Great day to Geocache

I can't believe it is this nice the day after New Year's. It was up around 55 degrees and a perfect day for doing some caching. I had some errands to take care of, so once again I incorporated them with geocaching. I ran two errands first and then headed towards my first cache. It was located at on of the many retention pond parks located around Tulsa. It is called "Lunchtime Cache #26". I parked the pickup and started walking towards the cache. As I got about half way there, I had the general area picked out where the cache would likely be located. Unfortunately, it was covered up with muggles. I hung around a bit, but they were not going anywhere soon. I decided to pack up and move along to the next cache. I can't blame the muggles as it was a beatuiful day and a park was the place to be.

Next, I was off to find "All Keyed Up", a theme cache. When I parked the vehivle, I noted that I was .4 of a mile from the cache. Hmmm...I wondered if I was parked in the right spot. This was located in a nice little park and I could tell it was at the furthest most reach of the park. At least, I hoped it was still in the park. I needed the exercise, so I took off walking. As I reached the back of the park, it was apparent that it was located in a wooded area just ahead. As I started into the wooded area, I became aware of a ravine and a creek ahead of me. I sure was hoping that it was on my side of the creek. At I approached, it became apparent that the cache was not on my side of the creek! So, I kicked into "problem solving" mode and began looking for a route across the creek that wouldn't result in my early demise. After a few minutes, I did locate a low spot in the ravine. I quickly discovered that it was going to be an easy crossing. The creek even had stepping stones to cross to the other side. After making my crossing, it was just a matter of getting up the other side as my GPS was indicating tha the cache was "on top". I made my way up and discovered a parking lot about 100 yards away. Oh well, like I said, I needed the exercise. It only took a few minutes to locate the cache after that. It was a key chain themed cache and I had brought a Dachshund key chain to trade. I ended up taking a non-themed item. There was a really cool pin in the cache for the US Department of Interior in the shape of Utah. After making my trade, I started the hike back to the truck.

By the time I had reached my truck, my back was killing me. I was hurting bad enough that I wasn't sure I was going to make it to the truck! As a side note, I've known that I had a ruptured disk in my lower back for some years now but the pain comes and goes so we have never done anything about it because I am well far more than I am in pain. Recently, they did another MRI on my back and discovered that I have a total of four ruptured disk. Three of them are up high between my shoulder blades. I'm having a procedure on the 13th to hopefully alleviate some of the issues I'm having with my back.

Anywho, I decided to call it a day as it was getting late and windy. If you have been following any of the nation news networks, you are probably aware that the whole state is currently on fire. If a LEO sees someone even throwing a cigarette out the window, they can arrest them. Hopefully, we will get some rain in the future and be done with this fire hazard stuff! I have a friend who is a voluteer firefighter and he has been working non-stop fighting grass fires.

I logged 38 miles in one hour and seventeen minutes today.