Where the Wind Takes Me - 2/20/2011

I had planned for this to be a lazy Sunday. Because I had to go to a conference later in the week, I decided to make a trip to the Target just east of the University of Memphis to pick up a few things. I knew that there were a few park and grab caches on the route I planned to take, so I packed up my GPSr and took off. Most of these caches were along Poplar Avenue, which is usually a busy street even on a Sunday. I started off with Need Gas? 100pts for 10 cents off !! by dragon9981 (GC2MJPE) at Poplar Plaza and worked my way east and ended at T.D.D. #4 by dragon9981 (GC2MJNQ) - a short distance from the Target.

[ A familiar path ]

I bought a few things at Target and when I got back to my car and was around 12:30pm. Since it was a beautiful day and I wanted more than just a few lightpole caches, I decided to head to Shelby Farms. Traffic was backed up at the entrance and I could see that the main parking lot was full. I almost drove off, but decided to take a chance. It took driving around the entire park to find a spot that I was willing to leave my car. It wasn't a big deal, though, because it gave me an excuse to hike around in the park rather than just to a single cache.

I hiked over to the Visitor's Center and cut east along the edge of Patriot Lake. The goal cache of all of this walking was Triffid Terror by Mindless-Focus (GC1MH0R). It was nicely tucked away in an area where people ride horses.

[ Somewhere in there... ]

Having found the cache, I headed back almost the same way I came in. I made a quick stop at the boathouse near Patriot Lake to buy a Powerade. The owner told me that he was trying to get people not to rent boats that day because it was too windy, but several people disregarded his advice.

[ Lots of caches around this part of Shelby Farms are in terrain like this. ]

I hung out near one of the northern lakes for a bit before leaving the park. I looked at some of the new playground equipment being set up nearby as well.

[ Standing on a short pier overlooking the lake. ]

After picking up a few more park and grabs to the east of Shelby Farms and running north and south along Germantown Parkway, I made my way to a section of the Germantown Greenway near Houston High School to hunt Greenway Too by Prontopup (GC25ZR2). This section of the greenway runs along a utility easement. I've cached in the area before, but until I saw a map of the greenway, didn't realize that this section came out at another nice park to the south.

Just a little further south, and just off of the greenway was Ain't Holdin' Up Nothin' by TNLarry4 (GC2HXXC). This was in a park behind the school, and could have been a busy spot later on in the Spring with at least two baseball fields in the vicinity of the cache. The cache had a great camo job and would have been tough for a newer cacher to find. Incidentally, I actually met TNLarry4 a week after I found this cache.

[ An interesting trail at the edge of the park. ]

My last stop of the day before heading home was Dairy Queen. I enjoyed an Oreo Blizzard before going around back and taking a picture of the field behind it. There was also a cache behind the DQ, but I had found it a while back.


I ended up with 11 cache finds. The only DNFs of the day were park and grabs with too many muggles around.