Critters of Caprock Canyons

About 2 hours northeast of us here in Lubbock is a Texas State Park that's very beautiful.  As you drive in everything is flat and brown as far as the eye can see, then all of a sudden its rolling hills and this sprawling canyon.

We went geocaching and camping last weekend - but that's a story for another post.  First and foremost I want to share the critters we encountered while out in the canyons.

First, we met Lizzy the Lizard at our campsite, he was sat beside the picnic table.

Monty the Monarch was perched on a sunflower near Lake Theo.  There were quite a few butterflies flapping about out here, was nice to watch as the breeze blew.

Our daughter had a strange fascination with this beetle.  She tried to feed it, and that's what likely led to the next visitor after the beetle.  Buddy Beetle was in the campsite for a good long while.

Smelling scraps of food, Rocky Raccoon came to visit more than once during the night.  He got away with about 1/4 of a bag of potato chips.  Did you know raccoons growl?  I didn't.

On the way out of the camp the next morning we saw several antelope.  These ladies posed right beside the car window for a closeup before bounding off across the prairie.

*BEEP BEEP*  -- ZIP-- DANG!  Yep, its the roadrunner.  Trust me, we heard the coyotes during the night plenty well.

And last, but hardly least - the pride of Caprock Canyons, the Official Texas State Bison Herd.  Yep!  That's right.  Buffalos right at home on the range.  They roam the prairie above the canyon freely, I mean one just cruised across the road in front of the visitor center right after we got our state park pass paid for.  Its crazy!  On our way out, the herd was very close to the road.. in fact, right across the road so we pulled in for a few great pictures.    I was using a zoom lens, but they were literally 20 feet from the car.

Caprock Charlie and all his cousins:

On the road, walking towards us:

Is this my good side?

Lubbock Geocaching Picnic

We were pleased to attend our very first Event Cache last Saturday.  Rreed4800 hosted it at an apartment complex clubhouse and it was very cool. There were hotdogs and hamburgers with all the trimmings, cookies and cakes galore.

In attendance were more than 25 other geocaching teams from the area, and even some who had traveled from places like Clovis, NM and Amarillo.

We had a great time getting to meet other people who are addicted to stalking tupperware as much as, or even more so than ourselves and it was wonderful to "talk shop" with people who actually understand.

You wouldn't believe the number of trackables that were brought to the get together.  There were several vehicles that had tracking bugs on them, a walking stick, my t-shirt, and Mr. Rreed4800 even had a trackable tattoo.  Craziness!  There were also a couple of coin collections that were totally awesome.  It was fun to see some of the trackables that we'd found in the area resurface again, and even Mr. Nomesquad's Funky Monkey turned up to go bananas.

Hearing about some of the others' trips was great inspiration on how to get more out of our upcoming geocache adventures.

There were some prizes given away, many of which were very nice.  Groundspeak was nice enough to donate a pair of 2011 Lackey coins.  One was given away in a drawing, and the other is going out and about to surf the world, commemorating our get together.  Everyone signed a log as well that'll be headed to Groundspeak HQ in Seattle to hang on their wall.  There were other cool prizes too, the kids managed to win a stainless steel water bottle and a notepad. (thanks Delta Airlines!)

We're definitely looking forward to the upcoming events and can't wait to get out there and do it again!

Did I hear Dueling Banjos in the Distance?

While speaking with Robert aka Espy Seay at the Lubbock Geocaching Picnic - I had the opportunity to ask him what cache he'd highly recommend to us.  He sent us to find GC2Z5DM Found on the Appalachian Trail.

Here's how our cache discovery story went (Warning! - contains spoilers):

First, we parked on the wrong side of the water. This cache was part of the Brazos River series that we've enjoyed, but we'd not been to this little pondy part before.  Our cachemobile is not 4x4, so driving closer wasn't really an option. We ended up walking about a mile or so total, but hey, exercise is good for us!  Being on the side of town it was, Mrs. Nomesquad kept peering out from the search to make sure all four wheels were still on the car.

We get to ground zero and start searching. Found several things that looked iffy, circled around, kept looking. There was trash and LOTS of mud and leaves.  Beer bottles, gallon jugs, assorted garbage.  Ran back out and rechecked the GPS. Yep, we're in the right spot. Back in the brush and looking, not seeing much of anything other than several inches of leaves, dirt, debris and trash.

Four of us spent probably half an hour searching, when Mrs. Nomesquad grabbed a long stick and started poking the trash, just in case. All of a sudden the youngest of Nomesquad says, "I found it!" No you didn't, we already looked there. "No I found it look I found a treasure!" Before anyone could yell, "Don't touch that!" he had it in his hands, giving it to daddy. Sure enough, he did find it. Shown up by a 4 year old tonight. Turns out it was partially buried in the leaves, he showed us where he grabbed it from.  What he found was a black-taped pill bottle which did indeed contain the log, but after seeing the beer bottles and trash, the skeptic inside is always afraid to open a pill bottle found on the ground.  Signed the log, but knew that this didn't belong on the ground, especially from  having read previous logs on the find.

While the log signing was happening, the stick poking from Mrs. Nomesquad resulted in this reaction: "Eew!" she says, completely oblivious that what she just dug up with the stick from under the leaves was actually the cache. Placed it back on the ground, discussed the nastiness and we went home. It was on the way home that it clicked - yeah... that's probably what the log was supposed to be contained in. Still, relieved it was only touched by a stick and not by fingers, you know, just in case that wasn't really the cache - coz recently and not too far away we've seen the same sort of item just laying about.  It turns out that what was dug up by the stick was a pair of underwear - tightie whities.  Well, they weren't white at all.  They looked used.  Very used.  They were barely sticking out from under the leaves, maybe an inch of the waistband was visible, that's all.


After returning home, we emailed Espy Seay and asked if that was indeed the cache and container, and got confirmation that yes, we'd found it.  I can guarantee that if we'd found the log in the container where it belonged there would have been much squealing and repulsion to be heard for quite a ways, so much for stealth.  In the email we explained what happened, where we put the log container and offered to go back out and put it together how it was supposed to be.  It must have just washed apart from the recent rains and from a couple of months of not being searched for.

To add to the excitement somewhere several blocks from the cache, Mr. Nomesquad jumps and looks a bit disturbed. He quickly pulls the car over and removes a friend from his shoe/sock. He had a hitchhiker - a fuzzy green and orange caterpillar. Apparently it wasn't a poisonous type, his foot hadn't fallen off or turned colors as of this morning. :P

We really love Espy Seay caches and can't wait to find more of them.  Thanks for doing everything you do, Robert.  :)

Some Critters We've Encountered

When out in nature, sometimes nature attacks.  Sometimes its just breathtakingly beautiful.  Its 50/50 on which version you'll get when out and about around Lubbock County.

So far things have been pretty mild and we can safely add to the cool critters list that we've encountered while out geocaching.

These were both at the same cache.  Unfortunately we had to log a Needs Maintenance on the cache because the container had been utterly obliterated.  The owner has since put out a great new container but we've yet to make it back to that end of town to sign the log.

Around 82nd and Memphis is a nice little lake.  We found wonderful critters in their natural environment such as these... and aaaah it was so relaxing to watch.  There were many more ducks at the little playa lake, but these 3 kept near the shore.. Quackquackquackquack.... :D

(On a side note - I'm particularly fond of the bright blue dragonfly picture... I'll be a photographer someday!)

What I've failed to mention is that as we got out of the car, the GPS first pointed us toward a tree.  In this tree we saw:

Yes, its a knife.  A decent looking knife.  I have a set of pairing knives much like this one but shorter.  Odd place to park your knife, I thought to myself... and this is even the nicer end of town!  I didn't see any blood on it, so I didn't think that it was necessary to call the police.  I did debate taking the knife, but again, for fear of maybe having had some blood washed off of it, I let it be.

Aaah.. the serenity of nature...

Out and About

We've been caching some here, some there.. whenever we get a bit of time we jump up and go find 3 or 4.  Lately we've encountered all sorts of things.  Here's some of what we'd like to share:

This first picture is a bit of goofing around at a cache called My Old Flame.  Turns out the cache was located in an area that was once a Putt-Putt course, as well as being on top of an old landfill.  This pic just makes me giggle every time.

 

Here Decky demanded that we measure him to see how tall he is.  As you can see at nearly 3223 feet tall, we should probably stop feeding him now....

Somewhere out in the middle of nowhere in Lubbock.... a cache called The Spider's Nest or something like that.  This was the first Ammo Can we've seen in person, way cool container, I understand why they're so popular now.  You can't tell by the pic that this cache was pretty much uphill both ways to get to.

Nomesquad V2.0

We have an updated logo!  I couldn't help myself, been nome obsessed again lately.  This new logo is on the geocaching.com website now for our profile, and will also be finding its way onto our Nomesquad Signature Items.  Good luck in finding one, I know we're not the only sig item collectors out there! 

Our First Mystery Puzzle Cache

We began a cache yesterday while we were out called einszweidrei (GC1QNCF).  After reading the cache description I knew we'd need to find the first station and take a bunch of pictures.  We did that, looked around really good and then moved on to find the rest of the caches for the morning trip.

Once home we took a really good look at the pictures, narrowed down what it could mean to just one picture and went to work.  It was a stroke of pure genius when we figured it out the next morning.  Deciphering, we took a set of coordinates and drove back out.  Thank goodness Reese isn't too far from our house on this side of town.  We walked around a bit and my clutzy self managed to fall off of a concrete step and twist my ankle pretty terribly.  Pain is nothing, its all in the name of geocaching.  Finally we spotted the next clue and knew what it meant but brought it home again to decipher since the ankle needed some ice pretty badly by now.

By the time the ankle was good and cold, the second clue had been sorted out.  Slightly evil and very cool it was, but it was no match for the eldest 'he' of Nomesquad.  Coordinates in hand, we headed out one last time.  Ding ding ding, there's the prize, very cleverly hidden.  To our surprise we found a very nice tupperware full of toys and some cool signature tokens.  We traded our Nomesquad signature item for one of the signature tokens of Pa Pa and Nana to add to our collection, and took the travel bug that was inside.

We'd like to say a hearty thanks to geocacher Timber Wolf for coming up with such a great brain stumper!

5 hours!

We were able to go out caching this morning for 5 whole hours.  We got to see a bunch of new stuff on this trip and we had some adventures as well as met a new critter for the list.

Our first stop was in and around what used to be Reese AFB - now some of the buildings belong to local colleges and the police department.  Some of it stands completely empty as well.  The old barracks we were working on a mystery multi-cache around really reminded me of something off of an episode of "Life After People"

This sculpture was really cool.  He's holding our GPS if you look carefully.  Nice memorial to the old AFB:

They say there's no water around here, but we keep finding some.  There was a house across the street for sale here, and I wonder what kind of price it'd go for.  I know the ones down the street go for a half million bucks or so - we had the opportunity to go to a Christmas party out here one year.  This was in Wolfforth.  Yeah we got kinda lost heading toward Levelland.

So in the process of totally missing Levelland the first time we headed west, we ended up 3 miles down a backroad not far from Frenship HS.  After much rattling and uh-uh-uh voices giggling down the washboardy calliche road, we found the cache in the ONLY place it could be.... 1 lone tree.  Replaced the cache, got in the car and started to back up to the intersection a couple hundred feet back to turn around and head to civilization again.  I looked to my right and saw this guy out the window.  I'm not sure if it was fright for seeing such a large snake alive and in its natural environment or excitement because we got to add another critter to the list, we sat in the car and watched it hightail itself up in to the field.  We probably scared it more than it started us.  Its was about 6 feet long, and is a bullsnake.  For someone who's only really seen snakes in PetsMart in an aquarium before, that's HUGE!!!

 
The picture definitely wasnt his better side, he said, "No Photos Please!" as he zipped up the bar ditch to safety.  There was no way I was leaving the safety of the vehicle to try to get a better angle... hehehe

The Nomesquad Signature Item

If you go out caching, you might just have a chance to find our signature Nomesquad item.  Its a cool bottlecap with a nome drawn by yours truly.  We've been putting them into the cooler caches we come across.

Arts and crafts met technology - the nome was drawn with a pencil, then scanned, colored in Photoshop and then text was added, sized and printed.  Totally at home in this element, it sure is nice to have an identity now. 

It says, "NomeSquad Wuz Here.  Found It!"

In the neighborhood.. sorta

While waiting for the windows on the new Mustang to be tinted last week, we jumped out and picked up about 90 mins worth of caches.  We learned that the Brazos River runs (?) right through Lubbock and that there's actually some water left here!  It was really kinda pretty.

We also went out again this morning, its becoming pretty easy to just grab the GPS and stalk a couple of caches when we have an hour or two free.  Much nicer than sitting at home.

Here's a few highlights from the past week, but definitely not everything we've done.

Elm Grove Micro - a part of town that while we live fairly close had never much noticed.  Yes, that's a freshly plowed field.

Caching at Maxey Park - Had fun, found 4 total here, the little dude found his first treasure here, too.  "Mommy!  I see treasure in the tree, I finded it!"

Caching at Canyon Lakes - Brazos Overlook.  This was really pretty, I had no idea there was this much substantial water in Lubbock.  Either way, it was nice, and we even climbed a pretty steep hill today.  Go us!

 And now for the wildlife of today's caching - A prairie dog!  He posed for us and let me get reasonably close in order to capture his better side.

More coming soon!  We're going toward Levelland tomorrow morning to do some serious caching in the morning.  Can't wait to report back.

Definitely Loving This!

We went back out during the evening after supper to find a couple more since businesses were closed finally.
GC2JZH - Not an Ant Anymore - the sand out here was really deep.  Kinda funny to be "in a field" but still in town.  Traded a little dino toy for a tiny skateboard.

GCRAXV - Elm Grove Micro - Just down the sandy "alley" from the above cache we found this one.  Seriously.. fields.  Still in town, more or less. Maybe a little less than more.. lol.

GC2VK05 - Critters, Snakes and Spiders 3 - the name had me a little worried.  We did see a little bitty cottontail type bunny dash off as we pulled up, and another horny toad lizard.  He didn't like me stopping to talk to him much.  Being that this one was behind a business, we came fairly late in the evening.  The cache container was pretty cute too, it was a dinosaur
.

GC2VK07 - Critters, Snakes and Spiders 4 - Another of the series. Again we waited until almost dark because of the construction out behind Target (that strip mall)  Was a bit of a hike from where we parked the car.  Eew.  That's all I have to say about this container.

For some good news - our Delorme PN-60 GPSr has shipped.  Woohoo!  Now to decide where we'll go caching next time!

Spreading the Addiction

Today I managed to get my cousins, MurdockMania hooked on Geocaching.  I feel complete.  Life is good.

We went to take the Mustang in to get tinted windows, and while we waited, went caching.  We found several that we couldnt get, due to high muggle activity and being at businesses, we'll have to try again in a while.

But beyond that, we did find some up near the old soccer fields, at Lubbock Lake Landmark and Burl Huffman, and Canyon Lakes.  Really pretty scenery, who knew this was right near our house...

GC1 BEFX - West Texas #1, You Must Be Quazy! - My daughter's first!  Woohoo!

GC1RZPY - Not So Perfect Pitch
This one took a bit of work to find, and Sparky was the one to find it!  Good job, Sparky!  There was a tracking bug that we discovered here, and we traded swag in order to get a signature item from Tx Prowler.

GCN4A3 - Who Says There's No Water in Lubbock? (Again) - I really didnt realize there was water like this, this close to our house here.  It really was pretty.

GC1T9FR - Brazos River - Again, this could have been really pretty if there were more water running through here.  We saw a tiny school of small fish in the pool of the water feature.

 This little horny toad guy was hanging around near the water feature pictured above, we watched him for a while before he got tired of us and ran off.

 We have a new geocaching addict in the family now, only one more left to corrupt... erm.. I mean, addict.

Just Can't Get Enough!

We had such a good time finding the first 3 caches this afternoon that we quickly recharged the GPS on the phone, ate a bite of supper and headed out again.  We saw all kinds of awesome things.  Who knew that we could have such fun here in Lubbock.

GC2KXG7 - Cher Series #3 - The Beat Goes On - This cache was in plain sight, but it had some cool Cher info on the inside.

 
GC1M2HP - North's Corner - This one had recently been replaced because the previous version was stolen.  Some muggle saw it and put a used cigarette butt inside *GAG*  It totally reeked.  But the little dude was a good guy and put a little dino toy inside for the next cacher, and I threw away the cigarette butt.

Why did the turkey cross the road?  To gobble on the other side, of course!  This beauty was crossing the road right ahead of us - in the middle of a residential part of town!  Crazy!  I gobbled at it, it gobbled back, and I got a picture.  Who knew we'd see wildlife on this geocaching adventure today?

Speaking of wildlife - the next cache was in Jackrabbit Central.  Holy cow!  I forgot they were the size of large dogs.. LOL.  It was fun to watch the bunny herds run, I swear they looked like small deer out there.  Lots of ants too.  Ick.  This cache was fun to find, a new discovery just minutes from our house.

GC2QGTC - Nearly Greek to Me - This was the cache out in mutant rabbit land.  It was also the first time we'd seen a GeoCoin.  I hope it gets along to its next destination, we discovered it but left it there as we're not traveling out of state any time soon.

GC1KVNF - Over the Hedge - Slightly creepy seeing as how it was hidden fairly well near an old shed, storm cellar and large cactus.  Definitely wouldn't try this one at night.

GC26YMZ- Just for the fun of it... - This was the last stop on today's adventure.  Had a bit of a hike to get to this one.  Parked in cul-de-sac and walked through I guess what we'd call woods around here, and it was across a drainage ditch.  Trip back out proved that the "hike" was an easy walk if we'd come from the other side.. lol

See, we're totally hooked now.  This was a blast and I can't wait to discover more new things about the area we live in, as well as go geocache hunting on any trips we may take in the future!

Ready or Not, Here We Come!

All of a sudden this afternoon it was decided we should give this Geocaching thing a try.  After a bit of reading on Geocaching.com, we decided to go for it.

Sign up for website, check.
Get a GPS.. uhm.. Hey I have GPS on my phone, will that work?
Download Geocaching app - Check!
Get camera and pen - Check!

We are the Nomesquad and we're out to find all of the hidden treasures of the world.  Located in Lubbock, Texas, I wasnt sure how big of a deal this would be here, you know sometimes we get the current fads and fabs, and sometimes we don't.  :P  We started simply today - even though its nearly 100 degrees outside, that won't stop us!  And we even have our own Team Mom to hang out too!

We've decided to snap a photo at each cache site, even if they're only here in town.  The pictures arent necessarily of the hiding place, just the place in town where we were taken for the hunt.  Gotta start somewhere, right?  We won't post any major spoilers or clues, just a quick statement about each place.  Heck we wont even post the shape or size of the containers, no cheating!

Piled into the car, we grabbed the phone, clicked on the GPS and fetched Mom.  Off we go!  First stop:

GC202R0 - Energy Cubed - This one was pretty cool

GC163TF - TEA for 17 - Nice hide here.  Glad we went on a weekend.

GC2Y0H7 - Birds Eye View - I really thought we were going to have to come back to this one later, but we found it.  Excellent hiding place, was beautiful as well.  Only a little creepy.

By this time we were hot and parched, and it was about supper time.  Ok, I'll admit it, we're totally hooked and as soon as the GPS has more juice again we'll be on our way out once more.  Expect more pics soon!