Boys Night Out – City Center

I’m beginning to think that wives don’t like activities that begin with “G.” For example some react violently to Golf. Others don’t like Gambling. My wife, Sweetie abhors Geocaching. I say the word and the eyes roll. Oh well, I like it. I like it a lot. I’m obsessed with it. I find it to be lots of fun.

I work downtown and I’m always looking for a place to hide a cache. There are not very many geocaches in downtown Tulsa and most of them are mine. Most are small, what are called microcaches. What are fun though are big caches that are easy to find and full of stuff to trade. These however are hard to hide in an urban area.

At lunch last week I was walking around downtown aimlessly and I stumbled upon on a little crease, a hidden place, a great hiding place. I got closer thinking “I could hide a cooler in there.” I got even closer and found out that somebody had already beaten me to it. A homeless person was using it to sleep in. All I had was the cheesey camera on the Treo.

Its hard to tell from the photo but there is a sleeping bag, a back pack and some other stuff in there. Somebody is camping within about 20 feet of where hundreds of people go walking and driving every business day. I’m glad for him, everybody needs a place to stay. I wished that he had better but I guess it is his. Until he leaves, then it will be mine. Especially if Sweetie gets real mad at me.

I found another cache site about 60 feet away. Far enough I think that he wouldn’t be bothered.

The following Tuesday. Sweetie had her monthly book group meeting. My son, SuperPizzaBoy, and I always have a “boys night out” and we do lots of various things. We have been doing it since he was born. We have a whole series of “Boys Night Out” caches for geocaches that we hid during out monthly outings. It has been a long time since we have done one though. We have been playing miniature golf, laser tagging, swimming, shopping, and other things. It has been over a year since our last Boys Night Out cache. Since I discovered a hiding place in a great area, off we went.

First up, we eat. We went to Johnnies for hamburges. We usually go there or Mexacali’s for mexican food.
A part of geocaching is trade trinkets. We usually go to the Dollar Store for that. This time we loaded up at Walgreens. And then to the cache site.
We got to the cache site at dusk. It is right in the middle of downtown which is usually deserted this time of day. There were two guys standing yakking. They were within sight of where we wanted to hide the cache so they had to leave before we could do anything. They yakked and yakked and then yakked some more. All we could hear was “badab badab badab badab badab.” or “blah blah blah.” I don’t know what they were talking about. It must of been important, like talking about their wifes hairstyles or shoes or I don’t know what.
We finally loaded up in the truck and drove around and around. They left! Its like hey guys its a school night.
So anyway, we got out and hid the cache and got the coordinates. To do it right you have to take a bunch of readings and then average them.

It is very well hidden.
Then we went home. I filled out a web page for the cache and submitted it for approval. Geocaching.com has all sorts of guidelines and rules for caching. There are laws also governing the placement of personal objects. They are anti terrorism type laws enacted after 9/11. Geocachers have been prosecuted for placing caches on railroad abutments for example. You can’t place objects in any National Park. The City of Tulsa encourages placing caches in the remote areas of city parks. SPB and I have several. You have to get a permit and we have and it is free. The River Parks Authority requires permits also and we have one near the Bear Sculpture at 71st and Riverside and another on Turkey Mountain. We have 24 caches hidden and have found over 700.
I got notice of approval this morning. If you want to go looking for it, the coordinates are N 36 degrees 9.023 minutes north and W 95 degrees 59.241 minutes west. Its called “Boys Night Out – City Center“. SPB picked the name.
Oh, the homeless camp. I had a better camera and wanted to get a better picture than the one above so just before we left the area I walked over there to take a picture. I didn’t though. The occupant was in his hidey hole and appeared to be fast asleep. I backed up very quickly and quietly, without taking the picture.

One thought on “Boys Night Out – City Center

  1. Baloney

    I assume that I “own” the referrenced golf reaction? I have to say that geocaching sound more fun to me, but I can sympathize with Sweetie.

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