The sun peeks through and then it pours rain!

9-20-08 I had to be in O'boro by 8am this morning so that meant waking up to a 5:50 AM alarm...ugh! It takes me like 20 minutes to set my alarm clock because it's insanely complicated with options and I only mess with it about twice a year. After finally feeling like I could relax that it was done correctly last night, I went to sleep. Sometime near midnight, I hear it beeping, louder and louder. ARGH...don't you know I HAVE to get a good night's sleep so I can cope with the chaos that will ensue tomorrow morning???!!!! I hit every button I can reach while straddling over Grace who is asleep next to me. Nothing works. I finally realize, it's not my alarm clock after all, it's Isaac's alarm clock upstairs. WHY THAT LITTLE...boy scout, out in the woods hundreds of miles from home. URRRR! I race up the stairs and unplug both of his blasted clocks just to be sure I get the right one. If I could have gotten the window open, they might have taken flight. I get back to bed, but never really back to sleep since I know I've screwed up my alarm now and I cannot oversleep!!

When morning came, Grace and I got ready and headed across the bridge. I just kept focusing on the mantra, "Caching after the walk, caching after the walk". Caching is seriously such a stress reliever and source of fun for me. It's outdoors, it's exciting...I just really enjoy it. Well, Grace and I compromised, I'd take her to the mall (her favorite place in the world) and she'd cache in O'boro with me. We ended up finding five caches, one of which was a new type for us. (Big Bugs GC1EJYA) It was awesome! I got home to log them and then down came the rain!
I had an e-mail message waiting that some jerk found GeoGazebo, our cache that was moved during the hurricane-like wind storm last week, and apparently put porn-like drawings and references all over it. How ignorant, how freakin sickening! (Jim Morrison, right again. People are strange. FYI "T", people still put their trash outside their door and wonder why the world is such a mess. How do you change that? I am so tired of fighting, so tired of trying. Social work, yeah, right.)

I better get back to counting my blessings because if I don't, I'll be awful sour about the world.

Loon Pit aka "Canoe to Cache"

9-16-08 This cache has been calling my name since I first read about it months ago. What a great idea...an island-bound cache in Bluegrass. Jim was finally able to buy a canoe so we took it our for its maiden voyage on Loon Pit. This evening was Jim's valiant effort to help me out of a black hole I seem to be sinking in this week. His efforts weren't in vain-the fresh air, the perfect warmth of sunshine through cool winds, the beauty of a herron's flight, the glide of the canoe over still waters. God is good. I'd have liked to pack in a month's worth of food and a sleeping bag to hide out there until the dark clouds pass, but I guess that's not possible in "the real world". Anyway, back to the cache...the journey was good, the cache was trashed. It hadn't been found for many months (9 maybe?) and it was unsealed so water had staled in the ammo container and ants had invaded everything. We hated to leave it unrepaired, but we had no sack to haul it out and the ants were unbearable canoemates. Hopefully the cache owners will provide some maintenance and reset this one for others in need of a little respite from the world.

Happy Labor Day Weekend

8-31-08 We had a really, really busy week leading up to this holiday weekend so we decided to pass on invitations to go camping and boating. We pretty much let our lazy sides rule-watched a couple movies, played the PS2, ate a bunch of junk, and slept in late. The only exercise we got was finding some caches...9 for the weekend, most of them downtown. The one DNF we searched and searched for was "Vertigo Cache" on the old Pittsburgh bridge. I think J. tired of hearing K. say, "Be careful...watch where you're going...look out for that hole..." A little acrophobia didn't mix well with this cache site. J will be back, without the other 3 in the pack.

Our favorite find for the weekend was "Play Ball" at Garvin Park/Bosse Field area. Talk about a clever hide. We were impressed! We also had fun kicking the soccer ball around The Old Library. We were entertainment for an old man who was lounging in the grass field there. I only wish we had bought him some lunch.

We planted two caches this weekend, "Whoa! GeoGazebo!" in the Lakeside Manor retirement complex and "Dead-end Hike" on the trails that are at the end of Ward Road. That used to be a great "lover's lookout", but now it's been converted to a commercial area with very little lookout. C'est la vie! At least the trails have been developed a bit.

Soccer practice=caching opportunity

8-23-08 What do you do when you find yourself sitting on the sidelines at another soccer practice? Well, you get your GPS unit out and make the most of it. Okay, okay. So we're a little obsessed with our family hobby. So! We did wait until AFTER practice to go searching. And we did find it. Isaac was glad to get a lego man, compliments of Turtle 362.

On this same day, we also made a quick stop at The Old State Hospital. As many times as I have been to this park, I had never seen this particular area. There's an old time capsule buried there. How cool is that?

Another reason to visit B & N

8-20-08 Just what I needed, another excuse to visit Barnes and Nobles. I had been by here once on my own looking for "Ballet Dancer Goes to the Book Store", but I scraped my leg all up and had to explain that one to the boss when I returned to the office. (I was also too chicken to go alone into the creepy woods near the apartments.) Anyway, on this day Isaac and Grace were the ones to come up with the cache. It wasn't in the creepy woods afterall.

8-19-08 We happened to log on to the geocaching website and noticed a new cache on this side of town. I was "hurrying and scurrying" the kids to "get some shoes on, grab some cache, let's go...let's see if we can be the FTF". We're so crazy, we even jetted by Schnuck's so Jim could go along for the ride. He had to grab the door while the van was moving so he wouldn't miss his ride. Hee hee. We almost made it, too, but almost isn't FTF. Dusty and Kate beat us to this one, "Can someone get the phone please?" Better luck next time JK4PACK.