Brawndo Series of Geocaches

Not too many days ago, I watched the totally stupid movie ‘Idiocracy’.  I thought it was stupid and idiotic and the more I thought about it, the funnier it became.  I especially loved the movie population’s infatuation with Brawndo (a futuristic version of Gatorade) and their devotion to its electrolyte properties.

Whenever the word Brawndo came up in a conversation, any and all would repeat the commercials by-phrase of “Brawndo’s got electrolytes!  It’s got what plants crave – it’s got electrolytes”.  Apparently in the future, people are so brainwashed by advertising that they believe any and everything.  If it comes across the TV, then it must be true!

Against all reason, my fellow geocachers are a lot like these future Brawndo worshipers in that when they could be sitting comfortably on their couches, they are instead wandering ankle deep in goopy mud, or having their arms and legged scratched to pieces by thorns so they look for something a stranger hid.  It’s totally crazy.
Each outing is the equivalent of a blood donation to the mini blood-sucking mosquito phlebotomists and then there is the ever-spreading poison ivy rain forest over-taking Baytown and surrounding area they deal with on a daily basis and all of this is beyond normal reason.  Then there are snakes.  Why?

Take today for instance.  For the last two weeks, I’ve been pouring over photographs of a wooded area in Baytown, which adjoins the Goose Creek Trail, using a ruler to figure out how in the world I can place 11 geocaches inside this area without violating the 528 foot rule between caches, required by geocaching.com.  Yes, there are rules to this game.

My Bride is confused (she’s always generous towards me, as she well understands I do things like this as a form of self-abuse).  “Why do you continually put yourself in predicaments like this, Hon?”  “Because I must” I spout and we both know it’s a Bert thing and sacrosanct.  Move on, there’s nothing to see here.

My problem was indeed self-inflicted and early on, I confided in my friend Levi McAllister, known as Skathious in the geocaching circles, as I hashed out the logistics in my head.  In the long run, we agreed I would go solo and figure this entirely out and this would enable him to “find” the caches and ensure the secrecy of the cache locations.  The fewer people who know, the harder the hide and it’s that simple.

Over the last week, I created 11 unique containers to hide in the most difficult locations I could think of and I must admit, most all of them will be difficult for cachers to find.

This wooded area is a wet, snaky bottom land beside a small slough or bayou and today, it was snaky indeed.  City Manager Garry Brumback came driving by and stopped to ask me what in the devil I was doing when he saw me starring at the thick underbrush close to “The Loop”.  When I told him I was hiding geocaches to attract people to the Goose Creek Trail, he told me city employee Patti Jett was also a geocacher, so I gave him a couple of my Baytown Bert Wooden Nickel Geocoins to share.

Here I was, loaded down with containers, busting brush with fogged-up steamy glasses when in the back of my mind, something screamed DANGER!  I came to an abrupt halt, tried to find a dry place on my clothes (no luck) to wipe my eyeglasses, and there in my path was a short fat wiggly thing my brain told me was a cottonmouth rattle-moccasin.  It actually was a cottonmouth water moccasin this time, but it knew this was its territory and I wasn’t supposed to be there. 

Since this adventure is getting long-winded, I’ll continue it in part two.

Brawndo Series of Geocaches - Part 2

I backed up a bit and I kid you not, I was as soaked as a wet Billy goat (and just as gamey I imagine), as I dug around in one of my 2 shoulder bags for my water-proof camera.  I snapped a quick photo and then put the camera away.  Looking around my feet for the snake, I realized it was…what(?) – gone!  I back-tracked a bit kangaroo-style and made my way towards the direction I needed to go for my last cache…number eleven.

Number ten and eleven are both deep into the thick and overgrown terrain of the Texas Gulf Coast mixture of giant thorns and heavy underbrush.  Bear Gryll’s while hiking south of New Orleans commented that this was the worst swamp he has ever seen – even worse than Borneo. We have swamp like that here and heavy underbrush and this is what I was encountering.  Each step may or may not have a surprise and my fogged up glasses were not helping a bit.

In our wooded areas live a very large species of spiders.  Most people call them banana spiders, but they are actually a golden silk-orb-weaver spider.  They are usually about face-high and that is usually where they end up when you are bush whacking and results in face whacking.  Their webs are very hardy too.

Texas has many varieties of thorns also and some are dark brown and the size of your ring finger.  My arms look like I’ve been in a cat fight – and lost and I now have some sort of rash on my arm that’s not poison ivy.  I have bruises on my legs and my eyes itch.

I’m having the time of my life.

Anyway, to make a long journey shorter, I finally sloshed back onto the Goose Creek Trail close to the existing Rusty Hands cache, which requires the finder to creep along the outside of the bridge over the bayou.  Thus, the rusty hands and one that required me to make 5 long trips before I found the geocache.

I made my way back to my geocachemobile, drove home, shucked off my dripping clothes in the garage, showered, ate, and submitted the cache data to geocaching.com for approval and publication.  Maybe my efforts will draw people to Baytown.  I have a feeling this endurance series is going to be a real bonus for our restaurants.