53 things

Each year, I celebrate my birthday doing 53 somethings. It's usually running. Miles, Ks, and last year, it was trips across the pedestrian bridge. This year, my birthday fell on the same weekend as a home and garden show, so I worked for 53 hours at the show. GRRR!!!! I NEEDED something else to mark the aging process. (Actually, I decided a few years back that I would get younger each year. Why not? I have never really matured, and as I age, the mind is sure to go. Find any OLD person in their 90s who do not pee their pants just like they did as babies.)

But this year, I decided to find 53 geocaches in one day. Could I do that? Was it even possible? 
After an easy 9 miler, and breakfast with friends, I set out. I first found an easy one to get on the board--one that I had located a few days earlier, but could not retrieve since there was a pick-up truck parked right in front of it. Might have been another geocacher.... Good Day Tulsa was find number two.
It was an ammo box, and had lotsa stuff to trade. I usually do not get into trading silly stuff though.
But signing the log--YUP! I am all about that.
Once found, I log the find on the geocaching sight, and put some sort of message. My message here was: Nice Buncha Swag.

At the next cache, I had a helper. This little guy was helping me dig. The cache was at the base of a tree, and while pulling it out, This guy was doing his best to get out of the way. I have heard that there are far worse critters who interfere with this hobby. Snakes, spiders, mad raccoons....

Caches come in all sizes, shapes, and various containers. Lotsa rubbermaid containers, steel army ammo boxes, pill bottles, peanut butter jars, altoids tins, and a few off the wall secret ones which I won't disclose.
There is a geocache in plain sight at the old cave house. Can you see it?

Caching takes you a lot of neat places. And a lot of historic places as well. The picture above is an old Indian cemetery--right in the middle of a parking lot in a strip shopping center. To show "reverence" the developers erected a steel fence around the sacred burial ground. In my thinking, this should have been national news. Of course, I guess it is a lack or reverence putting a geocache here as well. It was a magnetic micro hidden somewhere in the fence. This was my first DNF (Did Not Find) for the day.

I ended up with 28 finds out of 32 searches--a very good outing for me--but far short of my goal of 53 finds. So, since there are TWO days in a weekend, the search resumed Sunday. I ran with my friends on Turkey Sunday morning, ate breakfast, and then recruited Russell to get the rest of my haul.

Russell needed 25 finds to reach his 100 find milestone. I needed 25 as well to meet my goal. In this videwo, we were hunting our 5th find for the day. It was at the top of a hill between Tulsa and Sapulpa. The previous finders had logged reports of this hill being brutal. That the oxygen was thin at the top--stuff like that. It was an easy one. Not all geochachers are trail runners.

You find all kinds of weird stuff while caching. I have found unknown trailz, money, skeletons of animals, meth labs, and at this sight--PORN! There was a large box that had this note.

I won't post any pics of the contents. It was that of a different "preference." I logged the cache, but declined signing the log, of rifling through all the "goodies." I'm no prude, but it was really in poor taste, albeit a little funny.

Several of our caches were in cemeteries this day. This old cemetery was in northern Sapulpa, and was a peaceful place.
I posted this pic to Facebook with the caption "I see dead people." Comments like "And the dead people see you", "zombie land", and " Are the dead people talking to you?" gave me chuckle.

This won my award for best cache of the day. The description said you could see it form the parking lot, and after we found it, I agreed that it could be seen. Getting it was insane. We had to walk almost a 1/4 mile up a creek bank. Then, after long search, I spotted a cord, and the camo pill bottle suspended about 20 feet above the creek. There were some steel pipes welded as supports to this pipe wall which reinforced the steep banks of the ravine. walking across one of these pipes, and keeping balance by holding on to dead tree limbs got me close enough to grab the bottle. Russell and I signed the log, and then repeated the balancing act to put it back. Fun Fun Fun. But falling would have been a disaster.

We ended up visiting seven different cemeteries. This one is in Mounds--well in between Keifer and Mounds. These would be pretty scary to find at night.

The next-to-the-last cache was at Childrers Creek. I fixed the "mis-spelling." Sunday, I got 27 finds, ending with one at Ollies Restaurant after I dropped Russell off. Russell got 28. It was a good couple of days. I sweat a lot, burned maybe 10s of calories, and had fun.