from David Locklear, dlocklea...@gmail.com Have any of you had the unpleasant experience of having to abort a caving trip ?
I sort of had that experience, over the holiday weekend. Here is a road-trip story from this past Sunday. Background info: __________________ There is a cave that I have been wanting to take my daughter to while she is still a kid. She will be 10 years old in a month, and she no longer acts like a kid, but more like a spoiled pre-teen. She has never been in a cave, except as a baby on a commercial tour once. I felt my time window had closed for that opportunity and was very concerned about that. On Sunday, I had a 24 hour break in my schedule, and felt certain that this was my final chance, to do something about that. In the few moments prior to deciding to make the road-trip, it seemed feasible to at least drive in the general direction of the cave, and if time allowed, I would at least make an effort to meet with the landowner, to see what his status was, such as whether he was still alive, or in good health, or even still owned the cave, or allowed people in the cave, etc. I knew the chances of going in the cave were nearly zero. But there were 2 or 3 other things in the area that I wanted to do with my kid, and with a stroke of good luck we might could get a photo opportunity at the cave entrance. A little personal info first, for those of you who do not know me. My daughter lives with her mother, about an hour south of Houston, near the town of Arcola. I live walking distance to downtown Houston. Her mother and I have had a bizarre relationship for going on 19 years, where I just try my best to tolerate her, and more recently, only in an effort to spend quality time with my kid. I am only making the point that it is extremely difficult to travel with my kid's mother. So the 3 of us, got a much later start out of Arcola, than I wanted. According to Google Maps, it is 200 miles to the cave, and about a 3 1/2 hour drive, however, Google does not to take into account the heavy traffic of Harris County, especially on a holiday like Labor Day, nor the tropical rain storm, nor that the passengers have to stop every hour for some reason. It had been 16 years, since I had been to the cave, and had not even been in that county, since then. But I had been there many times in the late 80's and 90's, so I figured I could find the landowner's house blindfolded, and besides my fancy new smartphone, could zoom in right to where the cave was, within a few hundred feet. The Trip: _________ We arrived in the vicinity of the ranch about 2 hours before sundown, much later than I had wanted. We pulled up to the spot along the highway where my fuzzy memory told me the entrance to his ranch should have been. Nothing looked familiar. We could not get an internet signal from Sprint, so I could not look it up on my phone. I drove all around for what seemed like an hour, back and forth over a 2 mile stretch of highway. We passed it at least once, but the focus of my effort was unfortunately one mile too far north, and my fuzzy memory was completely wrong about 2 important details. All the landmarks in my fuzzy memory-bank, seemed missing, and there were lots of new development. My stubbornness or hard-headedness would not give up, until I realized it was futile ( We had an urgent need to get to our next destination by dark, which was 45 minutes away. So I aborted the cave-related portion of our road-trip. It felt horrible to to that. Ironically, the map to the rancher's house was readily available back at my office. ( The link below is a sketch of that from 1998 ) By the point of surrender, I was carsick and the crew was totally fed up with the road-trip and demanded 3-star motel. I used to go to this cave on inexpensive day trips, but this one set me back over $ 200, which at the moment is outside of my travel budget. Unfortunately, I was too far from the ranch to note what new construction, or development has occurred in the vicinity of the cave. So that part of our trip was a big disappointment. We did manage to reach 2 of our other destinations. The only thing I think I accomplished on this trip, is they want to go back to Martin Dies Jr. State Park, for an over-nighter, and my daughter learned the fun of singing road-trip songs like "Country Roads," while driving down the scenic rural highway. Here are 3 photos, from the state park that we briefly visited. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/a16h1oa8k4v74o2/AACf2VmKNS0DFrkILHKmeZB7a?dl=0 David Locklear dlocklea...@gmail.com Ref: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hgm62v0tb1ctrjx/Misc-map.jpg?dl=0 Sidenote: calling the owner a rancher is not the right word. If he is still alive, he and his family operate a variety of businesses related to the use of his land. One of those businesses is growing pine trees, to sell them to a sawmill. Someday, someone will need to return here to verify the procedures for planning an organized trip to the cave, and that will require talking to the owner. I do not know when or if, I will ever make it back, as it is quite a drive from where my daughter lives. On the map, there is a note that says "Do Not Drive Across Dam" From there you can see the owner's fancy house up on the hill.
_______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers
