One year, 369 caches and a whole lot more

A year ago today I woke up with 979 caches and a goal of making 100 by my birthday. I had 10 days to get there and was feeling pretty good about that. I went out and got 3 not far from the house, then went after a few more including one that was one of the oldest in Albuquerque. By the time I was ready to go home in the morning I had 9 caches found. Now I was thinking, I could get the rest of the caches I needed if Cachingwidow was up to it. Well off we went, got one of those thorn in the side caches that I had looked for several times, and that seemed to be a good sign. Gas was still fairly cheap, compared to today anyway, so we just kept on going. By 4:30 I had 20 caches in the can. I picked the New Mexico County Challenge, Bernalillo as my 1000th find. Cachingwidow, our middle son and his girlfriend headed out and after a nice warm evening hike we got my 1000th find. I ended up with 21 on the day, which is still my best day of caching. I was also on a streak that ended up stretching to 103 straight days with a find.

At the time I thought that was pretty good, I was looking forward to a trip to Florida which meant I could add another state to my map, and the chance to meet some new cachers. That was about the only thing that happened the way I planned. We knew that we were going to be in Denver with Chris for a bone marrow transplant, and I figured that I could make a run to Kansas and Nebraska and add two more states to the list. Well we never made it to Denver. Chris never went into remission, and instead of going to Denver for his transplant we brought him home to spend his last days with his family. Caching took a back seat to everything else. After Chris died we didn't cache a lot. Oh we went out here and there, and even went on event in Roswell, (No aliens to report) but we didn't cache like we had been.
I still go out and cache. Even went after one this morning, and was the first to log a DNF. Not what I was hoping for. I'm hoping to get to 1400 by my birthday, I have 10 days and now I need 31. Even if I don't get it that's okay. The goals of caching are not as important as they used to be, but the relaxation of a good day of caching is still nice.
We found that we can survive more than we thought, and we remember what is important. If anyone is reading this, go out and cache, enjoy your family, and remember what is important.