“Help us out today and find yourself a place where you won't get into any weather!”

“A place where there isn't any weather. Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto?”

Wizard of Oz (sort of)

Comes Memorial Day weekend, a whole four days to go camping... and we really wanted to go camping – all three of us have been incredibly stir-crazy this year. Our camping trip plans keep getting thwarted by bad weather! (Three, including the geokitty.) So I dug out my copy of “Off the Beaten Path” to find new and interesting things to do in Nebraska. And kept a close eye on the weather reports.

 So, the Facebook posting that started it all, on Friday evening:

 Finally settled on a 3 day trip to Fort Hartsuff, the Chalk Mine, and lots of caching (I hope). If it rains, the tent will get wet. Tents dry.

If you've read enough of my Chronicles, you know what is coming. Naturally, the above posting meant that the geodad and I would end up anywhere BUT Fort Hartsuff, Nebraska. Sure enough, we were on the road to Topeka, Kansas the next morning, roughly 150 miles away. We NEVER end up where we plan to go originally – this time, the weather made the call. Strong storms were predicted over western Nebraska, but not over north-central Kansas.

 “If I only had a button.”

Wizard of Oz (sort of)

 Minor crisis! Oh, no! I discovered on the way down that the button on my pants didn't exactly want to come on the trip with us, and popped off at some unknown time and place, never to be seen again. What does this have to do with geocaching, you might ask? Well, I had an extra one of these in my purse...

And it served very well as a substitute button for the rest of the day! Plus looking very cool and trendy. Or it would have looked very cool and trendy, if my shirt hadn't covered it up.

 We got to the outskirts of Topeka about 1 PM, and settled in to do some caching – some cemetery caches and a few micros, before heading into Kaw River SP, the newest state park in the state. Lots of caches, some great hiking, but this time of year, also a lot of mud! I was wearing the infamous-boots-of-no-traction, and the geodad had semi-mud-boots on, so we tried to be extra careful. It was a good day for caching! Cloudy, windy, but not cold. (Never quite figured out why “Kaw River” instead of Kansas River, though.)

 After tromping around the woods for a few hours and scoring about 10 caches, we figured we should go set the tent up. I'd my eye on a campground to the south of Topeka, but alas, no room at the inn! Should have expected that, it was Memorial Day weekend. I remembered that there was a KOA in the area, and we found a camping spot there – right next to the bathhouse. That detail will be important later...

“Blinds and Tigers and Beers, oh my!”

Wizard of Oz (sort of)

Caching, check. Shelter, check. What's next? Why, food, of course! We asked the KOA staff for the best place around, and they recommended a place with huge portions, no shared plate fee, and as I found out – GREAT beer. It was off to the Blind Tiger Brewery! (And the history behind “Blind Tiger” was a neat bit of trivia in itself. So here's the geodad:

 Shared an entree, shelled a lot of peanuts, and did I mention the beer? A sampler of 4 cost $3.75, and these were no small samples either – easily half-stein size, each glass. This led to the geodad taking charge, the car keys, and the wheel. Hey, I was happy! Definitely a keeper. Back to the tent to play cards until it got too dark, even by lantern light.

 “There's a storm blowin' up - a whopper, to speak in the vernacular of the peasantry.”

Wizard of Oz

 12:30 a.m. I am wakened by the patter of little raindrops on the tent's weather cover. I roll over and go back to sleep. 1:00 a.m. I am wakened by the pounding of huge raindrops on my sleeping bag. Or maybe it was the thunder and lightning right overhead. Dad, sleeping on the other side of the tent, was unbothered, but the wind was blowing in the tent wall in such a way that everything on MY side (of course) got soaked. Sleeping bag, luggage, me, everything. Hasty rearrangement of STUFF, but the storm wasn't letting up. I woke him up, and we made a run for the bathhouse, crossing the huge, newly formed LAKE...

 We threw everything we could into the car, and tried to sleep in the car, but it was impossible. After the storm finally let up, about an hour, I went back to the tent, and used one of the beach towels to dry the floor of the tent as best I could; we put the sleeping bags back, mine was still wet, and managed to get back to sleep anyway.

 Needless to say, we did not go swimming this trip like I'd planned...

 The next day was to be half caching and half touring the inside of the Kansas Historical Museum in Topeka. I'd picked this nice rails to trails path that had lots of caches along it.. problem was that it also had long waterfilled ditches on either side. Did I mention that the infamous-boots-of-no-traction have a crack on the bottom? NOT waterproof. Leaky leaky. Leaky != cachey – we didn't find many. Then there was the Bridge of DEATH, just waiting for me to step foot on it, so it could finish rotting and fall into the ravine below. Tim the Enchanter did not make an appearance.

 The museum, on the other hand, was very cool! Well, once we got past Lewis and Clark and the Indians, I've had it up to here with Lewis and Clark... Some great stuff on the Civil War, and a lot of kitsch from the 70's & 80's... brought back a lot of memories! Oh, and Dad made a new friend. Voila. And of course, there was a train. (Yes, I know, they are awful dark.)

 “Going so soon? I wouldn't hear of it. Why my little party's just beginning.”

Wizard of Oz

 We got back to the campsite about 5:00, all eager to start our cookout, only to find that the wind had been having a merry time in our absence. The tent was half-collapsed, with one of the Velcro loops all but torn off. And it was still windy. Stormclouds off in the distance - possibility of storms. Should we stay or go? We debated. I declared my tiredness of quitting and giving up. So... while Dad coaxed a fire into starting in the grill, I set up up the OTHER tent, the eight-person tent, in the shadow of the bathhouse. Where it provided a windblock.

 That was a great night. We just relaxed, cooked brats, and roasted marshmellows, and watched the stormclouds off to the west... they went north, never hit us after all. Sioncat enjoyed it, too.

I realized something that night. I'd been racing around for several weeks, trying to find caches to meet a numbers goal of 2000 by the end of June, and dragging my father along. And I wasn't having much fun. Caching is supposed to be fun, and what I was doing wasn't much. Plus, it was expensive. So I decided to stop trying for numbers, and just have fun.

 “I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Sioncat.”

Wizard of Oz (sort of)

 Which didn't mean that I didn't go caching the next day. We WERE only 150 miles from home, and we had the full day ahead of us. We woke up and broke camp early, there were thunderheads nearby, but it never rained on us. I concentrated mostly on P&G type caches, being completely tired of mud – until I got bored. Which happened about 2 PM. I did, however, learn exactly why there is no Pierce Street in Topeka, a neat bit of trivia to dazzle people with later. We headed for home... I found about 25 on this trip. I settled for that. Home, to do laundry and dishes and decompress...

… and write a Chronicle...

Coming soon: Valentine (maybe). But until then, Cheers!

By Sioneva

 A strangelet is a hypothetical object consisting of a bound state of roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks. An equivalent description is that a strangelet is a small fragment of strange matter. The term "strangelet" originates with E. Farhi and R. Jaffe. Strangelets have been suggested as a dark matter candidate.