Christmas Eve Caching in Houston

I hardly ever pass up the chance to go geocaching around Christmas - it is something my hubby and I enjoy doing together, and this year his brother joined us in our fun. However, it was also a harder one to plan, as BIL wanted to do no LPCs, and with where he lives in Houston this was hard to find. In any case, we did manage to grab a couple on a lovely (Texas) winter afternoon.

• HEAR IT IS!
• Sam Was Here! #8021

Road Trip to Austin, TX

My co-worker Vincent and I had to take a trip to Austin, and since it had been a while since the two of us found a cache together, we decided to pause on the way and find Silos and Windmills. It was a fairly easy find, but a very welcome break!

Caching in Sweden

Our time in Sweden was even shorter than Finland, and our group split up differently than normal. CJ and I really wanted to climb up high (Evan and Lesley are afraid of heights) so we did a rooftop tour without them. This is one of the most fun tours I've done - we climb to the roof, got harnessed in, and walked around the roof of the Parliament building while learning about the city.

Of course, we also had some time to explore, so we found a geocache while in town (I found one earlier in the day by walking from the pier, but this is the cooler one). Sooooo many muggles so there was a bit of a delay between me finding it and being able to put it back in place.

Urban Birdhouse

Caching in Finland

This is such a great place to stop - I just wish we'd had more time! We took a ferry to visit Suomenlinna, which was a fortress built to defend the city (but didn't seem to do that all the time based on our tour guides comments). It is a pretty place to explore, very colorful, lots of history. I stuck my foot in the Baltic Sea here (soooooo cold) and we found two geocaches.

Suomenlinna
Hauta - Tomb

The first photo is Lesley and I close to the water right before I stuck my foot in.

Caching in Estonia

We had a stop in Estonia for our vacation, and we took a walking tour of the town with a fantastic tour guide (Lori). He did great, shared a lot of stories, and showed us many of the highlights of the town. At the end of the tour, we had some free time, so the four of us grabbed a geocache and beverages.

Old Thomas / Vana Toomas

If you can get a chance to visit Estonia, this was a pleasant surprise - just keep your timing in mind cause they said there is a lot of snow and cold and winter.

Geocaching in Berlin

Evan and I took a cruise out of Copenhagen to see Baltic capitals, and one of the stops was Berlin (a long train ride from the port). We arrived a little later than expected, so sadly missed lunch with our friends there (and quite sad about this), but we did get a nice tour of the city and then some time to ourselves. During this free time, we started walking around and noticed another couple from our tour going the same way, so we paired up and walked around quite a bit and grabbed lunch. After returning to the meeting point, we had some time and I was not wanting to sit still, so the guys stayed back while the gals continued walking and found a geocache near the hotel. Happy find before hopping on the train back to the ship.

Französischer Dom

Dinner Time Cache in Addison

After a dinner celebration for a friend nearby, Nicole and I kept our tradition of finding a geocache when together alive by walking to the closest one from dinner. We pretty much knew before we got there exactly where it would be and were not wrong. We were, however, not happy with the number of bugs around and the number of bites we returned with.

Easy one 3

Caching in Cuba

Yes, Cuba. Well, that was a rather quickly planned and interesting experience. Met a lot of nice people, saw a lot of old cars, and had a good time. We also found a place that was closed, had a guard stationed, and had a cache that was one of the scariest places I've looked in a while. In any case, glad we looked then cause I doubt we will get a chance to return.

Cuba Libre