2016-11-20: Hiking and Geocaching in the Fort Davis Mountains State Park

Today was a day where the weather was finally cooling down enough here in West Texas to go out and do some hiking. YAY! We decided to start with an easy trail in the Fort Davis Mountains State Park. If you have been following along with us, you'll recall we made a stop here in Fort Davis not too long ago during one of our Geocaching Adventure trips. However at that time we didn't have time to do any actual hiking, just touring the remains of the fort.

For our first hike of the season, we chose the Indian Lodge Trail. With a length of 1.37 miles and having a "challenging" rating, I would have called it more of a moderate hike. The trailhead begins behind the Indian Lodge and ascends to the views of the Davis Mountains. The trail ends connecting with the Montezuma Trail leading down to the campgrounds. Adding in the short walk back to the lodge along the road, and I'd say our total hike was just over 2 miles in length.

And of course, what's a hike without doing a little Geocaching along the way! We found a total of seven caches today, including a FTF (first to find GC6VDZP) and re-found my very first Geocache (GCHE45) which I found back in April of 2006! The log had since been replaced so I couldn't get a picture of my first signed log though.

Overall it was a great hike on a perfect weather day with some great views! We'll have to come back soon and tackle some of the other trails and caches. Thanks for stopping by to read our blog. Be sure to leave your comments and let us know you stopped by. See you next time.

Re-found my very first cache from April 2006!

2016-10-29: From Meteors to Sand Dunes in West Texas

Hello and Welcome Back to the AwayWeGo's Geocaching Adventures Blog. Today's adventure was a rather short one. After a late breakfast, we drove over to Odessa for a Starbucks coffee. By this time we weren't up for a long drive to anywhere, so I chose to get some of the nearby caches I was saving for a time like this.

We stopped by the Monahans Sandhills State Park for an Earthcache (GCZJNH) and a walk in the sand. With sand dunes ranging from 35-80 feet high, the sand hills cover more than 3800 acres in two counties. It reminded us a lot of the sand dunes along the Florida beaches.

The other Geocache we went after was at the Odessa Meteor Crater, which was a virtual cache (GC646F). Though the crater was originally 500 feet wide by 100 feet deep. However, over the years wind and erosion had filled in most of it. There was also an Earthcache (GC16J2E) at the visitors center, plus two more on the road leading up to it.

Back near the beginning of the road near I-20, there was the Henderson Ranch Family Cemetery. The burials date from 1903 to 1978. I was surprised there wasn't a cache placed here, so I came back later and hid one myself.

So that was it for today. Not a big adventure, but we did see a few of the places we kept bypassing and saving for a day like today. Thanks for stopping by and joining us on today's short adventure.