one of the most relaxing travel stops I've ever visited. The geocache I had in my device, Hillbilly Hotel, was at the far western corner of the rest area, which we had all to ourselves. A big grassy field, picnic tables under mature pines, a view of the Ozark mountains to the north, and my personal favorite, cool clean ozark water from lovely brass spigots. Most delicious water I've tasted in a while. Levin and I run over to find the cache right away, and unfortunately it is almost empty, not even having any travel bugs. But it did have one toy, a plastic boomerang. We traded something for that, and then commenced playing with it in the field. Predictably, the boomerang was soon stuck 25ft up in one of the pines. We spent the next 30 minutes working on getting it down. Every time I was about to call it quits, Levin would make the saddest faces and I would try just "one more thing"

Failed attempt to throw a rope up to grapple the branch.

Failed attempt to climb tree

What are we doing here? Somehow we all lost our shirts, something about the hot humidity.... Or maybe we're jsut trying to be hillbillies.

Success! Using this large branch taken from near the cache site.

 The long break did the trick, and we breezed through the rest of Arkansas and into Tennessee.

Day 4

Our last day turned out to be our most relaxing one, with the least amount of miles needed to reach Knoxville. We camped at Natchez Trace State park, which had incredible facilities (but expensive fees for camping!). We had a leisurely morning walking some trails and doing some birding, and finding my first Tennessee geocache, Cub Lake Waterfront. The tulip poplars were in bloom and the woods were gorgeous. Living in NM for so long, I'm not used to such lush growth, and we were all drinking it in.

 We drive a few more hours and make a lunch stop at another state park a little further away from I-40 but well worth the trip, Burgess Falls. Once again, I didn't have any geoaches for this park in my devices, but I was able to qualify for an earthcache by being observant, taking a bunch of pictures and doing a little online reading.

And that's my travel-caching experience. On the one hand, it didn't feel like a lot of caching, but geocaching did play an important role in where we stopped, and how we broke up the difficult drive east. With two young kids, a dog and 5 birds with us in the cars, having good places to stop, and making frequent stops is key. More time would have been better though, to really enjoy some of the state's we passed through... and find a few more caches ;).