Geocaching and Wildlife Watching

Aaron and I have taken up geocaching as a way to spend time together doing something. I really do not want to spend my time sitting around, so I thought we'd try it. We geocached some in Louisa a couple of weekends ago, but I had looked these up and sort of done some reconnaissance as to where they were. They also were not very difficult, but it was fun and we are enjoying it. And we found the most amazing field of buttercups that we are going to go back to so I can get a photo in it.

This weekend, we geocached around Culpeper and did more of the kind I like - driving randomly and seeing if you can figure out where the heck they are and then find them. It involves a lot more getting lost and u-turns. We sought out one in a subdivision, two dead end roads, and Aaron's favorite - a well camoflaged fake-brace at the airport. Then we went to the park in town and found one and couldn't find one. All in all we were 4-6. The weather was hot and sunny and Culpeper is a great place to go driving around.

We stopped to eat dinner and then got on the road to head to Adam's for his birthday celebration and corn hole tournament. The corn hole tournament never materialized that I know of, but plenty of games were played. There were also two sets of Teste-Toss (also known as Rope-A-Dope) going at the same time. I am better at it then Aaron, but there were some pros there for sure. I manned the grill for a short time and learned some of the ways of meat. Some of the boys were surprised that I had never grilled, but I guess boys always seem to enjoy it so much, I just trust them to do it.

Aaron and I spent some time analyzing the apparent dress code and how Aaron would never fit in the collared shirt - cargo pants - sandals mafia wearing his standard black tshirt and jeans (I think there may have been some worry that I might expect that sort of dress code, but I think that was cleared up). I kept trying to tell him that they weren't dressed up and that's what they wore all the time because they wanted to. I would have to to come in more than a tshirt and shorts to meet the girl's more dressy appearance and perhaps get some more hair and straighten it.

I didn't really know anyone there, but everyone was super-friendly and super-competitive when it came to flip cup. I have not played in probably six years, but I can certainly hold my own - even when having to double drink because my team was short a player. The funniest thing that happened at the party was some girl convincing Aaron and I that we needed to become "facebook-official" and then Adam toasting us and bringing it up like ten times afterwards. It somehow came up because this girl asked me a question about Aaron and I said it was only date number 12 and I didn't know. It worked out because we had actually had a conversation on the drive there about when was it appropriate to change a facebook status, like what number date and ended the conversation with "I'll change mine, if you change yours." So anyway, now we are official... according to Facebook.

Sunday after brunch (lunch? whatever you call eating breakfast at 2! (I was so hungry!)), we decided to head to Lenn Park because there were 4 geocaches there and Aaron had never heard of it. Turns out, its an air park for flying remote controlled planes - basically a nice field edged with a line of trees and a lovely creek. The geocaches were pretty easy to find, but it was a perfect day for just walking around and we saw a lot of awesome things. First we saw a lovely beetle with fake eyespots on its wing covers that was quite impressive. We found the hugest dandelion head bigger than my fist that was so well attached, no wishes were granted. We saw a HUGE snapping turtle swimming in the creek. We passed a tree with a bee's nest (I have never seen one) that we skirted quickly around. We saw two to three red headed woodpeckers playing around on some dead trees. And we found a falcon nest that had a fuzzy chick watching us from above. And we found 3 of the 4 caches we were looking for. Not bad.

On the way back into town we looked for two and found one. Poison oak is growing like crazy right now and is a huge deterrent as far as I am concerned. For some of these, we had a good idea where they were, we just weren't going to go poking to hard. That and some of them are just plain hard to find.