NorthWest Arkansas Cachers

I decided last week that I was finally going to take a caching trip to Tulsa, OK. I wasn't going to leave 'til about 5am Friday (10-17) but, couldn't sleep so I left about 130am instead. I had been awake since around 5pm the night before, so I knew it was going to be a long drive, and a longer day. I just wanted to get to Tulsa and start finding caches. I set a goal for myself: find at least 89 caches, which would give me a total of 300 finds in just over three and half months. I arrived in Tulsa around 330 or 4am, and decided to have breakfast at IHOP before starting to look for caches.

I found 17 caches that first day. Including a train virtual and two lighthouse virtuals. Did you know Oklahoma has lighthouses ?! I had run-ins the first day with a skunk, a wasp, thorns, a fake snake and spider, and a talkative possible future cacher who was studying the constellations. I cached practically non stop Friday from 430 or 5am 'til midnight, when I finally pulled into a WM parking lot and parked where there were few lights to get a few hours of sleep.

I only slept in my car for less than five hours that night. I woke up about 5am, and started all over again. It had gotten down to the 40's, and I was freezing! I will have to remember to take a blanket with me if I ever do a trip like tis again. And maybe a pillow. lol At least I saved money by sleeping in my car instead of getting a motel. And money was tight enough even with that.

Saturday, I decided to head South out of Tulsa, hoping to have better luck finding caches without being in such a busy area. I found 28 caches the second day, including a trolly and rail virtual, a cemetery virtual, an old drive in movie virtual, and a downtown small town virtual. I came upon a roaming buffalo, a snake farm, a run away basketball, the World's Greatest Oil Pool, an RC field, a couple cemeteries, my first and only Oklahoma FTF, and a little walk through the woods on the side of the freeway that wasn't as bad as I have expected.

Instead of going to sleep at the end of Saturday, I decided to sit in my car and write up a list of all the virtuals and other caches I wanted to try and find in order to reach my goal of 89 finds on the trip, 300 total finds. I also had to get ahold of my father to help me figure out a puzzle cache where you need a Bible to look up verses and get the coordinates from the chapter and verse numbers.

Once midnight came and went, I finally had a list to work on. I decided to keep caching 'til I couldn't cache no more. That lasted for about four hours past midnight. I came across a huge spider guarding one cache, a cop at that same location (as the spider) who just wanted to make sure I was ok, since I was parked kinda on a corner just outside a residential area, a cache where finders can write a few words, lines, or whatnot in a story that will eventually be sent to everyone who participated once said story's finished, two virtuals, and a flying buffalo. I found 12 caches in that four hours.

Then I parked next to the 13th and slept for less than three and half hours. Again, temps were in the 40's and I was freezing. I woke up about 745 am and went looking for the cache I had parked next to (at the end of a road along the side of the freeway), then went to get a donut and wake-up juice (Code Red FTW). I found another 32 caches after waking up, making Sunday my biggest find and longest day of the entire trip. 44 finds Sunday, and I drove straight home after the last one, after getting more wake-up juice and topping off the GoGo juice for the car.

On the second part of my caching of Sunday, I came across a rather unusual way to hide caches in a WM parking lot, a rather large frog who's owner came out to greet me while I was trying to get the lock 'n' lock out of his back, crossed paths with the Legendary Woodwalker, pretended to be leaning against a tree in a busy park to retrieve a cache, witnessed a beautiful Canyon Creek view, came across a few caches late Sunday night that our very own *TnT* had visited Saturday (!), came across more very large spiders who love living on or inside cache hiding spots, visited another RC field, and found a whale of a landmark that hasn't seen much love in a while.

I finally found #300 (total, 89 for the trip) just seconds before midnight 10-19. #300 was quite fitting, as it was in a WM parking lot, on the six year anniversary of me leaving (stop working at) the Springdale Wal-Mart. (I was an Overnight Cashier.)

All in all, I found 89 caches, was gone for 73 hours, drove 652.1 miles (according to my GPS), and was moving about half the entire time I was gone. I slept for less than 8 and half hours from 5pm 10-16 'til 430 or 5am Monday when I fell asleep watching TV back at home. LOL I also dropped off four trackables along the way, and picked up nine more to bring back to Arkansas. I will bring the 9 with me to the WWFM and Van Buren Breakfast for others to discover them, then place them in caches around the area.

Quite a trip. I don't know how you youngsters can go for so long without sleep. LOL. I left for Tulsa about 7 in the morning on Saturday and was back home by 7 that night. I didn't meet my goal for the trip, only logging 28, but at least I did get to see a little bit more of a variety of hides. All in all, it wasn't a wasted day.

Now, wait until you hear what rddemps did over the weekend.

I will get to that in a little bit. Had to check out where the never ending story was and check out the new posts. I may have few ideas to slide into the never ending story now.

That was a heck of a trip. I had a slightly different power caching trip that just kept growing. I went out to get Mingo (GC30). It only took around 9 hours but that is the not the whole story.

I started to make one of my stops in Tulsa at (GCJ6W2). I will type something up about my trip and post it. I have not even logged my finds yet. I only got seven which does not sound very impressive. I need to log my finds and then I will type something up.

Anyway Moonie, that is an impressive run. I think I may have gotten around 9-10 in a day and that was when I was driving around to get FCC's.

I wasn't looking for FCC's. I was looking for caches I could physically do. Next time I take a trip, I hope to be able to plan it a couple weeks (at least one week) in advance so I can better plan what caches to go after. Unfortunately, you never know what you might be getting into 'til you're sitting at the parking spot (where ever that might be), as was the case with several of the caches I found, or tried to find. lol I've only logged 17 of my 89 caches so far. I'm still suffering from lack of sleep, and from multiple overflowing plates of things to do. I'm gonna go get a few more hours sleep, and hopefully finish my logging when I wake up. Already logged the trackables I picked up/dropped. I'm just glad I took notes on 99.9% of the caches I found. The rest I didn't have much worth saying anything about. LOL And TnT, you're right. There are a lot of different types of hides out there that I would love to incorporate around here. I'll have to do some driving around the area to see if there's anywhere some of them would work.

Ok, for real tis time, I'm gonna go crash. LOL

"Holy Geocaching Batman!!!" That's some trip.

I forgot a GC I'd found. So that's 10 trackables picked up. lol It took me about four hours to log all 89 caches and the trackables. I'm really glad I bought a composition notebook to write down notes in. I wrote a special little something for each find. The only part I copied/pasted was the first paragraph where I was linking back to tis thread.

I also wanted to add that the weather was beautiful the entire weekend. No rain at all. Some days/nights were cold or very windy. Nights were in the 40's. Days were in the 70's most the time.

I received an email tis morn' from one of the cache owners, who had a cache on their front yard. They have offered me a place to stay next time I go back to Tulsa. I love the hospitality of the geocachers in that area. I can't wait to go back and find more caches that I couldn't get tis trip.