Category Archives: Geocaching

Graffiti Wednesday

My blog friend Jen has been posting on Wednesdays about graffiti that she finds in and around Oklahoma City. She has spent a considerable amount of time learning all about the subject. She has become quite passionate about the subject and I love reading about her trespassing and running down trains in order to document good examples of graffiti.

When she started posting about graffiti I was a little apprehensive. To me a lot of it is vandalism with paint as opposed to an art form. Although I have to admit many of the practitioners have talent and I wonder why they haven’t been more productive with their talent.

(This isn’t graffiti, it’s a commissioned mural.)

With Jen one gets insight, summaries of research, access to deep thinking, insights, and great photography. Me, you just get snapshots, and a link to Jen!

Above is the worst possible graffiti. On a rock face on my beloved Turkey Mountain in Tulsa. Ughh.

I ventured to the Elm Creek Tunnel discharge into the Arkansas River. I had two purposes. One was to check out the graffiti, the other was to find a geocache hidden there. I find some graffiti, I have yet to find the geocache.

Lets just say that the most of the talent of the graffiti artists here is still rather undeveloped.

They are pretty good sloganeers though. I bet you didn’t know sloganeers was a word. Try it on Words With Friends if you get a chance. Let me know how it works for you.

I’ll have to do some more research to find the vivid examples that my friend Jen finds.

I like this sentiment, but the art needs a little work.

Tulsa’s storm drain system also fascinates me apparently we have a very extensive drainage system that attracts urban explorers from all over. Below is a video of a party that was thrown about a half mile into the tunnel in 2010. Personally, I think those attending the party are nuts. Attending the party in ankle deep water in the dark?

So, I’ll be on the lookout for a lot better examples of graffiti. My dream of unifying graffiti blogging and geocaching is getting off to a rough start.

Our World – Looking for the Little People

Saturday afternoon I went geocaching all by myself on Turkey Mountain. Sweetie had things to do at the Tulsa Garden Center and SuperPizzaBoy was visiting a friend.

So off on the trail I went.

Turkey Mountain has a wild wooly history. An old oilfield and moonshiners hangout. Lots of relics that I don’t understand.

Old campsite for “Occupy Turkey Mountain” maybe?

Anybody need basic transportation.?

Enough about the “things” on Turkey Mountain. Lets talk about the people. There is a pecking order on the mountain. Like the people below are strollers.

And above them, are the hikers.

And then above the hikers are the trail runners.Trail runners are very cool people. They have a lot going for them

And then of course at the top you have Geocachers, such as the lady below. Sophisticated and Classy, the two most common adjectives applied to geocachers. Surely you agree.

Sorry, I got off track. I did find something interesting. I didn’t know it before but I evidence of the little people on Turkey Mountain. Fellow geocacher M5 reported on them earlier. I knocked but nobody was home.

I also found myself in a situation that no old fat guy ever wants to be in. Can’t go down!

Can’t go up!

The Little People were no help.

Thanks M5 for another two great caches in Turkey Mountain.

I wore my fancy schmancy Garmin watch during my hunt. Below is the track. If you hit the green button it takes you to the Garmin website. Hit the play button and you can see the route I traversed.

Our World

ABC Wednesday – “G” is for Geocaching!!

Those that know me know that G to me is for geocaching.http://www.geocaching.com/

I love hiding containers hidden in the woods.

And seeing what they contain!

They come in all shapes and sizes.

Some even have hair.

Some are pretty fancy.

Geocaching has taken to places with breathtaking sights.

And down long abandoned stretches of Route 66.

I’ve even climbed a few trees.

And has taken me to lighthouses in the middle of Oklahoma’s tallgrass prairies.

I get to play with gadgets that read satellite signals.

It’s great fun for families

and coworkers.

and sharing with people of all ages who have never done it before.

Yep, G is for Geocaching for me.

A quick primer on geocaching

ABC Wednesday

Our World – Continuing the Adventure

Son and I went geocaching Saturday afternoon on Turkey Mountain here in Tulsa.

The plan was to find several caches, but we only found one, and it was a great one. It was “The Adventure Continues to Continue – RGZ.” It is near the site of an another cache that has since been archived. I’m not going to show you the container nor it’s placement. I don’t want to give away the secret to this tricky cache. It is placed by a cacher who goes by the name M5. Finding one of his caches makes for a great day. Do you think he would sue me if told everybody that he has a twisted mind? Such a mind makes for great geocaches.

Anyway there was a lot of old man style grunting and cussing going on the mountain yesterday. I dropped my walking stick and it slid a long ways down the mountain. So I had to get my big ole butt down there and back to retrieve it. SuperPizzaBoy thought it was pretty funny.

Anyway, four mile round trip, one cache, but a great walk in the woods.

What did you do Saturday?

Our World

Searching for Hidden Treasures

My favorite hobby is geocaching. Finding things that people have hidden out in our world.

Geocaching has led me down many trails and paths.

I’ve come across surprising things like this elf door.

And cleverly hidden containers.

Just to find the containers, big and small.

I’ve stuck my hands into crevices where I really shouldn’t have. (I’ve been to the doctor more than once because of ill considered decisions.)

I’ve come across many creatures.

Some small and cute

Others who would eat the small and cute

Some, I’ve helped across the road.

And others that I’ve just greeted and left alone.

Just imagine how wise I’d be if I had spent a fraction of this time looking for wisdom.

“If you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures – then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God”

Proverbs 2:4-5

Perfect Pairings

Spiritual Sundays

Geocaching 101 if you are wondering what it is.

Muggles No More!!

So why is Sweetie so danged happy? Look at her. She’s positively giddy.

I think it is because she is missing out on a geocaching adventure.

She’ll go geocaching with me, and she is good at it. But she doesn’t mind missing an outing.

Even when I took these ladies geocaching. I mean they look nice but they just couldn’t get into it.

(No I didn’t really take them geocaching, but I could tell they wanted me to ask them to go.)

They weren’t really dressed for it either. I found a couple other people to go geocaching with me. Smarter than the cheerleaders, and really, better looking also.

My friend Jonni of That’s Baloney on the right and her neighbor Diane, on the left. I’ll take them geocaching over Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders any day. Jonni is also one of the Real Housewives of Oklahoma (“RHOK”) who are a hoot. Check them out. They brought their great kids Michael and John. None of them had ever been geocaching before. So that made them “Muggles.” Muggles are what geocachers call non-geocachers. It’s from the Harry Potter books where muggles are just regular non-wizard people.

My mission Sunday was to lead Jonni, Diane, and their kids away from being muggles to the salvation of being geocachers.

Of course, the ever stylish Jonni had all the right clothes and accessories. Note the led lights on her ball cap and the carabiners. Check out the footwear.

Neiman Marcus I think, their geocaching collection. That’s where Jonni gets her snuggies. But keep that on the “down low” she doesn’t want people to think she is putting on airs.

Everybody took a turn with the GPSr going from cache to cache at the Ray Harrell Nature Park in Broken Arrow. Above Michael is putting back together a cache we found. Below is his mom, running on ahead looking for the next one.

Of course when we found it it was like “take a picture of my cache.” OK J. We got it.

The kids had a good time exchanging trinkets and signing the logs. You may wonder where SPB is? Well, he and I have found over 1100 so he’s a little jaded.

Anyways Jonni, Diane, and their kids are no longer muggles! Welcome them into the fold. Four more saved! That is how evangalism is done, one person at a time.

Jonni’s version of the day is posted on the RHOK blog.

If you are a muggle and are tired of the shame and want to find out how to not be a muggle any more or just want to find out more about geocaching check out Geocaching 101.

Jesse James, RIP

This past week we had great weather. One day at lunch I sneaked off to the nearby suburb of Sand Springs to check out a geocache, or two at their River City Park right on the Arkansas River.

There was a lot of stuff to see on the way to the caches. The park has its own Rodeo Arena.

Complete with grandstands.

No horses in the grandstands though.

There is a bicycle BMX park also. It looks like loads of fun..

I did a little trespassing and got up on the levee. Strictly forbidden,

but officer I wanted to get some shots of the Gerdau Steel Mill. It has been shut down, as far as I can tell, since 2009. The place used to be bustling. Pretty sad.

I finally got close to the cache. It is called “Jesse James.” I am not going to spoil things by showing the cache location.

It is not named after the outlaw but a famous bucking horse. I googled and searched. There was a bucking horse of that name back in the early 1960’s that couldn’t hardly be ridden by anybody but I couldn’t close the loop with Sand Springs, Oklahoma nor Willie Mendell. Anybody out there know anything about Jesse James the horse?

I love mysteries like that.

Well anyways, I got back to my car after all my wandering around and guess what…

All was well with my (Kia) Soul.

Have you had any good walks lately?

Wordless Wednesday – Yogi’s One Minute to Nirvana

Wordless Wednesday

Geocaching – Scouting Chandler Park for the RHOK

Son and I have been scouting geocaches lately. Not that I need an excuse, he hates geocaching with a passion. If they ever came up with a videogame “Zelda the Windwaker Geocacher” he might be interested. Otherwise forget it. But he’s a good sport. The reason we are scouting geocaches is that my friend Baloney of “That’s Baloney” and I thought it might be fun for her and some of her fellow Real Housewives of Oklahoma (“RHOK”) members to go geocaching and then for us to blog about the experience.

(In case you are wondering, all is well with my Soul)

I think it would be fun but I don’t want to take them to find geocaches that I’ve already found. What good would that be? On the other hand looking for a cache and not finding it is a bummer. Especially if some of these ladies bring their kids along. And then you want to take them some place different, but not too far away, after all these women are busy. Sometimes I think they should change their names to the Real Busy Housewives of Oklahoma .They are on the go all the time, here, there, and everywhere.

So anyway SPB and I decided to check out a cache in Chandler Park in west Tulsa. The cache is called “TAG CITO 2011 Commerative Cache“. (A little translation, TAG is Tulsa Area Geocachers, a local geocaching group, CITO is Cache In, Trash Out where cachers help clean up parks and such as a way of giving back to the community.) Anyways, nobody had found it in a while so off son and I went.

(Nope that is not a cache, it really is a birdhouse, I checked)

There was a little disclaimer in the description. It described the terrain as “rough.” That can be troublesome because no geocacher will ever claim that terrain is too “rough.” If somebody planted a geocache at the summit of Mount Everest the description would say “possibly rough terrain.” Well anyway, off we went. The first thing we saw was the birdhouse. You know if some girl scouts could make it this far, so could the housewives.

(You don’t really need to climb this wall)

Now, I’m not going to spoil anybody else’s fun by showing how to get to the cache or the details of its placement or any of that. But I have to ask myself, could the RHOK women climb up this wall of rhoks? Heck with them, could I climb up this wall?

Assuming they got up the wall and down the other side and into the canyon, could they get out? I wasn’t sure that I could get out! The shadows were getting kind of long. Maybe we’ll find something a little less challenging. I’m not worried about them, they can do anything, I’m worried about me. I guess that I’ll keep on looking.

Black Friday Geocaching

SuperPizzaBoy and I decided to celebrate Black Friday by Geocaching.

The first one we tried was “Mental.” My GPSr said it was in the middle of this road. The description of the cache said to grasp with both hands. We couldn’t find it. If you spot it, let me know.

The second was not too far away by one of the best geocache hiders in Tulsa. I’m not going to say who he is or where we were because I don’t want to give it away.

When I’m frustrated finding a cache I always wonder if eating the berries would give make it easier for me. I’ve never tried it.

I looked everywhere. SPB took this picture of me up in a tree. It was quite a ways up there, fifteen or twenty inches maybe. Sometimes I think maybe the young earth creationists are right. I mean if I had any relation at all to a primate I would have at least one climbing gene. Don’t you think? I can sure put a death grip on a branch though.

SPB found the next cache nearby.

The fake snake is a nice touch. I’ll have to try that sometime. Back in the day, that was a favorite office prank to play on somebody. Put a rubber snake in somebody’s desk. Nowdays you’d get in trouble for doing that. Of course, HR departments now don’t have any people so you have to log into their web site to see what your self service punishment is.

The last place we went to was pretty popular. There was a group on the right of the tree and the guy on the right. It was getting cold so SPB and I decided to go home and try it again some other day.

What did you do on Black Friday?

YogisDen.us

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