sprocket i/o

Tiger by Dallas. Center Point, 04nov2003.

This weekend I finally had my first chance to really sit back and relax up here in Bloomington. My first weekend to just enjoy my surroundings. I’d been under a lot of pressure at work, trying to drag this pitiful UNIX network into the 21st century, kicking and screaming the entire way. Dallas had a tough week herself, so it was just time to breathe.

Dallas had gotten invited to a Halloween bus campout thrown by the Ohio Valley Tribe. It was in Brazil, IN, which was about an hour away, nearby Terre Haute. We left around noon on Saturday to drive out there, with the intention of doing some geocaches on the way. We grabbed lunch at some country Smorgásbord outside of Bloomington, and stopped for our first geocache: Beware of Cat(s).

It was a virtual cache, meaning we wouldn’t actually find any prizes, just a little adventure. It ended up being a really cool exotic feline rescue center, with about 150 lions, tigers, panthers, and cougars. It was pretty amazing to hear the sounds they all made, and of course, Dallas and I snapped plenty of photos. I’ll put them up next week when I get my broadband internet connection (it should be installed on Friday!).

I ended up getting slightly bewildered by going out to this cache, as the directions were no longer necessarily accurate. Dallas was really stressed about me not knowing exactly where I was and insisted we turn around, and well.. we did end up finding our way to the bus campout. The slow panning speed on the eTrex Vista GPS units was beginning to get on my nerves, further reminding me that I need to send back my broken Magellan Meridian Color.

The directions led us to a house, out amongst a few fields, where there were a half dozen Volkswagen Bus’s in the backyard. We introduced ourselves, met a lot of folks, and got our tent setup. There were a lot more kids at this campout then I was used to, probably because the bus campout had doubled as a Halloween Party for them. There were dinner, deserts, and drinks served for both the adults and kids, as well as a pinyata[sic] and pin-the-nose-on-the-pumpkin event. This was all hosted in a really large garage the family had setup to maintain their volkswagen’s in, and it was all decked out in VW and Halloween decor.

Most of the time it was raining, though the huge camp fire and the huge garage made this less of an annoyance than it usually is. Frank made an insane camp fire, with a huge set of logs and the traditional engine case to give the fire that extra magnesium spark. There was lots of chatter about life and volkswagens, and there was a guy who played the guitar and sang some old tunes. Dallas and I were fairly tired from the week before us, so we turned in early.

When we got up in the morning, we had the breakfast burrito’s, and headed on back home. Not before hitting up two more geocaches, of course. They involved walking around in the woods, taking photos, and finding things. I liked.