2015-12-28: Geocaching Through a Few More Cemeteries

Today I'm going Geocaching on my own. Candy is working and we'll be leaving the area this weekend headed to West Texas. There's a few more cemeteries that we haven't found yet and I wanted to get a few.

So I head north on US-96 up to San Augustine. From there I turn west on the historic El Camino Real, otherwise known as Texas Hwy 21. A few miles down the road I get to my first cache called "Turn Here!" And so after a quick find, I turned here. Back around and the direction of home.

The next stop is the long forgotten Woolen Cemetery (GCW9WC) and next Geocache. The sad and overgrown cemetery dates back to the late 1890's and early 1900's. Probably the only people that come out to the cemeteries to remember those laid to rest are Geocachers.

Next stop along the highway was the cache at the Saunders Cemetery (GCPF6Z). Still in use today, this cemetery has a few headstones dating back to the 1800's with the oldest at 1875.

The last cemetery today was the Thomas Cemetery (GCNNVT). In 1822, North Carolina native Benjamin Thomas, then in Alabama, read and advertisement calling for families to settle Stephen F. Austin's colony in Texas. Between himself as head of his family, his wife Mary Ann "Polly" (Dickinson), eleven children and seven slaves, he qualified for more than 3,000 acres. The family reached Natchitoches, Louisiana in Feb 1822 and stayed there until July waiting for Austin to escrort them to their new home.

However, Austin never came, so the family continued their journey along El Camino Real and founded the Thomas settlement in San Augustine County. Other early settlers included the Davis, Teel, Horn, Price, King, Brooks, Fitzgerald, Polk, Bate and Mathews families.

The Thomas Cemetery comprises two acres in the James W. Moss survey, near where the Thomas Plantation home stood.Benjamin Thomas died in 1834 and Mary died in 1840. Their graves and many others are believed to be marked by native fieldstones. The oldest dated grave is for Sarah Moore Fitzgerald (1795-1840).

The last geocaching stop was for the Historic Hwy 21 roadside picnic area build in the mid-1930's.

That was it for my quick Geocaching drive for today. Thanks for riding along.

2015-12-26: Geocaching and Following Yesterdays Route

So today we decided to go back up to Lufkin again and again for another Starbucks. This time we found a few more local urban caches around town as well. After three local caches, we continued following yesterdays route up towards Nacogdoches. This time Geocaching up in the north side of town and this old silo.

Several more caches later and driving down this backroad, we passed by the foundation of where a house used to be. The only thing that remains was this chimney!

Another place of interest, was this park in Timpson, TX. There were four caches here, but I really liked the grounds here with the old rock wall.

We ended the day with 24 Geocaching finds and a couple of new counties as well.

2015-12-25: Geocaching Through History on Christmas Day

So today is Christmas day and with family and friends back in Florida, it would've been too much to try and make it back there for a 3-day weekend. And so another day off also means another drive up to Lufkin for a Starbucks coffee. Surprisingly they're open on Christmas morning. Then Geocaching afterwards.

This time leaving Lufkin, we drove north on US-59. Our first stop was at the Walker Cemetery in Angelina County and our first cache for the day (GC5MB7P). In 1846, Thomas R. Walker moved into the area from North Carolina. In 1851, he wed Emily Z. Briscoe, and the couple farmed and reared their children on their homestead. Walker served as county sheriff and county judge, and was a member of the local masonic lodge. Upon his death in 1877, Walker was buried in this cemetery, which had been established before he purchased the land in 1858. Originally known as Red Land cemetery, this burial ground was in use for decades before Walker was buried here. One early marked grave is that of Nathaniel S. Abney (d. 1855), the young son of settler Paul C. Abney.

Further up the road and a couple caches later, we arrived in Nacogdoches. The next cache was at the local fire station. A tribute to firefighters and rather HOT cache!

We also visited the local cemetery of course, the location of yet another Geocache. Only this one was really hard. Hidden at the base of this old magnolia tree underneath a kazzilion leaves! Eventually found the string, but no container. Reading previous logs, it seems as though several others have had the same issue. Went to the car and found a replacement container to continue the cemetery caches.

I know it may seem like it at times, but our adventures are not always about Geocaching. When we see nice locations, we usually take some time to enjoy them also. One such place was the Lanana Creek Trail. It was a nice relaxing stroll along the creek.

While driving around town grabbing caches, we noticed a statue which was a tribute to the towns country doctors over the years from back when they used to make house calls. Another statue was of Karle Wilson Baker (1878-1960), nationally acclaimed and nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

Our next Geocache was a virtual cache for this old fort. The Stone Fort Museum is housed in a 1936 replica, built on a new site, of Don Antonio Gil Y'Barbo's stone house. Y'Barbo, the founder of present day Nacogdoches, built the stone house circa 1780 as the formal portals to the Spanish District of Texas. The original site of Y'Barbo's house, torn down in 1902, is the corner of Fredonia and Main Streets in downtown Nacogdoches. During its history, the original house served variously as a public building, grocery store, candy store, saloon, and as a temporary fortification during the Magee-Gutierrez, Dr. James Long and Fredonia Rebellion filibusters.

This next cache I'm highlighting was a puzzle cache (GC5NFZA). This one took a lot of creativity and thoughtfulness! It also drove us CRAZY trying to figure it out! We must have spent 30 minutes trying to figure out. After reading previous logs and watching a YouTube video, I finally had a clue and opened it in minutes! WOW, What a fun cache!

The last stop in town before moving on was at this old railroad train. This Shay 36-ton Locomotive was built in 1907. There was supposed to be a cache hidden there by the tree, but we didn't find any evidence of one.

After leaving Nacogdoches, we headed over towards Timpson. There were several newly placed caches that had yet to be found. However, when we finally made it over to them there was another Geocachers name at the top FTF spot. Just 3 hours earlier! Perhaps if we ran our day in the opposite direction... so while we opted for coffee first and Nacogdoches next, we missed out on FTF's. Oh well, still a good day!

2015-12-19: Geocaching Tank, Cemeteries, Davy Crockett, and More

Welcome back to our Geocaching adventures. We hope you have been enjoying our stories so far. Feel free to leave your comments or just say hello to let us know you've stopped by.

Today was another Saturday and after a week without a Starbucks, Candy was long past ready for a Triple Vente Peppermint White Mocha! So we made the long drive up to Lufkin for our weekend breakfast at Cracker Barrel and a Starbucks coffee.

Our goal today was to pick up some new Texas counties. From Lufkin, we took TX-94 down into Trinity County and our first quick roadside cache in a new county. Then continuing on to US-287 north to the Ellis-Prairie Cemetery and our next cache (GC67CRV). The oldest legible grave is for Baby Rosser 1879.

The next Geocache was in the Pennington Cemetery (GC29Q7N). The oldest legible grave was from 1859. We spent about 15 minutes looking for the cache, but came away with a DNF.

Continuing up the road and just entering the town of Crockett, we went to look for this cache called "Who Needs a Musket?" (GCMA5F). Yeah, I'd say so! It's a giant tank! I decided to climb up on top for a photo first. Then as I'm climbing down, a couple of guys and some kids pulled up. They were taking a break from camping and came into town for some Geocaching. There are plenty of hiding places on a tank and after a few minutes, I came up with the find.

Once in town was the Davy Crockett Spring and Brewer Park (GC1AFH6). Here was a small cabin and spring, the site where Davy Crockett and his men stopped for the night as they were headed for the Alamo.

Nothing Geocaching related, but just a cool looking old west style building in Crockett. We learned from the next cache and a statue of Sam Lightnin' Hopkins, that the Camp St Cafe was once a pool hall where the Blue Legend used to play.

Several more caches, a couple more cemeteries, and a couple new counties later and we headed from home. Another adventurous day of Geocaching through history.

2015-12-12: Road Trip 870 Miles, 6 Geocaches, 5 States, 1 Day!

What a long day! I had some business to take care of back in Florida. I had two goals for the 870 mile drive back: do it one day and find at least one Geocache in each of the 5 states within the one day. My previous record was only Geocaching 3 states in one day. For those of you in the north east, that's not a big deal. But the states are bigger in the rest of the country and take longer to drive across.

So I left Jasper, Texas around 5 AM this morning heading east on US-190. Somewhere between Newton and the Louisiana state line was an old rest area with my first cache stop. Supposed to be an easy park and grab cache, but it is still dark out which makes it harder sometimes. But the flashlight found it quickly and I was on my way again!

Crossing the state line, I turned onto Hwy 110 in Merryville over to Longville. There I turned south onto US-171 down into Lake Charles. Right before getting onto I-10 eastbound, there's a WalMart where I stopped for a quick parking lot cache, bathroom break, and a bag of mini-donuts to eat along the way.

Now was the long, boring I-10 drive! To pass the time on these long drives, I like listening to audiobooks. Today I started listening to Patriot Games by Tom Clancy.

One more Geocaching stop in Louisiana to grab a new county in West Baton Rouge. The first one I looked for was at visitor center and supposed to be a quick find. However with their Christmas decorations up for display, they removed the cache until January. They said so in their full description, but they didn't disable the cache itself. Well guess who didn't read the full description! I did log a note on their cache page telling my disappointment and that they needed to disable the cache so that we don't waste our time getting off the interstate to go look for it. Which they did later in the day.

So after wasting 15-20 minutes there, I looked up another cache a mile down the road and went to find it. I stopped and 5 minutes later, I'm trying to figure out how to get back on the highway.

Halfway across Mississippi, I exited I-10 for another quick WalMart parking lot cache and state #3.

Crossing over into Alabama, I get off at exit #4 to grab a quick cache for state #4 in a T/A Travel Center parking lot.

Once into Florida, I stopped again at the rest area near Crestview for a cache in state #5! YAY! Mission accomplished! Well one goal down anyway. I still had about 300 miles or so to go. From there it was non-stop all the way down to my mothers house in Umatilla, Florida. Umatilla is a small town about an hour north of Orlando.

Now I can stretch out, relax, and get some sleep!