Geocaching in Santa Fe, New Mexico

We took a trip to Santa Fe that was really meant to be about relaxing. I hadn't finished chemo yet, but I had a break between sessions and wanted to get one more trip in before surgery in the fall.

And relax we did.

We spent 10 days wandering around Santa Fe and the surrounding area, with plenty of time built in to slow down. There were spring-fed pools, jeep tours, museums, food, and a lot of just enjoying being somewhere different. We actually loved the first jeep tour so much that we booked a second one.

One of my favorite things we did was make our own silver pendant. I also really enjoyed the spring-fed pools, which were exactly the kind of low-key activity I needed at the time.

There were a few geocaches along the way too. We found Blue Hole, book case, and Perfect Stop. None of them were really the reason for a stop. They were just nice little additions to the trip and gave us an excuse to explore a bit more along the way.

This was one of those trips where the destination and the downtime were the point. The geocaches just happened to fit nicely into it. A little sightseeing, a little caching, a lot of relaxing, and a pretty great silver pendant to bring home.

Mackinac Island Geocaching

We had planned a trip to Mackinac Island with Rachel and Andrew long before I started chemo for breast cancer, and we decided to go ahead with the trip anyway. It was definitely a different kind of vacation for me than it would have been normally, but I'm glad we went.

There was plenty of relaxing. We spent time sitting on the grass snacking and watching the sun, worked on a puzzle in the resort lobby, wandered around the island, and just enjoyed being together. Rachel and Andrew were awesome about letting things be whatever they needed to be.

We also did some geocaching while we were there. RAS - S.I.T. was along the perimeter road, which follows the shoreline around the island. We also grabbed St. Ignace Boat Launch 2025 before leaving the area. Bird Watching on Market Street was a busy and sneaky cache we had to wait out others for.

The hardest part of the trip for me was definitely the bike ride around the island. The 8.2-mile perimeter sounds pretty reasonable until you're doing it while your body is dealing with chemo. That was a lot more physically demanding than I expected.

One thing I absolutely loved was getting to forge my own knife. That was probably my favorite activity of the trip, and I came home with a knife I actually made.

I also started losing my hair while we were there, which was one of those very real reminders of what was happening even while we were trying to enjoy the trip.

Overall, Mackinac Island was a strange combination of relaxing and physically demanding. Some things were harder than they should have been, but there was also a lot of good in the trip. Time with friends, snacks on the grass, puzzles in the lobby, a little geocaching, and a knife I forged myself. I'm glad we went.