The Trek South

I started south by taking a short leg down to Chickasaw National Recreation Area. Since it is not a “Park”, they allow geocaches, which I did. I also put in an application with the National Park Service for hosting jobs, but none were available at Chickasaw. Next on the agenda was the DFW area, where I stayed two days at Hickory Creek COE Park, geocaching, of course. I attended the Dallas Area Geocachers Back to School Breakfast, where I met Geo D – who is one of the original geocachers in the area and has quite an interesting profile. Look him up if you have a sign-on on www.geocaching.com. After geocaching the area around the meeting, I met my “Boys” Jeff (& Al), Dave (& Jeanne), and Jim (& Gail & Emily) for lunch at Pappasito's in Dallas.

I stayed the weekend at Jims doing geocaching chores at my cache on his property and then got my bi-annual eye exam and a new set of contact lenses before heading to Leander, where Gary Lives.

The Express Van was acting up again, so I stayed at Cedar Breaks COE Park and geocached, while the Chevrolet garage spent two days analyzing and fixing the system. $441 later, with a new O2 sensor I finally got to Gary’s house. He acquired a lot of truck parts in lieu of pay from Carlos, a man who he had worked for, when the Carlos went out of business. Since Gary is not allowed to use the internet, I offered to list some items on EBay for him, and forward the results to him by phone. There has been some interest, but no bids yet. The sale will be over on Monday. Gary has had 5 years without a drink. Mary and Matt and I are going to his AA Meeting tomorrow where he and others will give there testimonies.

After Gary’s I went to Sportsmobile, in Austin, where I intended to start on getting my Van converted to a Class B motorhome. After seeing all of the prices and not being able to fit all of my needs into the floor plan, I decided to do a conversion myself to use for short trips – and keep the Casita as my home. I started on the conversion at Mary’s hose in Wimberley when they offered me a small refrigerator, which should be able to run on my solar power without severely draining the batteries.

After Mary’s I went to McKinney Falls State Park, where the Texas Parks and Wildlife office is located. I put in an application with the State and they suggested that I go directly to the parks that I am interested in with applications as well. I started with McKinney Falls and after spending 4 days hiking and geocaching there, I have landed a volunteer (that’s unpaid) job there. I will work 25 hours for my full hookup site and have the weekends off. My duties are easy. Essentially, I just sit at the gate from 6 to 10 PM and keep track of who comes and goes and give out information. I will start as soon as my criminal background check is completed.

I plan to stay here for at least a month and accumulate a little more money for fuel and get the van up to date.