It has been quite a while since I've written about my adventures. The main reason I've been AFK is due to the fact that my adventures haven't been very adventurous lately. Sure, I found a couple of new park-n-grabs near my job to run up my FTF total. That just isn't much to write about.
However, this week, I was sent on a business trip to San Antonio, TX. Of course, while I was there, I had to find a few caches in the area. Shortly before my trip, I posted on the San Antonio Area Geocachers web site about my trip and asked for suggestions for enjoyable caches in the area. The responses were abundant. Some sung the praises of one particular cacher and others said to avoid caches hidden by this same cacher unless I'm really into finding film canisters tossed into shrubs. To each his own!
While searching GC.com's site for San Antonio caches near the area where I would by staying, I found 13 days in 30 seconds, which is San Antonio's only webcam cache in front of the Alamo. Being in San Antonio was all the reason I needed to stop by the Alamo and claim a smiley for this webcam cache. Part of the assignment of this cache was to find the camera, stand in front of it, make the University of Texas Longhorn hand-sign, and then call a friend to visit the webcam page and save the picture. Although, I have no particular objection to UT, I couldn't bring myself to stand there in my green Baylor University shirt and make this particular hand gesture in front of mobs of tourists, the Internet, and everyone in the office building across the street. I hope the cache owner will accept a "Sic'em Bears" hand-sign as a substitution. Luckily, the picture quality is so poor that I'm sure nobody would be able to tell what hand-sign I was making with my arm up in the air.
I also went to a very nice and very large park on the north side of San Antonio called McAllister Park. "For those of you that love nature, this place is one of the best in the San Antonio area. McAllister park is a generous 986 acres, and was originally created in 1968. It was originally called 'Northeast Preserve' for good reason as you will see, but was renamed in 1974 to honor former San Antonio Mayor Walter W. McAllister." Here, I found a couple of caches - The Good Old Days and Where Eagles Walk. There were at least 10 other caches in this very large park, but I decided it was time to move on to another local park that was highly recommended.
Next on my list was Walker Ranch Park which is just on the north west side of the San Antonio Intl. Airport. This was a nice, well-lit park with a paved walking track and numerous hiking trails. The most exciting thing about this park was that it is right along the final approach flight path for the SA airport. Planes would fly so low through here that you could almost throw a rock at them. (Although I'm sure that both the FAA and Homeland Security department frown heavily on throwing objects at passenger planes.) It now makes perfect sense that one of the caches that I found in this park was called Airplane Spot. While in this park, I also picked up the Spring is Great travel bug from Tiger Kitty.
Before it got too dark, I made time to stop by one more cache called Yoga 101. Although this turned out to be one of the film canister caches people had warned me about, the cache would have been very interesting if I had completed the second task associated with finding it. To claim a second find on the cache, you had to stand on the corner of this VERY busy intersection and do Yoga poses. Since I did not bring my camera or have any other way to prove that I stood there and did Yoga (other than a possible arrest record), I decided it would be best to avoid the public humiliation associated with doing this particular activity.
With extreme disappointment, I was unable to visit one of San Antonio's largest caches The Weapons Cache. This was a very large ammo can full of PVC pipe kits. When you assembled the PVC pipes in the kit according to the directions, you created a fully functional marshmallow gun. While reading the details of this cache from my San Antonio hotel room, I read the latest entry on the cache page posted just days before my visit. "May 22 by G4Xplorers - It appears a big mean bulldozer has flattened the largest ammo can we have ever seen. Components of what should be marshmallow guns are smashed to bits.......Stay tuned, this will be up and running again in the near future."
Last, but not least, I had just enough daylight left to stop by one of San Antonio's virtual caches, The Pyramid. Here, in front of a pyramid shaped bank building was a large statue of several intertwined eagles by a local artist. The way to prove that you found this virtual cache is to email the artist's name and how many eagles there were to the cache owner. So, if you want to find out more about this statue, either ask me or just visit the building.
Thank you San Antonio and SA cachers for a great trip and great recommendations!!!
However, this week, I was sent on a business trip to San Antonio, TX. Of course, while I was there, I had to find a few caches in the area. Shortly before my trip, I posted on the San Antonio Area Geocachers web site about my trip and asked for suggestions for enjoyable caches in the area. The responses were abundant. Some sung the praises of one particular cacher and others said to avoid caches hidden by this same cacher unless I'm really into finding film canisters tossed into shrubs. To each his own!
While searching GC.com's site for San Antonio caches near the area where I would by staying, I found 13 days in 30 seconds, which is San Antonio's only webcam cache in front of the Alamo. Being in San Antonio was all the reason I needed to stop by the Alamo and claim a smiley for this webcam cache. Part of the assignment of this cache was to find the camera, stand in front of it, make the University of Texas Longhorn hand-sign, and then call a friend to visit the webcam page and save the picture. Although, I have no particular objection to UT, I couldn't bring myself to stand there in my green Baylor University shirt and make this particular hand gesture in front of mobs of tourists, the Internet, and everyone in the office building across the street. I hope the cache owner will accept a "Sic'em Bears" hand-sign as a substitution. Luckily, the picture quality is so poor that I'm sure nobody would be able to tell what hand-sign I was making with my arm up in the air.
I also went to a very nice and very large park on the north side of San Antonio called McAllister Park. "For those of you that love nature, this place is one of the best in the San Antonio area. McAllister park is a generous 986 acres, and was originally created in 1968. It was originally called 'Northeast Preserve' for good reason as you will see, but was renamed in 1974 to honor former San Antonio Mayor Walter W. McAllister." Here, I found a couple of caches - The Good Old Days and Where Eagles Walk. There were at least 10 other caches in this very large park, but I decided it was time to move on to another local park that was highly recommended.
Next on my list was Walker Ranch Park which is just on the north west side of the San Antonio Intl. Airport. This was a nice, well-lit park with a paved walking track and numerous hiking trails. The most exciting thing about this park was that it is right along the final approach flight path for the SA airport. Planes would fly so low through here that you could almost throw a rock at them. (Although I'm sure that both the FAA and Homeland Security department frown heavily on throwing objects at passenger planes.) It now makes perfect sense that one of the caches that I found in this park was called Airplane Spot. While in this park, I also picked up the Spring is Great travel bug from Tiger Kitty.
Before it got too dark, I made time to stop by one more cache called Yoga 101. Although this turned out to be one of the film canister caches people had warned me about, the cache would have been very interesting if I had completed the second task associated with finding it. To claim a second find on the cache, you had to stand on the corner of this VERY busy intersection and do Yoga poses. Since I did not bring my camera or have any other way to prove that I stood there and did Yoga (other than a possible arrest record), I decided it would be best to avoid the public humiliation associated with doing this particular activity.
With extreme disappointment, I was unable to visit one of San Antonio's largest caches The Weapons Cache. This was a very large ammo can full of PVC pipe kits. When you assembled the PVC pipes in the kit according to the directions, you created a fully functional marshmallow gun. While reading the details of this cache from my San Antonio hotel room, I read the latest entry on the cache page posted just days before my visit. "May 22 by G4Xplorers - It appears a big mean bulldozer has flattened the largest ammo can we have ever seen. Components of what should be marshmallow guns are smashed to bits.......Stay tuned, this will be up and running again in the near future."
Last, but not least, I had just enough daylight left to stop by one of San Antonio's virtual caches, The Pyramid. Here, in front of a pyramid shaped bank building was a large statue of several intertwined eagles by a local artist. The way to prove that you found this virtual cache is to email the artist's name and how many eagles there were to the cache owner. So, if you want to find out more about this statue, either ask me or just visit the building.
Thank you San Antonio and SA cachers for a great trip and great recommendations!!!
1 comment:
Had you check out TerraCaching.com prior to your travels, you would have found some caches to keep you busy in and around San Antonio. I think they would have provided you something to talk about. :)
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