Labor Day Weekend

 This weekend we decided to get out of the house and do some geocaching! :) If you've never heard of it before it's basically like a treasure hunt with a bunch of clues and coordinates you find with your GPS. At the end there is usually a box with something inside and you can take what's there and replace it, or just take pleasure in knowing you found the treasure. :) Our first geocache did not have anything at the end but it was super fun with some cool history. You just drove around and found different spots, so I'll give you a little description from our adventures into Joplin's gangster history!

This first one was the upstairs apartment that the Barrow Gang, including the infamous Bonnie and Clyde, stayed in. There was a shootout with lawmen, in which 2 lawmen lost their lives.

 The clues then led us to a restaurant that Alex had actually eaten at before with his medical co-workers. This was a favorite restaurant for gangsters in the 20's and 30's. Joplin was a boomtown because of the mining, so while it was a smaller town it had the feel of a large party city like Kansas City or Chicago. When a gangster felt that the large city was a little too "hot" for him to stay in, he would come to Joplin. This place had good food and a bar and gambling upstairs so it was a good gangster hangout.

We then made it to what used to be Joplin's Courthouse and Post Office. The story told here is that in 1933, Machine Gun Kelly was involved in a kidnapping that took place in Oklahoma City. A ransom letter was mailed from this building. The ransom was for $200,000 and was to be thrown from a moving train. The building is not used as a post office anymore but the words UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE AND POST OFFICE are still engraved into the stone across the top. 

 These boys were definitely tuckered out. Spending time in a moving car on a rainy day makes me tired too. :)

The last place the geocache led us to was the Ozark Memorial Park Cemetery. Not sure what it had to do with anything but that's where it ended. It was a fun one! :)

 We came home and Kyle decided he wanted to ride in his car outside in the back, but luckily he is not a big fan of dirt and bugs so I pulled out the hose and started spraying it down for him. I found this little lady but didn't realize what she was until she wouldn't go away! She was one tough cookie! I was really spraying the web and spider down with some high power water, and she kept holding on or quickly crawling back to the web that was about the consistency of yarn. It was so incredibly strong! After we realized what she was we took some quick shots and Alex finally disposed of her for good. I'm glad Kyle doesn't like dirt, or he may have gotten bit! 

If you don't know your spiders this is a black widow. And it was huge. And really black. And scary. And then Alex started watching you tube videos of big spiders. Anyways... this is the top of her. 

We are just full of critters this weekend! We started another geocache today and before we'd gotten too far we ran into this little snake. It really was little. Like the size of a worm. But it was still a snake! 

Kyle was so big and pushed Jared almost the whole way! He got nice and sweaty and then eventually gave in and said we could help. 

Then Jared wanted to get out so Kyle quickly took his place and Jared had his turn in pushing. He didn't make it too far. :)

Kyle showing off his sweaty hair. He really was so hot, I felt bad! He worked really hard pushing Jared all the way! I was really proud of him. 

 We waited for a little bit while Alex tried to find the geocache. It was off the trail and he wanted to make sure it was something the rest of us could go find together. While we waited Jared ate some leaves and enjoyed wiggling his legs. 

That white speck is Alex looking for a way to the geocache. It was a fun trail that made me think of hiking in our beautiful Utah mountains. The trees and rocks did anyways. It was not nearly so mountainous. :)

So this is a piece of our geocache. The first location and we were supposed to find a clue that would lead us to the next part. We actually did not find it. :( I was so sad to leave without knowing where we could go next, but we hit a dead end when we couldn't find "the guardian" and we didn't "rub his belly" so he would tell us where to go next. But we did get some pictures of the first stuff! Like this brick with a company's name on it. :) 

Alex is standing on the foundation for what was going to be a mining building. They don't know what it was used for but it was at one time a fully functioning building. That is just all that's left of it now.

And here is Kyle standing by the foundation. I had a hard time getting a smile out of his at this point. He is not much of a fan of rocky terrain. He was so afraid of falling! 

Anyways, we had fun and it was a good way to get out of the house and do something for free! There was a guy that rode by on his bike just as we were getting back on the trail to go home and he told us he was in charge of maintaining the trail. I have to say the silly thought did cross my mind that he might have been "the guardian", but I was NOT going to "rub his belly" to find out! :)