Easter Geocaching

Donnie and Angela planned a surprise-ish Easter trip for us so we could see my nephew and meet his new girlfriend. We decided to make a weekend of it and spent some time together around Bob Sandlin State Park.

This was my first trip with Donnie and Angela since chemo and surgery, and I was still doing immunotherapy, so I definitely wasn't back to 100% energy yet. Luckily, this was a pretty chill weekend, with some time together, a short hike, and plenty of relaxing.

Of course, we also had to find a couple of geocaches while we were at the park.

We found The Jaws of the Grave, which was a quick little park-and-grab. We also found Wood Duck, which gave us a reason to get out and explore a little more of the park.

A short hike, some geocaching, time with friends and family, and a pretty low-key Easter weekend was exactly what I needed.

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.

We Went to Casablanca!

Our trip was mostly about travel. We had a work trip in the UK, then added a few days in Morocco before heading home through Madrid.

Morocco was especially exciting because it was our first time on the African continent. We spent a few days exploring Casablanca and Rabat, taking in the sights, eating, and generally enjoying being somewhere completely new.

Of course, being somewhere new also meant checking to see if there were any geocaches nearby.

We found CMN while we were in Casablanca. It wasn't the reason we went there, but we wanted to find one, and getting a geocache on our first visit to Africa seemed like a pretty good idea.

Sometimes geocaching is the main event, and sometimes it is just a little extra adventure tucked into a much bigger trip. This was definitely the second one.

Team Caching Around Town

It was a good day when the geocaching crew was finally back together. Me, Evan, Lisa, and James were all out caching again, so we decided to make an evening of it.

We made our way through several caches, including If Wishes Were Horses, Furneaux Cemetery II, Back the Blue, Find it, and Good luck.

Nothing particularly complicated about the day. It was mostly just nice to have the whole crew together again, driving around, looking for caches, and catching up along the way.

Five caches, four friends, and time spent doing one of our favorite things. Pretty good way to spend a Wednesday evening.