Memory Garden

Today the weather was crisp and sunny, warmly welcomed after several days of grey rain. And so of course that meant we could be back to cache'in.

We have officially letterboxed all of Weatherford. We found our last one today, a remembrance of Bonnie and Clyde and their crime spree through this area.

We are looking forward to spiraling our hunt outward from our little town to find what other stories await us.

This morning we went on the last geocache in Soldier Springs. It seems today was a day of endings.

The place it led us was a beautiful trail into the forest where someone had placed signs, arrows pointing on which someone had painted "Psycho Path" and "Root Canal". They were actually quite well done, which begs the question, who put them here and why? Did we happen upon a childhood hangout of someone's?I could see why someone might want to spend some time back there in the green mossy silence.

This afternoon we went on a geocache to Memory Gardens. It was a beautiful cemetery, a place you would enjoy coming to to remember.

There were goats, surprisingly. Noelle was entranced by all the "Me-e-e-e's".

There was a quaintness about it all, with pieces of land labeled with signs like "Garden of Gospel" or "Garden of the Good Shepherd", with a statue of Jesus and his flock watching over the plaques. Or the "Field of Honor" where so many soldiers lay to rest.

Noelle was enjoying walking around, so I spent some time to read the headstones and to look at the flowers and other gifts people placed on the graves of their loved ones. They looked so beautiful shining in the sun. I could imagine the wife or husband, son or granddaughter placing the trinkets just so, thinking of their family member watching over them.

And placed in the middle was a sun dial, with this poem carved into its stone:

"The kiss of the sun for pardon

The song of the birds for mirth

One is nearer God's heart in a garden

Than anywhere else on earth."

Truer words were never spoken.

Soldier Springs

We have been back to our neighborhood park, Soldier Springs, the last few days.


We were hunting a 3 part letterbox series in memorial to the soldiers who once drank at the springs during the Civil War, hence the name.


We found one part. The park has been cleared as of late, and we think the other 2 parts may have been cleared with some of the brush and trees.


But it seems, as is often the case, Mother Nature provided us with some jewels of her own to make up for the loss.



Stephen spotted this cardinal
among the blossoming Redbud.
He also took the picture.



And the first bluebonnets
of the season are showing themselves.
This is to hoping there are
oceans of blue in our
Texas fields this year.

Parker County

Today we did a letterboxing series called "Symbols of Parker County". There were three parts, each part explaining something Parker County is famous for.

Of course, the first symbol was a peach, because everyone in North Texas knows Parker County Peaches are famous statewide. The legislature even named it peach capital of Texas. Each year in July there is a festival of peaches where every kind of peach edible can be had. And crafts and art and entertainment and just good ol fashioned festival fun. It reminds me of tales of the days of yore when festivals were thrown in the villages after a harvest. I can't wait to go this year.

The second symbol was a horse, specifically a cutting horse. To my surprise, Weatherford is the cutting horse capital of the world. Apparently, people come from all around to breed and train their horses here. The first three presidents of the cutting horse organization were from Weatherford, and the first horse champions, and it is still a Weatherfordian that holds the Most Championships Won Consecutively record.

The third symbol was of a pecan. A couple here have a farm where a pecan tree estimated at 900-1100 years old grows. Amazing.

All in all, it was a beautiful breezy morning, perfect for learning a little more about the place we call home. And for stopping to smell the flowers.

Trees of Spring

Yesterday we went geocaching once again to the park beside our house, Soldier Springs. The trees around here are just beautiful, and I was fortunate enough to find all kinds of color at the park. So here is my tribute to the the trees of Spring.

Trees Of Spring

First Buds

Spring Lace

Purple Haze

New Green

Greenwood Cemetery

As you may have noticed, I am catching up on our caching logs. We have been sick around these parts. It didn't put too much of a dent in the caching, but it did in the blogging.

I now have the pleasure to introduce to you a new, or rather a re-newed, sport known as letterboxing. It is similar to geocaching, but much less known and just getting its footing. Oh, but it is fun.

Basically, while geocaching tends toward nature hikes, letterboxing tends toward historical areas. A story is written about the history of a place, and then clues are given to find the hidden cache. The cache contains a logbook and a stamp. We also have a stamp and a logbook. We stamp our logbook with the stamp found in the cache, and we leave our stamp in the logbook in the cache. The coolest part is, most of these stamps are handcarved. It is amazing to see some people's work. And you end up with a passbook of sorts composed of all the stamps from your finds.

So, we had to find our stamp, and with it came inspiration. We hope to carve our own one day, but for now we went to the craft store and found a beautiful tree stamp. Of course, we both love trees and it seemed only appropriate for our family. And then it came to us -- our family name should be, are you ready....


TEXAS TREE HUGGERS!

That seems to fit us much more than Little Wanderers, as cute as it was. So we are know the Texas Tree Huggers (formerly known as Little Wanderers).

Our first two letterboxing caches came from Greenwood Cemetery, the major cemetery in Weatherford. Here is where the governor Lanham was buried. This was the site for one of the letterboxing finds, with a beautiful history and stamp of the former governor.

The other cache was found beside Oliver Loving of the Goodnight-Loving cattle drivers. Loving and Goodnight (whom the Goodnight Loving trail from Texas to New Mexico is named after) served as the inspiration for Gus and Woodrow in Lonesome Dove. Ikard, also buried there, served as inpiration for the character Deets. One of my favorite movies of all time, and the real men are at rest right here in Parker County.

There was also a geocache based on the history of the Goodnight-Loving cattle drivers, which we found as well.

It was a full and very fun day.

)

Miller Park

On to Miller Park, a park made possible by the donation of a couple who originally wanted to open a boy's and girl's home. This cache was another one of the multi-step ones, our favorites. It involved counting a series of concrete blocks and paw prints made in the wet concrete before it dried. Fun! And there was a double slide -- I have never seen this--one slide beside the other so that Noelle and I could slide down together holding hands.

Mt. Carmel Cemetery

A little farther out Shady Grove road you come to an old abandoned cemetery. This one seems straight out of the movies. Lots of old trees among weathered stones. As you walk back, the stones become more and more worn. Then, there are just rocks, rocks that would not make you look twice except that they appear at regular intervals in neat rows.

Military Memorial

This cache was AWESOME! (awesome to be said in high singing voice for full effect). It involved finding a military memorial at our public library. We then had to go to two more memorials at the library as well.

We took pictures of them and had to use the writing to decode a series of letters and numbers given to us. For example A.1.1.1 meant the first memorial, 1st line, 1st word, 1st letter. Once we found all the letters we converted them to numbers using the alphabet (A=1, B=2...). We used the numbers in an equation to finally reveal the coordinates of the cache.

We returned to the library where the coordinates sent us across the street to the park. Down a slope into trees and leaves, the cache was finally located in a tree hollow behind some rocks. The cache was as AWESOME (again, sing for effect) as the hunt.

It was in a military box and inside were some military themed objects. The coolest part, though, was that the last person to find the cache was from Portugal and apparently a world traveler. He left stamps from all over the world (Thailand being the prettiest), and a geocoin (a type of tracker that moves from cache to cache and is tracked on the internet).

The geocoin was originally from Germany and has moved all the way to Parker County! There was another tracker, too, that is part of a military code game played with caches. Apparently you have to visit multiple caches all around Tarrant County collecting these little army men who have codes on them that will eventually be used to find the ultimate cache.

AWESOME! (you know what to do)

We are going to try to leave the geocoin in Oklahoma if we go soon. Otherwise it will have to stay in Texas.