Monday, June 30, 2008

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.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Fathers day caching

Cachingwidow and I went out on Fathers day to do some caching. There was no way I wanted to sit around the house on fathers day, not this year. So we went to get some of the New Mexico Challenge Geocaches. The original New Mexico Challenge, was set up by New Mexico Geocachers.com who placed one cache in every county. So there are 33 caches to be found. When the challenge came out Cachingwidow and I were dealing with Chris's treatment and didn't get a chance to get out and get any of the caches. Since the challenge has been out for a year many cachers have completed it, but with the price of gas I think people are less likely to go out just to find these caches. We went after McKinley and Cibola Counties, on Sunday. Now we used to live in McKinley county, but have never found a cache there. Well we got five, on the way to the McKinley county. After that we got the Cibola county cache and 3 more in a place called Zuni Canyon. None of the caches were particularly hard, just lots of driving which gave Cachingwidow and I the chance to visit. We also got into some country that we had never been in before which is alway a nice thing. I think that is one of my favorite things about caching, seeing places that I never would have gone into if there hadn't been a cache. For the weekend I added 10 to the total. Saturday I got one at the New Mexico Veterans Memorial, a beautiful site, that was very peaceful. I was having trouble finding the cache and decided to check the cache page on Geocaching.com through the WAP site. The coordinates had been changed so as I was getting the new coordinates into my palm I heard what sounded like gun fire, then a couple of seconds later I heard it again, and then a third time. Right after the third time I heard the sound of a bugle playing Taps and remembered there is a cemetery very close to here. It reminded me once again of the sacrifice made by so many so that I could be out Geocaching on a Saturday morning. I have no idea who the veteran was that was being laid to rest, but I know that who ever it was, at one point in time in their life they put on the uniform of one of the Armed services and served. All I could do at that moment was ask God to bring peace and comfort to the family, and for God to bless that veteran, and all the veteran's that have taken up arms in the service of our nation.