Geocaching Adventures in Baytown

If you have read me for any length of time, you are aware I play a high-tech adventure game called geocaching. The city of Baytown has openly embraced this game as a tourist attraction and launched an ambitious project called a geotour. Now what in the world does this have to do with you? Everything, as it is open for all ages and physical abilities, especially if you team up with friends.

https://www.geocaching.com/play/geotours/baytown-texas

Everything you need to know about the game can be learned by visiting geocaching.com and opening a free account or you can attend my next geocaching 101 class February 17, 2018 at the Eddie V. Gray Wetlands Center at 10am. At 11am, we will have a geocaching herpetologist from Precinct 4 give a class on identifying snakes and its all free.

I have extensive info here: http://ourbaytown.com/baytownbert/geocache.htm

Now what's it all about and why should you consider doing it? The game can be played by downloading a free app from geocaching.com to your phone. Once you a geocaching name and the app, you do a search of the area around you by using your zip code. Presto! Geocaches are all over Baytown! All of them have a scale of 1 to 5 on difficulty and terrain. Go easy on yourself and look for the ones with lower ratings.

You will need a pen or pencil to sign the piece of paper inside the "cache" container. This is a must do item. If you don't sign as proof that you were there, you cannot log it as "found" on the Internet. Geocaches come in all sizes and shapes and some are as small as a pencil eraser or as big as a 5 gallon bucket. Some caches have items for trading, called swag and the rule is if you take something, you have to leave something of equal or greater value.

When you locate the cache container, you open it and sign the log, trade items if you want and then place it back where you got it. This is very important because of our changing flora. If a geocacher hides a container in barren winter, it can be very difficult to locate after spring and summer growth. This is one reason that many containers are tethered. Make sure to write a good log of your adventure.

Geocaching, as in the geotour will take you all over town to many places you never have visited and thus it is a real kid-friendly adventure. You can get your geotour passport at Bucee's at the tourism kiosk and find your first geocache also! City parks, historic markers, old building, cemeteries, bike trails, hiking locations are all open for adventure right here in town. Some are bike friendly, others you can take a wheelchair or stroller right up to them.  One of the longest playing members of the game in the Houston area is very active and is 82 years young. He's the Yoda of geocaching here and goes by the title ParkerPlus.

Baytown's most famous geocacher is Larry Houston (HoustonControl) and he will be moving to the Hill country in the hear future. HC started playing this game in 2005 and is still very active, hiding a multi-cache this week.  A "multi" means that once you get to the coordinates, you will find another set you must follow until it finally takes you to the location with the log book. This particular one has a wireless beacon in number one which if you have a device that can receive the signal, you can proceed to the next stage. He makes provision for those who don't have the device also.

Goose Creek and Cedar Bayou have geocaches all up and down them that can accessed by Jon boat, kayak, or canoe and every trail in town is peppered with geocaches for your hiking and biking pleasure. There is another aspect of this game that adds to the fun and it is trackable items which have a code on them. When you find one of these items in a geocache, you can "grab" it, but you can't keep it. They move from geocache to geocache and pick up mileage which is recorded online by your logs. If you find one and you are not sure what to do, just take a photo of the code (don't publish the photo) and log this code to get credit for "discovering" it.

This is a game of numbers and the day you find your first geocache, you will be so proud of yourself. The next milestone will be your 50th or 100th find, etc. The next thing you know, you will be on vacation looking for geocaches and finding the neatest and coolest places that you would never see without playing this fun game. My geocaching handle is BaytownBert and all of my geocaches start with BB. Ready to play?

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80,000 people and growing!

Holy all that is sacred! We now have over 80,000 warm bodies to bump into every time we swagger across town! That extra 15,000 from 1980 days sure makes a difference and if my predictions are correct, we are going to see a whole lot more people (and each one of them will try to be on Garth Road at the same time) in the next 4 years. It’s guestimated that at least 20,000 more cruise into the city during the day by undisclosed secret sources which I alone (and probably Jim Finlay) am privy to.

The good news is the City is planning to 6-lane Garth Road and then it will only be about as crowded as it is right now. I want to applaud the city planners in that they are really making a go of getting more roads and connecting parking lots so those of us who like to avoid all of that, can get around a bit better. Of course you have to factor in the parking lot missile cars.

By the time most of are reading this column, the SPAC (the Imagine Baytown People) will be huddled over a huge stack of surveys trying our level best to make a recommendation to the city of what we, the citizens want here in the next 5 years. Now this subject has came up numerous times in social media about it not meaning a danged thing and no one will listen and it confuses and yes, angers me a bit when I have to stress just the opposite.

This ain’t Washington DC honey where they ask for input and then do what they danged well please. This is small town big town Baytown and they, our city council want to know what the citizens want and have given everyone ample time to state those desires.

When Nick Woolery told me the Mayor wanted me on this committee, I made it clear that my biggest concern was family amenities and making Baytown a better place to raise kiddos and nothing has changed in that department. I care very little about new stores, motels, storage facilities, car washes, etc, etc. I want more places to take kids and get out doors and enjoy life here.

We need better and more unique Parks, like the one in the Heights called Donavan Park.  People drive miles to take their children there and it’s free. We don’t need more cookie cutter parks, which look the same as all the other ones in Anytown, USA. Geeze, let’s use our imagination on this. We have waterways that are not being developed and we have a lot of them. We need to push the wide sidewalk plans where cyclists can ride their bikes around the city and shed some of the fat that we get from the many new restaurants.

Captain Jerry Jones of the Cedar Bayou Friends is doing his part in planning the second annual Cedar Bayou Voyager event on October 15^th and has enlisted the help of Southeast Texas Geocachers (under the expert assistance of Army Colonel (Ret.) Lee Ann Adams.  Of course I will be there representing the Texas Geocaching Association.  Jerry and I go all the way back to the Vietnam War when were both stationed on the same base.

Calypso Cove just about breaks even money wise (according to my other secret sources) and based on how many people use it, I think we need a second one on the north side of I-10 and no, not on Garth road! These water parks are awesome and if you haven’t taken your kiddos to one, try it and see.  I counted 4 lifeguards the last time I was there and all of them were taking their job seriously.

We need more businesses and clubs organizing quarterly Adopt a Site programs to give back to the community and help their members and employees bend over and remove litter. Hey, don a shirt with your business name on it and go down a street and see if that doesn’t advertise your business like no other way. Eleanor Albon will hug you until you are blue in the face, I promise. I enjoy her hugs every time I see her.

Kathy Nelson and her husband are putting Keep Baytown Beautiful on the map with their Beautiful Business of the Week award program and I salute the pair. That is a lot of work to scout out these places, take time for a photo Op, and then go back and retrieve the sign.

Litter abatement is a real problem here as everywhere and the reason for it is many people still believe throwing trash out the window of their car is a good way to keep the inside clean. I ran a test one week on Blue Heron Parkway and each day for one week at close to the same location, I picked up a Nature Valley Granola bar wrapper.  Now I don’t know how long it took that person to eat it after they left home, but they were very consistent in when it went out the window.

I can’t prove it, but I suspect this person has never participated in a single trash bash in their entire life.  Am I a trash bash expert?  No, but here it is nearly August and I have been in one every month this year.

Texas Avenue is coming along as is the Yepez Vineyard and Baytown is making strides to get a geocaching Geotour under the expert eye of Anna Enderli, so we are making progress.  Now, if we can only get the naysayers to see some sunshine and offer suggestions over criticisms, we will be well on our way to making Baytown a city on the move.
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Beating a dead horse?

 We are really in for it.  “It” being what Baytown is to become in our near future.

I think its time to remind folks that this sleepy little tri-settlement is no more.  Back in 1974 when I made Baytown my home, a person could exit the tunnel on this side of the ship channel and not see a single light until the Holiday Inn close to Texas Avenue came into sight.  Not a single light bulb was burning, because it was out in the country.

In this same area, there will soon be a flyover heading onto Highway 99 and a second bridge over Cedar Bayou.  Below the second bridge will be a large barge terminal that no one here wanted.  Thank you Sammy Mahan for setting me straight on this.   I saw it as jobs for Baytownians and not as something that would lower the standard of those who live nearby.

My answer then (after attempts failed to stop the building of the terminal) was to hold the city’s feet to the fire to force environmental, sound-abatement, and aesthetic concessions. 

I was against banning of cigarette smoking inside bars and food establishments after they were forced to put in mega-expensive ventilation systems to accommodate non-smokers.  I was against removing the red light cameras and still am, but other than getting a laugh out of smoking out the Madalyn Murray O’Hair of red light cameras, I accepted it.

The next big thing I didn’t vote for was the expansion of the Blue Heron Parkway.  I felt like my fellow citizens let us local folks down by voting for a useless road through our woods, just so people could drive to Sjolander Road.  What?  “Why would anyone want a shortcut there”, was my reasoning.

Turns out it was a lot of people, me included.  I was wrong – but, I hounded my councilman and the city to do the very thing I suggested they do with the barge terminal - force environmental, sound-abatement, and aesthetic concessions.  No luck on sound abatement, but wow!  It is beautiful and with the hike and bike trails and the awesome-looking detention/retention pond, it is a real eye pleaser.

We planted 55 trees and will probably plant 55 more when the money becomes available and the trails and road are heavily used.  So it turns out this giant negative was actually a positive.  Now I can’t say that the barge terminal will be a positive, but don’t give up on making it appear and sound acceptable.  Just don’t stop forcing those concessions.

When it comes to making our city leaders accountable, there is no such thing as beating a dead horse.  It’s been my personal experience that they listen.  I have had a fantastic response from our city officials and basically because they know I actually care about Baytown.  I even got a high-five from T-Bone Schaffer when I was involved in the Baytown Concerned Citizen’s movement and to me, that was something special.

This brings us to the present serious issue of the planned Transportation Center beside Gentry Junior School.  Seeing emissions are a very big part of the complaint, a simple exhaust header could be erected behind the many parked buses with flexible hoses.  When a bus is parked and before it is started, the hose could be attached to the tail pipe and while the bus is idling, the vapors are ran through a scrubber.  This is very common in all the chemical plants and allows almost zero emissions to go to the atmosphere.

When the bus is ready to leave, they simply drive away and the hose automatically disconnects, closing itself off.  At present, every bus at Stallworth Stadium discharges exhaust to the atmosphere, so this would be an ecological improvement.

Next is noise and light abatement and with proper landscaping and noise reducing vegetation and sound absorbing panels, this could be properly negated.  The vacant view across that field being viewed as pristine is somewhat a mystery to me, but maybe to the locals it is beautiful.

The main point of this column isn’t that we should build the Transportation Center on Archer Road, but that the city is growing and there will be terrible concessions to many people who still believe they are living in the country.  They are not.  Little Pelly-Baytown-Goose Creek is no more.  We are the biggest thing east of Houston and God help us if they ever try to absorb us.

I predict that one of the next projects will be to four-lane Sjolander Road all the way to I-10 and widen Archer all the way to Garth or further.  We will see many more Hunt roads cutting across fields with many more people displaced.  Twenty years ago I heard this was going to happen and now it is.  There ain’t no more “country” in Baytown and the sooner we accept that, the quicker we can start holding the city’s feet to the fire to make the improvements appealing and most importantly, safe for residents.

Expansion around Baytown April 2013

Detention Pond behind Chaparral Village subdivision 4-30-13

West side of Barkuloo Road - Baker Road expansion

N. Main and Baker Road 4-25-13

San Jacinto Methodist Hospital on Decker Drive 4-25-13

West side of Barkuloo Road - Baker Road expansion

East side of Barkuloo Road - Baker Road expansion

East side of Barkuloo Road - Baker Road expansion

New barge terminal going in across from Roseland Park in Baytown - Cedar Bayou

Old building made into a new building on N. Main close to Texas Avenue

December 10th Update Forthcoming

I spent many months this year writing and for the last couple of months I've slowed down and decided to simply have fun by documenting where I've been with my camera instead. So enjoy!

Black Widow spider found next to a small geocache

A tiny DNA tube used for a micro geocache.  I found 86 geocaches this day.  Whew!

Mike Sievers and I on a nighttime kayak event on Armand Bayou.

An extra large tree frog I found in the woods.

A geocache I found with my Bride near Channelview, Texas.

My Bride and I geocaching on bikes at Memorial 7 park near Webster.

Kayaking - Geocaching nighttime event on Armand Bayou 12-1-12

Geocaching with HoustonControl, Butch, & Rambetta on a chilly morning on Cedar Bayou, Baytown, Tx.

5 differant beans, 2 lbs sausage, 2 lbs ground chuck, and rice.

12-8-12 Geocaching Trash Bash (CITO - Cache in Trash out) event.

Larry Houston and I geocaching in Jones forest, Conroe, Texas

My Bride and I geocaching in Channelview, Texas

A Trip Up Cedar Bayou

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My buddy Jim McDonnel took his circa 1971 John boat up Cedar Bayou today, launching from the boat dock at Roseland Park.  We motored all the way to the I-10 bridges, occasionally bumping an underwater log as we neared the bridges.  We saw many different birds, including great blue herons, night herons, white egrets, caracara, anhinga,  cormorants, kingfishers, and vultures.

We also found about 5-6 boats completely destroyed.  I wonder who is responsible for their removal?

We discovered Cedar Bayou for the most part is unspoiled and beautiful.  It will be a real shame to see it ruined by the noise and traffic pollution caused by the proposed barge terminal.

Baytown Bert in a rare self-portrait

The bridges under I-10.  Its very beautiful here.

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Kayaking on Goose Creek

My Bride and I took our tandem Ocean Kayak out on Goose Creek today, launching from the excellent boat dock behind the Eddie V. Gray Wetlands Center.

It was a perfect day to be on the water, with a light breeze and 75 degrees F.  Once on the water, we paddled north and passed under the Texas Avenue bridge, hailing a fellow attempting to catch a fish (none yet, he yelled).

We saw many cormorant, pelicans, egrets, great egrets, and herons, of various types.  The tide was coming in, but not being sure of where the channels runs, we ran through some water less than 12 inches from my hull.

I'm thinking if the barge terminal is installed on Cedar Bayou, Goose Creek will need to be dredged, but right now it's still good for kayaking and there's even a geocache on an island down close to the park street bridge, thanks to Larry Houston.

 
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