Today I ran through IL, MO and into OK. Man was it hot! My poor truck's air conditioning just wasn't up to the task as there was just too much space to try and cool from too much heat. I finally closed off the sleeper curtain so that it only had to cool the front of the cab and that helped some.
I made three geocaching stops along the way. All I can say is that it's a good thing I'm a Floridian and used to the heat and humidity because it was brutal out there in the woods. I think even the insects were laying low in the heat. My most valuable tool today was my bandana to wipe the sweat from my eyes as I hiked through the woods.
I met husband and wife geocaching team on one stop. I thought they might have been cachers but wasn't sure because they were kind of sitting at a picnic table talking but I thought I saw a GPS in her hand at one point. I wasn't positive as I only got a glimpse. I wandered casually over to where I figured the cache was hidden in a hole in the base of a tree and bent down like I was tying my boot lace so I could get a better look.
They weren't fooled and immediately came over to introduce themselves. They had already searched the area and didn't find the cache and had given up to rest a bit from the heat. We joined forced and searched again, all agreeing that the specific hole in the specific tree was the only spot that met all of the criteria suggested on the cache's web page. The cache had a history of being "muggled" so we figured that's what happened to it. Some muggle found it and stole it. Again. The owner had said on the page that it had been muggled 5 times already. The last posted find on it was 6 days ago.
Ah well, I got to meet a nice couple and we shook hands all around as we parted company to head for our respective next caches. The woman had mentioned that I was the first fellow cacher they had run across while caching. I've run across a number of them already, but then I do tend to get around a bit.
The next one was a bit out in the woods and was surrounded by the most poison ivy I've ever seen growing in one spot in my life. It would be impossible to get to the cache without wading through the stuff, and it was quite tall. As I am not sensitive to it I just waded right in and found the cache. I traded a bit of swag, signed the log, and made my way back to my truck and it's air conditioning. It was only a short hike but I was drenched in sweat by the time I made it back.
I made it on into OK and parked at the truckstop. I got myself a very welcome shower and a pretty good dinner. Tonight's special was a dinner salad, a smoked 1/2 chicken, baked beans, and potato salad, with iced tea for just under 10 bucks with tax and everything. It was pretty tasty.
I'm just about an hour from where I need to be in Tulsa tomorrow morning. There are a couple of truckstops over that way but I figured by the time I got over there I wouldn't be able to find a parking spot. The truckstops closest to cities tend to fill up fast, especially on a Sunday when everyone is getting themselves staged for Monday morning deliveries. Besides, an hour drive will be just about right for me to get the blood circulating again before having to do any actual work.
I want to make that delivery and be rolling again fairly early, before it starts really getting hot again. I swear it felt like it was over 100 out there today. I'm sure the heat index was over 100 anyway.
Once I deliver in Tulsa I'll start making my way down towards Houston as I have to deliver in a small place outside of Houston on Tuesday. I'm going to try and make that one as early as possible too as I would like to get unloaded and reloaded before it gets too hot, but Murphy's Law says I'll have some Goad awful reload in the hottest part of the day.
That reminds me, I think there's only a couple of bottles of Gatorade left in the fridge. I'll have to restock before I leave here in the morning or I'll be regretting it.