Caching in the BBQ Capital of Texas

AIG: Caching in the BBQ Capital of Texas

Each year, in the heat of the summer, my in-laws flock from all around the country to the small Texas town of Lockhart to visit the rest of their central-Texas family. On our trip to Lockhart this year, I thought I would honor that yearly tradition with a couple of new geocaches and by finding the ones already there.

Last year, Lockhart had only one geocache located in Lockhart State Park about 10 miles outside of town, but none actually in the town itself. However, over the past several months, a few Lockhart-area geocachers have hidden 14 geocaches inside the town itself and a few in nearby communities. Of these, I was able to successfully find 13. I'm fairly certain that the last one, Lockhart Series #2, is actually missing since there weren't very many potential hiding places and they were all empty.

• Lockhart Series 1
• Lockhart Series 3
• Lockhart Series 4
• Lockhart Series 5
• Lockhart Series 6
• Lockhart Series 7
• Making a case for Lockhart
• Barbeque Parque?
• American Legion Post 41
• GLC Walking Bridge
• Bridge Booty
• Kissing Tree on Roller Coaster Hill
• Welcome to Lockhart

Since Lockhart is just a couple of hours from home, I thought this would also be a great place for a couple of hides. The small town of Lockhart, TX is typically known for only one thing - BBQ. In fact, it is home to three of the Texas Monthly magazine's Top 50 BBQ Restaurants and has been called the "Barbeque Capital of Texas." However, Lockhart is also the birthplace of the fictional character Americus from the Natalie Portman movie "Where the Heart Is." Although the movie was set somewhere in Oklahoma, it was actually filmed throughout Central Texas in Lockhart, Austin, and at Baylor University in Waco.
The movie starts with a pregnant Novalee Nation (Natalie Portman) being abandoned by her boyfriend at a small-town Wal-Mart. After accidentally being locked in the Wal-Mart overnight, she decides to camp out in the store for the next few months until she finally gives birth one night in the store to her daughter, Americus. When she is discovered, the media frenzy that followed dubbed Americus, "The Wal-Mart Baby." My new cache, Birthplace of Americus, is located very near this famous movie set location.

Yes, Sonny, it IS a Wal-Mart LPC!!! But, it is there for movie history reasons only. :)

The second cache hide, Plum Creek Reunion, is located near the Plum Creek Inn where my family reunions are held each year. This particular spot in Lockhart is also a great location to watch the single engine planes take-off and land at the Lockhart airport just a field away. The airport isn't a commercial airport at all, just a landing strip in the middle of a field for crop-dusters, flight students, and other small aircraft. There was even an old bi-plane there while we were at the site during this year's reunion!