Austin

I've mentioned many times before that my favorite thing about geocaching is that it takes me to places I wouldn't otherwise go.  Austin, Texas is one of those places that I never thought of visiting but should have.  It's a great city with tons of parks, nice hiking trails, turtles, amazingly good food, and exceptional geocaches.  A perfect place to spend a long weekend.  Here are some of the highlights. . .

The main goal of the trip was to find a cache called The Necropolis of Britannia Manor.  It is a multi-cache, which means you have to find various information that will eventually lead you to the final spot.  We started in a cemetery looking for a grave that was right next to this one.  You might think it's a fake, but it's not!  It's in the Hogg family plot.  Rude parents!!!

 After we gathered all of the required information from the cemetery, we were hungry and tired so we stopped for dinner at Chuy's.  Chris wanted to look up some info on the computer but her battery was dead.  No worries, there was a plug on the ceiling near our table. 

The next day, we headed out to find the next stage of the cache.  It took us to the Laguna Gloria, home of the Austin Art Museum.  

One of millions of Austin parks was right next door.  This one was home to many peacocks who have reportedly been there since the 1930's.

From there, we climbed Austin's highest mountain (775 ft. above sea level), then headed to the final cache spot.  The path was pretty clear, but just in case, this hand pointed the way.

 Getting closer. . . Hopefully we will fare better than these guys.

We made it.  Chris is punching in the secret code here, completely unaware of the horde of daddy long-legs at her feet.

 The picture doesn't really do them justice.  There were millions!

With that mission accomplished, we had time to check out some other things.  We stopped for lunch at the Salt Lick BBQ.  They have a the biggest restaurant parking lot I've ever seen, and a patio where you can enjoy fresh-squeezed lemonade and listen to live music while waiting for your table. 


  It was totally worth the wait!  BEST BBQ EVER!  Here it is cooking. . .

In our travels, we kept noticing people kayaking in the river.  It looked like fun so we did it too!  We found a few caches along the way,

 and a very fun swing on Lady Bird Island!  Interesting that I'm wearing a life jacket in the swing but not in the boat.  Just noticed that. 

 That night we headed to Walnut Creek Park to do some night caches.  I started to worry when this was the trail marker.

Although it was well-named, we did make our way out without getting lost, and with only a little bit of poison ivy, and find several high-quality caches.  Phew!  Thank goodness for GPS tracks!