3rd Annual Starkey Park Geo-Event

Time for one more geo-event before the year is over. We attended this one on Sunday, the 28th with Karen and Bradley joining us.

Karen started out early with us at the park and since it's close to her house, she let her boys sleep in, then picked them up at around noon-time.

It was a great time to socialize with a few geocachers we haven't seen in a while. Captain Biggins here, was the first place winner in our 10-Coin Geocoin Challenge recently. He also worked hard on making a couple of pots of chili, and then put together a geo-bingo game and a geocaching version of a poker run too. His efforts were greatly appreciated.

And here we are, preparing to begin the poker run, a game where you find different hidden containers that have sealed envelopes with a playing card hidden inside. After locating all of the containers and collecting an envelope from each, they were turned in to Captain Biggins so he could cut them open and see what kind of poker hand we came up with.

But first, Luann decided to take advantage of the scenery for a neat little picture of 'SeekingValhala' and 'The Alchemist Ekard' (they both signed up with their own geocacher's names now).

As we made our way to the first poker run container, we came across this gopher tortoise on his way to his next meal.

During our search, we came across several fellow geocachers whom were trying to make up a poker run hand too. This is Geo Mrs. P, poking around underneath a log with a ski pole. You never know where Captain Biggins might have hidden those containers...

At the next container, we came across Florida Panther too.

Although FL Panther was riding a bicycle, we seemed to cross paths with him several times.

Looks like SeekingValhala found one of the boxes and is letting us all take our pick from the envelopes inside.

Here's a pic of a leaf bug we came across on our way back to the pavilion to turn in our poker run envelopes.

And here is SeekingValhala and The Alchemist Ekard waiting to see how well they did. Actually, it took Biggins a bit before he could announce the winners, because so many people had played the game.

Time for a bit of lunch and a rest after our jaunt on the poker run. In a minute, Karen will be leaving to pick up her boys.

When we started off to hunt for real geocaches this time, we came across this 5-foot eastern diamondback rattlesnake, making it's way across the road. Since his progress was real slow, I held up traffic in the park so this big boy could get to the other side without being run over.

Ah, Karen and her boys. Brendan and Kylor look like they're ready for a nice, fun day of geocaching.

Time to use a fallen tree as a bridge over this creek. Careful now!

Ok, steady now... (Click on the picture for a better view)

Heading down the trail, we came across an orange tree, so I climbed up and shook a few oranges loose for our group.

Well, Kylor and SeekingValhala have one, time to get a couple more.

One final pose of our fellow travelers in front of this massive oak tree before we head home for the day. This was a bunch of fun, I can't wait for another one of these geo-events to come up.