ArkGeo 2008 Social Event : Lake Catherine State Park

On the morning of Friday, May 30th, my wife (ddkds) and I headed out for Hot Springs to attend the ArkGeo 2008 Annual Social Event (GC197P5) at Lake Catherine State Park on Saturday, May 31st, 2008.

We did some caching on the way and in Hot Springs.

We had decided to stay at a hotel in Malvern when planning our trip. The hotel there was not that far away from the park and it was a good deal. I had also learned that woodwalker9 and CFD29 was going to stay at the same hotel.

We made some arrangements and we met with woodwalker9, searcykid, quiltingranny, AR-Hick, hikerron, and CFD29 for dinner at the Western Sizzlin in Malvern. We had some good food and fellowship and planned on most of us going to find one of the night caches placed by SJClimber at Lake Catherine State Park.

It was quite a "mis-adventure".

ddkds and I did not really leave the hotel in time to make in on the trail in a timely manner, so we were playing catch up from the beginning.

Then on top of that it turns out we went one way on the trail when we should have taken the other side of the loop that was closer to the night cache. We could have continued the way we were going, but it would have been a long trip in the dark. We also met up with CFD29 on the trail who was also running late and also took the long side of the loop. We finally decided to walk back and give up after I made a phone call to woodwalker9 and he told us of our mistake. We did find one cache on the trail on the way back, it was not a night cache but it did keep the trip from being a complete washout.

The next morning after leaving the hotel we headed back to Lake Catherine State Park for the event. This park really is a great park and was the perfect place for this event. ddkds and I plan on possibly returning later to stay in one of the cabins.

The event was fun and this was the first event in a while where I had the chance to meet several new cachers I had not met before. There was plenty of food, prizes, and fun.

ddkds and I found a couple of the caches in the park and when we return we hope to find the others.

I also learned at the event that I had been elected to the Arkansas Geocachers Association Board during the previous election. I am excited about working with the others on the Board to promote geocaching in Arkansas. You can learn more about ArkGeo at http://www.arkgeocaching.org.

We had to leave immediately after the event and did not get to stay for the rest of the fun that was had during the day or the Cache In Trash Out event that was held the next morning. We hope to stay longer next time.

We look forward to next years social.

By the way...

The photo above was at the event, but it said "No Camping beyond this point". I used a little Microsoft Paint to have a little fun with it.