Candy run 2018

This year Rachel scoured Pinterest and decided on being an M&M for Halloween.  After a craft store run this is the costume we put together.  

Time for the trek around the Painter's neighborhood with 4 kids & 6 adults!  This year's roster included fisherman (as is often the case) and 2 girls in tutu's 

A successful night full of fun and an overabundance of candy!

The all-important post trick or treating sort

Fall Break Mega Road Trip - Part 6

It was time to head back toward home.  We made a pit stop in Longview, Texas, and spent some time visiting with Kevin Brumley's parents. 

We snagged this fun geocache on the grounds of the Brumley's hometown church

On the way we altered our route to drive through a corner of Louisiana so I could check it off my list of states I had been in.  Took a photo at the sign to make it official.

And to further make it official we logged a geocache at this little off the road place.

We stopped at Garvin Woodlawn Gardens in Hot Springs as well.  This was a beautiful garden and park that included a stunning glass chapel in the woods

 We spent time exploring the gardens and grounds.

Time to go home.  Final totals:

9 days

8 states

25 geocaches logged in 6 new states

and a ton of photos and fun memories

Fall Break Mega Road Trip - Part 5

This stop of our trip was one that Rachel was looking forward to the most because it included the beach.  We spent a couple days in Galveston.

Geocaching - because "why not?"

The weather wasn't all that warm, but Rachel would not be deterred from her ocean fun

The next day was a little warmer so we spent the morning walking around looking at the homes in the historical district.  The detailing was so elaborate.  Rachel was ready to buy one and move here permanently.

The afternoon proved to be better weather so we pulled Stevie out on the beach and soaked in the fun for several hours.

Rachel had no reservations about diving right in

Dusty...not so much

But eventually, he was convinced

Fall Break Mega Road Trip - Part 4

Today's stop was Magnolia in Waco.  We had watched Chip & Joanne Gains and Fixer Upper for years.  This was the stop that was making all of my friends jealous.  The fact that it was wet and cold put a bit of a damper on the experience.  We also got there right before the fall festival was to begin, so things were still being set up for that.  Just as well, it was set to get a lot more crowded soon.  It was fun to look at, but I'm not really a shopper so we didn't spend a ton of time here.  Just enough to say we had seen it.

We found other interesting shops in Waco and spent a little time geocaching and then headed toward Houston.  Besides this type of silliness is more our speed anyway

On the way to Houston, I may a detour that I had been keeping secret.  Just a few miles away I pulled off the road onto a driveway and announced that we were at Chuck Norris' ranch.  There were some workers painting the fencing and when we stopped they proceeded to wave us on in.  I got out and quickly explained we just wanted to take a quick photo.  In hindsight maybe we should have just kept on going up the driveway.  We could always plead ignorance and say we were waved in!  But we settled for a fun photo opt for the Chuck Norris uber-fan!

We also scored some bottles of C Force water, spring water bottled on the ranch.  We're waiting to see if it unleashes any massive boot-kicking abilities in Dusty! 

Fall Break Mega Road Trip - Part 3

Oklahoma City - Waco

After our time exploring all things Pioneer Woman we pointed to car toward Oklahoma City.  Our first stop was at the Oklahoma City Memorial.

This stop also served as a sober history lesson for Rachel since these events took place almost a decade before she was born.

Then we turned from the solemn to the ridiculous.  We headed toward a house in Oklahoma City that was the site of an elaborate geocache.  The owners had converted a shed into an elaborate puzzle.  It felt a little creepy going down the alley to the back entrance and using a combination provided in the cache description to unlock the gate.  It didn't help matters when the neighbor's dog began barking viciously on the other side of the metal wall.  Rachel was ready to call it quits, but we pressed on.  Once we finally got into the building we had to figure out how to access the cache.  It was hidden in the base of this creepy looking chair.

 After quite a while we managed to figure it out.  I'm sure if the owners were watching on camera they were getting quite a laugh out of our antics.

The next day we headed toward Dallas to the George W. Bush Presidential Library.  An interesting stop that included a full size replica of the Oval office  

Beams from the World Trade Center

As well as a lot of other interesting memorabilia

We ended the day in Waco and Rachel discovered the joy that is In-&-Out Burger!

Fall Break Mega Road Trip - Part 2

Rolling into Oklahoma we were headed toward Pawhuska, but again found ourselves detoured out into the middle of nowhere to find a few caches.  This side adventure was to find a cache titled "August 13th".  I mean, after all, you can't pass up your birthday cache.  August 13 happened to be in a cedar tree down a lonely road out in the middle of the Oklahoma prairie.  It was gorgeous!

I wasn't kidding about being in the middle of nowhere.

Just a short distance away was August 11.  Here's Dusty with his birthday cache. 

We headed on into Pawhuska home of the Pioneer Woman Mercantile.  Both Rachel and I enjoy watching the Pioneer Woman cooking show so this was going to be a fun stop.

It was fun to look around and there was a bakery on the 2nd floor.  It's too bad we have to deal with this gluten-free issue.  The treats had to be a no-go.  We lucked out because we were there when they were offering free tours of the lodge on the ranch where the shows are filmed.  Since I'm not much of a shopper this was the more appealing option.  We left Pawhuska and headed about 10 miles out into the ranch land and wove our way down miles of gravel road to the lodge.  It was a lot of fun to be able to walk through where the cooking show is filmed.

This gentleman talked about what is involved in filming and since Rachel was the only kid around he went out of his way to show her what was in the drawers and in the kitchen.

At the back of the lodge was a commercial kitchen that is also used to prepare the recipes.  This was one of the storage areas.  Racks and racks of dishes and cookware

The highlight for Rachel was meeting Henry one of the ranch dogs.

We crossed paths with Route 66 again and it gave us a few more interesting sights for geocaching.