A Canoe and a Refuge plus a Car and a Geo-cache equals BIG Adventures

A while back DH and I enjoyed a weekend filled with our kind of adventures.  We loaded up the Rav4 with our canoe, the dogs, the GPS and the Geo-caching bag and escaped the monotony of every day life for a few hours.  First stop was the Waffle House for breakfast, followed by a trip to the Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge where we hopped in the canoe for a trip around the river.

Here are a few  bunch of photos of our trip....

These are Buzzards

They are BIG

I have never seen buzzards (live) before I moved to Texas

It was a very pretty day

The gorgeous views along the river

The water was like glass... a mirror

This little guy was on a branch that was hanging way out over the river

Thank goodness he didn't fall in!

Peaceful

Tranquil

Relaxing

 

More buzzards

Ah... it's almost like I am there again

We saw all kinds of birds and animals in the wild 

It is a refuge after all!

What a great way to spend the first half of the day.  

Did I mention how relaxing and peaceful it was?  

The next part of the day included a road trip about an hour or so west of Fort Worth out near Mineral Wells, Texas; where we included Geo-caching into seeing some new places. 

We searched and found several Geo-caches, more than I have photos of.  

One of the Geo-caches took us to Mineral Wells Fossil Park

We had no idea this place existed so we weren't prepared for digging. We will be going back sometime though!

Another Geo-cache took us to a really nice, old, cemetery where the bluebonnet's were in full bloom

Daisy enjoying the view

Every Geo-cache we go on  takes us to places we would not have known about otherwise, usually with history or interesting artifacts.  We have been on so many fun adventures since we have taken up Geo-caching as our fun hobby.  You have to try it sometime.  

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I should tell you about my getting lost adventure now.  Yes... we did get lost for a time!  One of our Geo-caches we wanted to find included a short hike through a wooded area that gained an elevation of about 900 ft.  With Geo-caching you need a GPS to find the coordinates, and you learn that it is often a very good idea to mark on your GPS where your car is located before venturing out so that you can find your way back.  

Well..... I had my handy GPS, and knowing how important it is to mark where we park, somehow it slipped my mind to do so on this one.  So we venture off into the woods.  We enjoy our hike and find the cache and start heading back before I realize nothing looks familiar and we are beginning to follow a path that is taking us in the wrong direction.  We start back tracking a bit but still end up taking another wrong path.  DH suggests I pull up the coordinates where our car is parked and I have to tell him I didn't mark it.  That didn't go over so well! 

Now it is a pretty hot and humid day and we had set out on this adventure during the hottest part of the day and didn't bring a lot of water with us knowing it wouldn't take us very long.   So.. after quite sometime of seemingly walking in circles and becoming hotter and thirstier (water was gone at this point), DH suggests we go back to the Geo-cache find which is plugged into the GPS, and start all over again.  I was becoming frightened we would never get out this wooded hillside!  We located the cache and started out again only paying more attention to our surroundings and what looked familiar and what didn't, when we realized we had earlier missed a path that we had come in on which lead us finally in the right direction toward the right path that lead us to our car.  Whew!  Lesson learned!  We would have been OK even if we hadn't been able to get out of there because we did have the GPS and could have told rescuers our coordinates... However, ALWAYS mark your car's location!  I probably won't ever make that mistake again! 

I look forward to the next time we can get out and enjoy all the fun adventures just waiting for us.