7th Annual Texas Challenge
I just wanted to post a note to tell about my trip last week to the Texas Challenge Event held in historic Fredericksburg, Texas. My sister invited me several months ago to come down and attend this event with her and her family. I agreed and at the time I did not know that this weekend would turn out to be one of the best geocaching experiences I have ever had.
The fun began on Friday when we cached our way from Round Rock out to Fredericksburg. We did the ShortCut series on the way out there. This is a series of caches by TreyB placed down the dirt roads through ranch lands in the Texas Hill Country offering some great scenery. After arriving in Fredericksburg and getting signed in for the Texas Challenge event and checking into our hotel we headed over to Luckenbach, TX for the Everybody's Somebody event at the historic dance hall there. Ever since hearing the song by Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings I have always wanted to go there and now I can say I have been to Luckenbach, Texas.
Saturday morning was the big day. The Central Texas Geocachers were the hosts for this years event and they decided to change the format a little from years past. Instead of only having the competition they decided to hold the competition out at Enchanted Rock State Natural Area and they also hid 66 casual caches for everyone to find that did not want to compete in the challenge. We chose to do the casual caching since my sister was in charge of the Camo Container Contest and we had her two youngest boys with us. We found lots of caches that day and got to talk to lots of other geocachers. The event even included dinner at 6pm and it just ran right into the next event, Saturday Night Feverat 8pm hosted by AnthonyV from San Antonio, which was complete with disco ball, dancing, and karaoke. Saturday was nonstop event fun from early morning till we finally made it back to the hotel around 11pm.
Sunday morning we met back out at the park for breakfast at 9 and then a CITO in the park from 10 to noon. Then a lunch for the volunteers at 12, which I was able to attend because I helped my sister with the camo container contest that ended up with 100 entries. Be ready, I came back armed with some great ideas.
The total count for the main event on Saturday was close to 400. When I get the official count from KoosKoos I will let you know. This was a huge event that took lots of work and time by a bunch of very dedicated cachers who did an excellent job in pulling this one off. I would really like to see a Challenge Event in Arkansas someday.
If you ever get the chance you have to go to Fredericksburg and do some caching. It is a wonderful little historic town with lots of German influence and plenty of caches to keep you busy for days. I plan on returning sometime this year to try and put a dent in all those caches that I did not have time to get to.
I am looking forward to the 2010 Texas Challenge that will be held in West Texas. We have received a personal invitation from the West Texas cachers hosting next years event to bring a group of Arkansas cachers out to compete in the challenge. I think we could put together some really good teams to give them a run for their money.
Overall this was the best geocaching experience I have had to date. I found a total of 131 caches on this trip, attended 4 events, got an FTF 300 miles from home, got to meet 6 of the top 10 geocachers in Texas, learned a lot about putting on big events, and the best part, I got to do it all with my big sister.
