2-22-25 Geocaching done
Retired Life. Sunday.
Happy Sabbath. Here, have a Jesus Picture. Of Him healing a woman who had an issue of blood. Relevant in our particular life.
In the morning, we found a nearby congregation to worship with and went and did so.
In the afternoon, we took a Geocaching hike with the grandkids to find one of the oldest Geocaches in all of Georgia. And then we returned back to their home for dinner and a movie (Arthur the King). Fun day with the grandkids.
And here, have a picture of Frivvy who buried himself in the snow today.
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Retired Life. Monday.
Another Grandkid Day!!
We spent all day at a huge Museum gawking at Dinosaurs and various other wild critters. This included watching a cool IMAX movie about Desert Elephants.
Also, we drove for what seemed hours and never left the Atlanta Metro Area. Huge city. We're no longer in Fairfield...
Retired Life. Tuesday.
We finished our grandkid visit. So now what? Since we are retired, don't have to show up to work ever again, have no schedule, and can do what we want, we decided to go on a Geocaching Adventure! See the US map below? Notice the white states up in the Northeast? Those are the five states we have never found a cache in. Find one in each, and then we can say we have found a cache in each of all the 50 states! So, this morning we caught a flight to Providence, Rhode Island.
Air travel is not without drama and adventure. Our flight started out by being delayed about an hour (inexplicably). But when we finally all piled into the plane, the pilot announced that the rear bathrooms were inoperable (yikes! What else on this plane is inoperable???!!) and we had to deplane. Delayed another hour while they tried to fix the toilet, failed, and hailed another plane. Meanwhile, we went through SEVEN freaking gate changes as they tried to keep us all out of the way and coordinate what plane we were going to get on and when and where. THAT has to be a world record. I did get my daily steps in before getting on the plane.....
Hanna had the window seat and was excited to see New York or Long Island or something. She took some pics for you to see for yourself.
Shortly after landing in Providence (Note, we landed safely without rolling over or running into a helicopter thank goodness) and renting another white JEEP (gas powered this time) we went to a grocery store to buy some stuff we'll need for the duration, and then found a cache hidden in a guard rail outside a huge big box store that I had never heard of before. State #46 (Rhode Island), CHECK.
The sun set before we made it to Connecticut (thanks Delta for making us so late. SEVEN gate changes. I still don't believe it. Where is Elon when you need him??) The sunset was fairly beautiful, so here, have a Rhode Island sunset picture!
Just outside of Hartford, we found the other cache, also in a guard rail, outside a huge Truck Stop Place. #47 (Connecticut) CHECK!
See the updated map. Three states to go...
In Hartford, we found this great diner that had free Sundaes during the month of February when you order a full meal. YUMMMMM!!! Hanna's is raspberry sorbet with peanut butter topping.
And finally, a picture of Frivvy at home trying to torment Justin's cats.
We're at an Airbnb in Hartford for the night. It's freezing cold here, in the teens with wind. Brrrrrr.............. But the old house we are in has radiator heat and is toasty warm!
More retired adventures tomorrow...
Retired Life. Wednesday.
This morning we worshipped in the Hartford, Connecticut Temple. Because we were in Hartford, the temple was there, and it's what we try to do weekly. Beautiful building. A Sister Missionary was there and volunteered to take our picture. She did a wonderful job! You know, over the past year, we have attended a lot of different temples when we traveled. Alaska. Helena. Feather River. DC. Santiago. Concepcion. Now Hartford. Always, without fail, we feel at home. The folks there are always so welcoming and have a powerful spirit.
After lunch at Shake Shack (bacon avocado burgers), a stop at a grocery store for stuff we forgot to pick up yesterday (typical old retired folks problem), and picking up some salads to go at ChikfilA so we have something for dinner tonight, (our next Airbnb is about 30 miles from any store or food place...) we continued on with our Geocaching Adventure.
Just after crossing the State line into Vermont, we stopped at a "Welcome to Vermont" rest area, took some pics from inside, then went out to grab the cache. It obviously had not been found since before the last snow storm. We both post holed all the way to it. But we found it easily because it was HUGE. Hanna figured out it was easier to crawl on all fours rather than post holing and made quick work getting back to the JEEP.
Vermont....CHECK!!! State #48.
Shortly after the cache, the highway became rough and bumpy in spots and the Rental JEEP started doing the Death Wobble at times! Third JEEP I've driven (including mine) that did that. (Google it for an entertaining and scary experience...). I know that from experience that hitting the brakes cures it, so no worries.
We are holed up in an old farm cottage near Bethel. Snow piled everywhere. 2 degrees out and dropping fast.
Retired Life. Thursday.
We woke up at sunrise, looked outside, and there was Vermont! A beautiful, snowy, cold place.
First on the list was to visit the Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial. There we met a Senior Missionary Couple from Inkom, Idaho. Small world.
Then on with the Geocaching Adventure. The first cache we were supposed to find was near someone's driveway and was marked as Winter Accessible. There was about 4 feet of snow at ground zero. No find was going to be had without a lot of shoveling. So we moved on to a better one nearby hidden on a cool covered bridge. NEW HAMPSHIRE...CHECK! state #49.
A couple hours later, we crossed into Maine. We stopped at a rest stop. Two caches there, neither accessible or easy to find, especially for old folks like us. So we moved on to almost Portland, where there was one hidden in a light post. Fortunately the snow wasn't higher than the lightpost, but almost. MAINE....CHECK! state #50!!!
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
Now we are at a nice hotel right by the airport, getting packed and ready for tomorrow's flights home. Changing from "living out of a JEEP" to "must go on a plane now" phases.
The only downer of the day was Hanna got sick this morning. Food poisoning. If you really want to know who poisoned us, read yesterday's post. Been a long day for her. Hoping she's better by morning. And hoping it really is only food poisoning. We both are quite certain it is.
Always an adventure. But I'm used to stomach sickness on vacations. One daughter in particular was good at keeping that tradition...
Retired Life. Friday.
First, see the completed caching map. CELEBRATING!
The goal today was to travel from Portland Maine to Spokane. See our itinerary below. Portland to DC to Denver to Spokane. What could go wrong??
Our first flight was delayed almost two hours. Our flight from DC pretty much left DC before we left Maine. Picture us sitting in the terminal booking flights with other airlines. We had to get out of Portland because there were no open seats for three days. So we kept our late flight to DC, then hopped on a flight to Seattle with a connecting flight to Spokane. Seattle flight also got delayed causing concern that we'd miss the Spokane connection. But no worries. It got delayed too. So yes, we got on 5 planes on this trip and all 5 were delayed. Fun times. And we're getting in after 1am instead of 8:15pm. That's really late for us old folks.
Always an adventure! And now we can say that we traveled clean across the continent in one day! More celebrating, right?
I'm typing this as we sit patiently in the Seattle terminal wondering if our luggage is keeping up with us....
Retired Life. Saturday.
It was 2am before we made it to bed this morning. And amazingly, our luggage did show up at the carousel. All's good. And then the blasted alarm clock went off at 6:30am so we could make it to the funeral on time. Ugh. Not much sleep. A good day for Energy Drinks while driving.
After the trip to Connell for the funeral, we picked up some much needed groceries, gassed up, and got home. The driveway was in bad shape, slush on top of ice. It took a bit to push it all out of the way. And then Justin showed up with Frivvy! Frivvy was very happy to see us, but soon had fallen into a trance of a coma of a nap. The grandkids do a great job of wearing him out.
I don't do well at funerals. Nothing enjoyable about them at all. Especially this one that is a cancer death leaving a fairly young widower. Hanna was insistent on going even with 4.5 hours only of sleep, still feeling sick due to food poisoning, and not able to even go home first from our trip. And I accompanied her and went in with her (I did have the option of waiting out in the truck.) It was good to support her as she supported her friend and mourned with those that mourn. It was good to visit with and support the great folks she grew up with. They are faithful, God-fearing, hard-working, raised on the farm folks that helped formulate who Hanna is today. It was gut-wrenching to see the enormous grief of the new widower. And to contemplate that I may be in that same situation some day. His theme was something like "I'm a mess, but I have hope and will be OK." A good example to follow.
Then this evening, we learned that a member of our congregation lost his battle to blood cancer (very similar to Hanna's) this week. Sadness abounds. And a bit of guilt that Hanna is doing so well and he wasn't as fortunate.
I guess this death thing is a part of old age. Gotta learn to deal with it, right?
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