One day the week before Christmas I used my lunch hour to find a geocache in one of our city parks in west Tulsa. The cache is called “Corbin’s Deep Woods Cache.” How could anybody resist a cache with a name like that? I couldn’t. There is nothing better to get your head on straight when you are all frazzled than taking a walk in the woods. “Deep Woods” sounds so much better.

The first part of the trail was great. It was more of a sidewalk than a trail but it is headed the right direction.

I turned off the concrete onto this. It had the barest hints of a trail. Generally when lunchtime caching its not a good idea to wear anything knit. It’ll get ruined. I go lunchtime caching two or three times a month. My coworkers make fun of the leaves in my hair, seeds stuck to the back of my shirt, mud on my shoes, and other tell tale signs of my hobby. I’ve thought about putting some overalls in my truck to wear. That’d be ok in the winter. It would be too hot in the summer.

My coworkers put up with a lot. On business trips I’m always asking for somebody else to drive so I can take photographs and I get up early and go to bed late to go caching. Plus if we go to the People’s Republic of Kansas it takes me several liquor store stops to get all the Fat Tire beer I need. I haven’t quite figured it out but the State of Oklahoma won’t allow it to be sold within its borders. Just one reason why Oklahoma has just a touch higher moral tone than the rest of the world. We may have one of the highest unwed teenage pregnancy rates in the country, but just think how much higher it would be if we allowed Fat Tire to be sold in Oklahoma?

Oops, sorry, I’m off topic.

Anyways I found the cache. The coordinates were good, and the cache as there! Score one for lunch.

There was another cache, named “Chance’s Forest Cache” several hundred feet further on. I bushwhacked through the woods until I found a trail and followed it.

I didn’t find the cache but I found this jacket. I find the presence of the jacket very puzzling. (Sorry, I’ve been living with a seventh grader too long.) I didn’t find the cache. I saw lots of beer cans and a camp fire with a totally smashed television set. It seems like a lot of trouble to haul a big television set so far into the woods to demolish it.

I didn’t find my cache but I got my walk in the woods, and leaves and burrs on my clothes.

What do you do to get your head on straight? I mean that you can share with us.