We Attended The Pinellas Geo Event #2

The Pinellas Geo Event (#2) was held at Fort Desoto Park this year, which was a great venue for a meet-n-greet and to find a bunch of new geocaches out there. All told, we got 9 new ones for us, and since Karen & Kylor hadn't been geocaching at Fort Desoto before, they ended up with a total of 16 finds.

We did some walking, we did some talking, and especially, we did some finding too!

We came early to the event and there were quite a few of our fellow geocachers here. Even though we had to brave "Tarantula Rains" (see my Mala-Pop-isms post below), at about noon time the weather became rather nice. The sun finally came out, there was a gentle breeze, and then the geocaching began in earnest.

Since the event was a pot-luck affair, I whipped up a batch of Bahmi-Goreng while Karen made a batch of brownies to bring in. As you can see here, 'El-Principal' prefers to handle grill duty from a different approach...

After everything was done on the grill, we were called to line up. With all of those different T-Shirts, we made for a colorful group.

This was the traveler-swap table where you could drop off or pick up geo-travelers that you could help on their way. We picked up two coins and moved them along in our travels around Fort Desoto.

The benches cleared pretty quickly when "Chow Time" was called out.

Even then, the socializing continued.

Since Fort Desoto has quite a varied wildlife, we availed ourselves of the imagery presented us.

Situated along the Port of Tampa main shipping channel, we were able to see quite a few of these big guys go by.

Even Kylor was bitten by the shutter bug and was busily adding some really neat photos to his repetoire.

These 'bathing birds' were making full use of the puddles created by this morning's rains and were throwing water everywhere.

Ah, but the geocaching mustn't wait! We teamed up with Cusmith, Montu Rider and Princess Katie Bug as we looked for a couple of the caches near the pavilion. We did well on this jaunt.

This bench is a monument to Fred, who was a good dog, according to the plaque on the bench. It is also the location for the 'Fred's Dead' geocache that is placed here. I couldn't help but to chuckle and sing a couple of lines from Ray Stevens' song, "Fred, You Were A Good Dog"... Look up the lyrics, it's funny...

There are so many scenic places geocaching takes us to, sometimes peaceful, sometimes playful. This why we like geocaching. It gives us the ability to stretch our photographic wings, so to speak.

And then, it brings us to so many neat-looking trees that Karen practically has to hug every one we pass.

Eventually, she calms down and we get some geo-hunting done.

There were some really nice caches out here, many stocked with all kinds of goodies.

And then, there is the occasional bunny hiding in the bushes you might come across... We can see you!

At Fort Desoto, there is this battery of giant guns that were used by the military. Well, to get to the top of the battery, you gotta take the stairs. Oh, did I mention there is a geocache up there too? More than one reason for us to make the hike, and Kylor took advantage of the view to take some more pictures.

Another tree molested by Karen... This shot was taken post-hug...

Now, what is that on her head? Looks like she found some cute Heidi-locks in a cache container. I wonder if Kylor would like to try them on? Nah... He wouldn't do something like that!

Hello Mr. Egret. This big guy flew down in front of us and started walking along like he was guiding us to our next geocache. Nice.

Every once in a while, you gotta try seeing your world in black & white. This tree was pointed out by Karen for its photographic potential. Interesting.

So, we all worked on trying to get the shot just right.

Well what do you know? A pelican... here... Who would have thought that these things could be found by the seashore?

Well, this was the end of our geocaching day, so we headed back home after finding all kinds of things in our travels, like wildlife, fellow cachers, great landscapes, sore feet and great memories... We can't wait for the geocaching event!