Latest News

Pinned  Featured Cacher For April 2012 - BBQBob2

BBQBob2 of Southeast Houston, TX.

What got you interested in caching?
My friend Tim (Sparky) got me started in December 2007. He called up the GC map and showed me all these things that were hidden all over Houston, and some that I drove by every day. We started hunting at lunchtime and after work and I was hooked by Day 2. My wife Pat still remembers the old pre-caching days when a trip to the store only took an hour and didn’t result in heat stroke, PI and big thorn scratches on my arms.

How did you decide on your caching name?
We moved to Texas in 2003 and that was the first time I tasted true BBQ. My son Bobby and I soon started searching out good places, so bbqbob2 seemed like a good handle. He never caught the caching bug, but we still enjoy a BBQ run to Luling or Lockhart to see my daughter Beth.

When you cache, what equipment do you use? (PDA, Garmin, Magellan, software)
I started with a Garmin blue Legend that Tim lent me, then bought my own and after a few hundred finds switched to a Garmin 60Cx. I’m an old school guy, and the 60Cx has gone from cutting edge to old school in just the few years I’ve had it. Love the accuracy and reliability of the unit, for me it’s one of the best things Garmin has done.

Read story →    5 comments   

Visit: Lake Houston Wilderness Park

This park recently received the first part of a $6 million facelift, courtesy of the city of Houston. Recent upgrades include the addition of four new cabins, two screened A-frame camping platforms, and five screened shelters. Also, a new entrance has been added that makes the 5,000 acre park more accessible. Cabins should be available for rental beginning in mid-April. Plans also call for creation of an archery ranch and horse rental concession.

This municipal park is the second largest of the 366 parks listed in the city of Houston’s Parks and Recreation Department, and the only one that offers overnight camping. It is only a half hour away from downtown Houston, off 59 in New Caney. There are currently three geocaches inside the park.

From the 1950s to 1990, the 200 main acres of this park operated as one of the most popular Girl Scout camps in the San Jacinto Council. Girl Scouts of the era will recall it as “Peach Creek Ranch”, a haven for horse enthusiasts. A herd of forty horses lived here, where countless girls learned how to ride from the instruction of horse wranglers (teenage girls who worked with the horses) and adult instructors.

Read story →    1 comments   

Texas State Parks and The Budget

At the beginning of this year, supporters of the Texas State Parks were solicited for donations. On the homepage of TPWD and the top of each park’s website, there is still a message asking for financial help. Part of the reason TPWD needs such urgent financial help is due to the droughts and wildfires last year that reduced tourism and park visitation. Some of the reason the parks need help, though, is something they are not discussing in their plea, but potentially is the source of the problem.

Before 1993, funding for Texas state parks was provided through the fees for entry and activities, and through 1% of the tax on cigarettes. The Texas legislature that year decided that perhaps the smoking tax was not something that directly related to the support of the parks, and perhaps even went against the image they were trying to promote. It was decided that year to appropriate funds from the tax on sporting goods instead to finance the park.

Read story →    0 comments   

Featured Cacher For September 2011 - no muggle

no muggle of Friendswood, TX.

What got you interested in caching?
no muggle: My sister, bittybit, and I were headed to a weekend long training for Texas Master Naturalists. I don’t know where she heard about it, but she handed me a stack of papers and said she had found something that sounded interesting. Anyway, I read the whole stack of papers out loud to her while she was driving, the whole time thinking it was the craziest, stupidest thing I had ever heard. Why would anyone want to do this? Neither of us had a GPS except the cars navigation system, which will only get you so close. I plugged in the coordinates to one just down the street from my mothers house which turned out to be in the park we played in as kids. I could only get within a few hundred feet with the car. I looked but couldn’t find anything, still convinced this was a crazy, stupid thing. Then, Bittybit bought one of those yellow Garmins and we went back. Well, we found a film canister in a tree stump with a log that was so moldy it was basically unsignable and that was it.

Read story →    0 comments