2016-02-21: Hiking in a Beautiful Canyon with a Beautiful Lady and She Said YES!

Hello again and welcome back to our Geocaching Adventure blog. Today I had a surprise planned for Candy. We were supposed to have gone to Palo Duro Canyon here in Texas back in November for a vacation. But do to her job change at that same time, our vacation plans were cancelled and we ended up moving to Texas. First in East Texas and now in West Texas.

Well today we finally got the chance and good weather to make the 2-hour drive up and take a hike. And I couldn't have asked for much better weather either. It started out a little cloudy. But by the time we reached our the Lighthouse Peak, the sky had cleared. Still a little windy, especially up at the peak. But at least it wasn't hot!

After arriving at the trailhead parking, I put on the backpack with some bottled water, grabbed both GPS's for Geocaching, and away we went. Because the weather was so nice and being a Sunday, there were quite a few people out on the trails. I mean there must have been 25-30 cars parked at the trail head and saw plenty of people coming and going along the trail.

We started out on the trail and within a few hundred feet came to and found our first Geocache. Then about 600'-700' down we found the next cache. The next cache however, we spent about 10 minutes looking without success, a DNF. It was then I decided that this may take more time than I expected. So we just hiked through to the Lighthouse Peak and would do the Geocaching on the way back.

We enjoyed the views and took lots of pictures. In this first photo below, I don't know if this rock formation has a specific name but I call it "Sitting Chief." Following the ridge to the right and into the second photo, this hill is actually called "Capital Peak."

Sitting Chief

Capital Peak

Down to the right you can see two peaks way in the distance.
That is Lighthouse Peak and our destination.

After about an hour, we arrived at the base of Lighthouse Peak and began our climb up. This section here was probably the most difficult as there was a lot of sand through here which made the steep climb slippery. You kinda had to walk funny from side-to-side finding flat spots on secure rock.

We've reached the top! Here is a panoramic photo taken from between the two towers. It was a spectacular view! The wind was blowing at about a chilly 30 mph too. But definitely worth the 6.84 mile round trip hike!

After a few moments of enjoying those views and taking pictures, we saw some hikers going up to the top of the second peak. The one to the right side of the next photo. So we decide to follow up the narrow trail to go part way up also.

Now we're back down next to Lighthouse Peak and got another hiker to take our photo. Before heading back, I decided it was time and took off my backpack and we sat on the edge looking out into the canyon. Looking at the photo of us below, it was just to the right of where we are standing. We had just celebrated our two years together since our first date and TODAY was Candy's birthday.

I reminisced about our adventures and how we've gotten through some rough spots already. And that if we work together, we can climb any mountain and walk through any valley. Just as we hiked up here to Lighthouse Peak. I then proceeded to ask her if she would marry me and she said YES! YIPPEE!! I have been waiting many months to get here to this beautiful place to propose to a beautiful lady! 

On the hike back we found 11 more Geocaches for a total of 13 along the trail. There were almost as many missing caches having 9 DNF's! We didn't look for all of those 9 as most had previous DNF's from the last few cachers.

Below we had a tiny water crossing and had to make it as dramatic as possible for our extreme Geocaching friends back in Florida! And MY Sweet Candy and her phone ready to take photos. She's so cute!

"This is where he proposed and I said YES!"

I saw the little trail and had to run up the hill.
From that point up got a little more vertical!

So today was another especially great adventure kinda day! We can now call each other fiance instead of boyfriend and girlfriend! Thanks for reading about our special day. We hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a comment to let us know you stopped by and feel free to share it with your friends. Maybe that boyfriend or girlfriend to kinda drop a hint! Hmmm...

See ya next time.

2016-02-20: Geocaching Through New Counties, Cemeteries, Bridges and More

Today is Geocaching Day! Or as most people call it: Saturday. Since we found out this week that work may be transferring us out of the area soon, we set out today to try and get a few more new Texas counties for our Geocaching map.

We took off towards the southeast down US-84 to the town of Post. There we turned eastbound on US-380. Grabbing two caches in Garza county and along the way we passed by these few long abandoned and deteriorated houses. They were miles apart and we've seen plenty of these over the last few weeks, but these just had a certain character and we had to stop for photos.

Soon we pulled into the small town of Clairemont. Clairemont was established in 1892 to coincide with the organization of Kent County with the understanding that it would serve as the county's seat of government. The new town was located on land owned by local rancher R.L. Rhomberg, who named the new town after his niece, Claire Becker. In 1895 a sandstone courthouse and matching jail (GC55ZBW) were constructed. By that time the town had several stores, a bank, a newspaper, and a hotel. Although the Stamford and Northwestern Railway had bypassed Clairemont to the east by 1909, the town continued to prosper. Cotton and cattle ranching dominated the economy, and oil later became important. By the 1930s the population exceeded 200. By the 1950s, however, the town had begun a steady decline and by 1954 had lost its title as county seat to nearby Jayton. The Clairemont courthouse burned shortly after the records were transferred to Jayton, but the bottom story was preserved as a community center. The remaining citizens soon began to move away, and the population dwindled to about 15 by the 2000s.

Candy locked me up!

The old gas station.

We then stopped over at the Clairemont Cemetery (GC5HGVD) for our next cache. Buried there is Judge AW Landers, who in March 1893 was on his way by horseback to take tax money to a bank in Snyder, 32 miles away. He was waylaid by robbers, and the money taken. His body was found a short period of time and brought back to the cemetery. The party arrived at night and the body was buried by lantern light. The next morning, the burial party discovered they had run the grave southeast by northwest, instead of east and west, as was tradition. The widow was consulted and she said just leave it. When she passed away, she was buried beside him in the same direction. So, there are two graves in the cemetery that are oriented a little differently than the rest of them.

After the Clairemont Cemetery, we also found caches in the Jayton Cemetery (GCQ5H2) established in 1890 and another at the Oriana Cemetery (GC1EMN0). But at one of them, we saw this headstone which had been knocked over and under a bush of an infant which died at birth back in 1898.

Our next cache was located high above the Salt Fork Brazos River (GC1EMMQ). The older bridge is the one closest to the camera and is now closed since the newer one was built to replace it. Even though it was an out-of-the-way drive to get to this cache, it was well worth it for the views.

Continuing on down the road, we arrived in what's left of a small town called Peacock (GCKA0X). Despite having been almost completely leveled by a tornado in 1914, the citizens had rebuilt the town within 10 years. Though there's not much left here today. But those that remain are "Proud as a Peacock."

Our next Geocache was at the Double Mountain Cemetery (GC5ME01). Double mountain is an important regional landmarks, dating back at least to 1788, when Jose Mares opened a trail from San Antonio to Santa Fe; thereafter, the mountains were waymarkers "for every westward expedition and a rendezvous for buffalo hunters." They were also cited by the surveying party of Randolph B. Marcy in 1849. At one time, Comanche leader Quanah Parker and his band lived on or near the mountains, and according to one source, the mountains were once a sacred place to the Comanches. The town of Double Mountain once existed a few miles north of the hills. Established in 1886, the community featured a post office, sheriff, schoolhouse, and Methodist and Baptist churches for several years in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but had become a ghost town by the 1980s.

The old Carney House in O'Brien, TX has seen better days (GC4AAKJ).

Our last cache for the day was located at the Brazos River Bridge (GC43B7K). Yes, another new bridge going over another section of that river. This bridge was constructed in 1938-39 to replace a 1901 bridge. A statewide historic bridge survey in the 1990's identified it as one of only five continuous through truss bridges in Texas built before WWII.

From the bridge, we saw the moon to the east...

... and the sunset to the west.

The day ended with a beautiful mural on the side of a building. Another day, another adventure. I have something special planned for tomorrow, so be sure to come back!

2016-02-13: More Geocaching in Cemeteries Learning History and Route 66 Through Texas

Welcome back. Today was a little bit of everything. Our Geocaching goal was to pickup a few new counties and visit some classic Americana along Route 66 in Amarillo, Texas.

Our first cache (GC5NEFN) was another ghost town cemetery in Hale County. The Running Water Cemetery dates back to the late 1800's. Running Water Draw was near the headquarters of the Morrison ranch, established in 1881 as the first ranch in the county. Later the land became part of CC Slaughter's extensive holdings. Settlers bought railroad lands in the area, and in 1890, a post office called Wadsworth was established. For promotional reasons the name was changed to Running Water in 1891. That year a school was built. The railroad bypassed Running Water, which was near this cemetery, and in 1928 the community's businesses were moved three miles north to Edmonson Switch on the rail line. In 1935 the Running Water post office was moved to Edmonson Switch and two years later was renamed Edmonson. The old site of the Running Water community was abandoned.

The next cache was a quick stop by the Hart Cemetery (GC5TKDM).

Then we arrived in the town of Dimmitt for a full-sized time capsule. Mr. Kerr was a man of principal and the proprietor of Kerr Hardware (GCP930). The Texas Limited Sales, Excise and Use Tax Act was enacted by the 57th Legislature and became effective on September 1, 1961. Mr. Kerr got upset because the State of Texas had the audacity to require him to charge a sales tax. Needless to say, Mr. Kerr said he would "lock the doors" before he did this. The local legend goes that Mr. Kerr refused to charge the citizens sales tax and walked out and never came back. You will see brand new bicycles, tricycles, radios, fishing baskets, old wringer washing machines, riding toy tractors, appliances, on and on. Take a peek in the windows, everything is exactly how Mr. Kerr had left it over 50 years ago! I think I'd like to buy this place, clean everything up, and just keep it on display. 

Also in town was The Olde Hotel, built in 1929 and had 30 upstairs rooms and two restrooms. The hotel ceased operation in 1977 and was converted to apartments in 1980. The upstairs still houses six apartment rooms and four bed/breakfast rooms. The first floor has been home to Antiques Plus since 2002.

The Ozark Trail Obelisk was constructed in the 1920's and was originally in the middle of the highway intersection and marked the distance to other towns along the trail. On another corner of the courthouse lawn is one of the many Quanah Parker Arrows that mark the Quanah Trail throughout the Texas Plains.

A few more caches later and we came to the St. Mary Cemetery (GC4VHW6) cache. German Catholics settled the north side of Umbarger and Swiss Catholics to the south side of town in the early 1900's.

Heading on up to Amarillo on the south side of town, we come to our first virtual cache (GCH59D). A strange site to say the least. According to the historical marker:

In 1819 while on their horseback trek over the great plains of New Spain, Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary Wollstonecraft (author of "Frankenstein"), came across these ruins. Here Shelley penned these immortal lines:

 OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveler from an antique land who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert, near them, on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, tell that its sculpture well those passions read, which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away." (1819) 

In reality: Inspired by a similar set of big legs in the Egyptian desert, Stanley Marsh 3 (who commissioned the nearby Cadillac Ranch) paid a guy named Lightnin' McDuff to build the legs.

Speaking of Cadillac Ranch (GCG71X), that was the next stop of our day. I once paid a visit here to this Route 66 roadside attraction back in 2009 while I was a truck driver. At that time, I was the only one out here. With the exception of a couple dozen cows grazing about. Back then the cars were also covered with graffiti. Today is a little different. Candy had never seen this before. There is also a traditional cache here too (GC4K7Y3).

But sadly there were no cows anywhere in sight. There where about 25-30 people in the stages of coming, going, and painting. But the worse part was that there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of spray paint cans littering the field. Even with the 3 large dumpsters back by the fence and parking area for those who must leave their mark, there are still those disrespectful people who could care less and just toss their empty cans on the ground. Reading through some of the Geocaching logs though, some cachers bring bags out here to pick up some of the cans as they make the finds. If we ever come back out here, we'll definitely be prepared with extra bags.

One a good note, as we were leaving the area getting back to I-40, a few blocks away was the Amarillo West RV Park which re-created its own "Cadillac Ranch" without the graffiti, restored Cadillacs, and a giant cowboy statue. A better photo indeed!

And you can't visit Amarillo without a stop by the Big Texan restaurant complex. There's also a Travel Bug Hotel here as well (GC30FGP), though I was disappointed when I found it. The previous one here I found back in 2009 was listed as a LARGE cache and was a 10 gallon plastic storage container. A fitting Texas sized cache. That one was archived and this new one put in place. Still listed as a "large" size cache, this one wasn't much bigger than a sandwich size Tupperware.

A few blocks down was the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame and Museum next to the AQH Headquarters. There wasn't a cache here, but several life size horse & rider statues as well as this unique wall of running horses.

Getting late in the day and we still had a 2 hour drive home. But there were two more virtual caches in the downtown area I wanted to get. The first (GCGXBZ) was at this park that had a 1-ton granite globe that was supposed to float on the water. But the water from underneath was turned off so you couldn't spin the globe. The second photo below was an old train locomotive (GCGBMY) built in 1930 and traveled 1,750,000 miles before retiring in Nov. 1953. 

What a hodgepodge of things seen today! From 100 year old cemeteries, historically preserved hardware store, roadside oddities and attractions, to old trains. We sure like this hobby!