Surprise!

Steve finally left for his bike trip on Tuesday about noon. This was in no way guaranteed up until the last minute. Last post I said we'd be going to the Ionia Free Fair. Not. He decided to drain the oil from the lawnmower before we left. Not sure how, but oil leaked all over the garage floor. And of course it was my fault for not telling him it was happening. (I was looking at him, not the dang lawnmower.) Anyway, we got over the hump - I remembered what my counselor had reminded me of - a verse in 1 John that says perfect love drives out fear. By the end of the evening Steve was still depressed, but talking. Tuesday morning he woke up and said he might as well get started on the backyard project. It took a lot of talking, but he finally decided to pack up and get on the road. He really needed some time away, and I'm hoping he's getting it. He called from just into New York State last night.

When he left, I loaded up the van with Max and me, and we were on the road. First stop was downtown GR, to pass off a pinewood derby Race to 2010 car to my friend Fitz who was leaving the next day for the national jamboree. Then headed toward Hastings where the last Treasures of Scouting geocache that I hadn't yet found was waiting patiently for me to come.

Found two cemetery caches along the way, then a single stage cache at the same nature area, so that the Treasures cache would be #2900. Weather getting very warm - Max getting tired and hot. We both had plenty of water, though, so that wasn't an issue. Started the 5 stage multi that was the treasures cache. Got to the first stage area - no luck. Read the clue off the nuvi and expanded my search. I was able to find it, but it was 120 feet away. Headed off toward the second stage and this is where I struck out. Clue was "rim" and I did find two rusty old barrels there. But looked up, down, inside, outside, and all around. Nada. Since Max and I were both hot and tired, decided to end the search and headed back to the car. Did four other caches on the way home, including one that did become my #2900.

I pulled into the driveway, intending to drop Max off and do a little more caching towards Ionia and go to the free fair by myself. Eric's car was in the driveway. He knew I would be home alone so I figured he'd stopped by so we could go to a movie or something. He walked into the kitchen as I walked in from the other way, and we started talking. All of a sudden I felt a tap on my shoulder from behind me. Turned around and there was Scott, home five days earlier than he'd told us. Surprise!

They had set this up all along. I'd been suspicious that something like this was afoot, and even asked Eric once. The only bad part of it was that Steve had left just a few hours before Scott came home. He'll not be very happy that he missed the homecoming. But Scott doesn't want me to tell him for fear he'll cut his trip short and head straight home. The good part is that Scott has already left for camp, so he'll be able to spend more time at home when we are both home to see him. (he'd planned to spend time at camp the first week he was home which would have been next week.)

After getting over the shock and having some nice visiting time, I suggested we might check out the free fair. I wish we hadn't. Not much there to do unless you wanted to spend lotsa bucks on ride tickets for rides that weren't all that great, buy overpriced carnival food, or go through the merchants tent where most of the merchants were trying to sell things, not give away pens and such like at the Lowell Expo or the Kent County Fair. We did get our picture taken for free at a Meijer display, that's what's posted above.

We headed for home, stopping at Jim McCormicks for a short visit since he was home from his honeymoon. Then stopped at Meijers because "there was no food in the house" and ran into Pastor Dave there, who was quite surprised to see Scott, of course! Went home where Scott promptly went online and discovered I was signed into Facebook so hacked my status with a message that I'd given up "GeoChaching." If you're gonna hack my status, at least spell geocaching right! I'll attribute that to jetlag...

Scott was planning to go to the Secretary of State's office this morning to renew his drivers license, then head up to camp. I had my counseling appt. this morning, then headed over to my new favorite wifi place, the East Grand Rapids library. I'm sitting in a comfy chair with a desk attached, using the wifi while looking out onto Reeds Lake and watching the sailboats go by. Beautiful! Headed from here to Steve's dad's to check on him. To tell or not to tell - that is the question. He doesn't need any surprises at this time in his life.

S'pose I'd better get over there.

Wouldja go already?

Steve's been planning for a while to take his BMW motorcycle to a rally in Vermont the last week of July. Hey, it's the last week of July - has he left yet? Nope. The rally doesn't actually start until Thursday but he was going to leave last Saturday.

Well Saturday came and went. He was still tweaking the bike, trying to install some kind of bracket he thought he needed. I had made plans to go to the Bertha Brock Park event in Ionia, so I went anyway. Only difference was that I didn't have to take Max. Good thing too because Golfdiva and I went through some really really tall grass. We're talking as tall as me. Max would have been lost in no time flat. I ended up with three ticks, too - the first ticks I've come across geocaching in years. The event was fun - got home about dark.

Sunday, I stayed home from church because I thought he was going to leave in the morning and I wanted to see him off. Nope, still working on that bracket thingy. Eric came home around 2 and shortly after Scott called. So if the boys hadn't come home or called, he might have finished. Not complaining here, mind you - always good to see and hear from them.

So today - has he left yet? Nope. I finally left for my errands, which involved coming to the library for wifi and a few other stops, about 2 when he said he was just about finished but it wouldn't pay for him to leave this late in the day. So looks like it'll be tomorrow. I did say that if you weren't leaving today, let's go to the Ionia Free Fair tonight. Looks like we will.


It's not that I want him gone. Yes it is but not quite the way you might picture it. He needs the time away, he needs some enjoyment. And - there's a certain pleasure in being home alone, having just what you want for meals, doing just what you want (like geocaching...) and he's been home now three more days than I'd planned for him to be here. I'm off this week as well, but it's more of a involuntary vacation (and unpaid of course) since they are remodeling at work and none of my kids will be there either.

I do have to get the living room finished (moved all of my stuff from Scott's room out there to sort it out) but otherwise will be ready for Scott to come home next Sunday! Six more days - I've been counting down on Facebook.

200th post

Noted that my last post was #199 - so this one makes #200! I started this blog a few months before I went to Europe with my sisters, and at first it was basically a travel blog. It has evolved from there, though, and now more of my wonderings are includes as well as my wanderings.

Today, I'm at the house of two of my Noogieland friends. Noogieland is beginning some structural changes today, and I offered to watch the two kids at their home because it would be easier all around. They're both sleeping right now, and I brought my netbook on the off chance there would be a wireless signal around. It's low, but it's there.

Home life is about to get more exciting with Scott coming home on leave in ten days. I don't expect we'll see a lot of him as he has many places he wants to go and people he wants to see. Steve leaves, probably Saturday, for his trip on the BMW to a rally in Vermont. I would have really liked to go with him (well, the trip anyway. Not so much the rally) but as the BMW doesn't perform as well two-up, I opted not to go. I'm looking forward to a week of just Max and me. Could be some caching involved, I don't know... ok, there WILL be caching involved as soon as Scott's room has the scout stuff cleared out of it. You see, I didn't request next week off but I have it off anyway as both Noogieland parents opted to take vacation that week and I wouldn't have any kids even if Noogieland was operational.

Max is getting along well with his summer haircut. He doesn't look like the same dog unless you're looking at him in the face - there's Max in there! I'm almost thinking the shorter haircut is a better thing, easier maintenance. But it's not a traditional Havanese look and we'll see how long it takes to grow back out. He is pretty good now at letting us know when he has to go outside - sometimes a false alarm but very few accidents these days. He enjoys tearing through the house from one end to another - sometimes fetching one of his mini tennis balls, sometimes carrying the ball, sometimes just running. His humping behavior has lessened considerably, but he still loves tearing up paper when he gets ahold of it.

Relationship wise things are so-so. We're still more like roommates, but I'm learning to trust in whatever God's plan is for our marriage. Not always easy. Will be interesting to see what a week apart does for us. My counselor is a Godsend (literally) in helping me deal with things. I'm not so sure about Steve's counselor. Steve doesn't feel like he's helping him much. But that's Steve.

Well, the baby is waking up so I'll have to close. Here's to the next 200 posts!

Good deed for the day

This morning, I did my good deed for the day. I joined friends from the Michigan Geocaching Organization (MiGO) in our thrice-yearly cleanup of a stretch of the East Beltline in Grand Rapids. You know those signs that say, this stretch cleaned by.... yep, that's what we did.

Arrived at the meeting point and was issued my neon yellow safety vest, my grabber, and my trash bag. We were divided up into teams and assigned an area. Drove down to our area, and got started.

It's really not too bad, we didn't find much in the way of gross stuff this time around. See something, use your grabbers to pick it up and put it in your bag. The East Beltline has some wide boulevards so you're not dangerously close to traffic for the most part. Makes you feel like you're making a difference along that two miles of road, anyway. Plus you get to spend some time with geocaching friends.

Some of our "interesting" finds: a good pair of leather sandals, an unused, still in packaging condom, a tube of lipstick, a sock, a shirt, and lots of fast food wrappers. We figured we had enough to go out on the town...NOT! No trucker bombs or meth lab discards this time around, thankfully.

Now at the nearby Panera Bread using the wifi before I head for home. And yes, I see the irony in my willingness to help clean up a highway when my house could use some attention. That's what my afternoon plans are.

Family Day at BK

Mom was in Winchester, Indiana for the Steel Guitar convention with Phil. Debbie is working at a WalMart in Sterling, Illinois. We decided to get together at Rensselaer, Indiana for a short visit since it was about 3 hours travel for each of us. What we didn't know was that Mom and Judy plotted to get her there, too - she traveled to Winchester from her home in Campbellsville, Kentucky and then drove over with Mom to Rensselaer. Surprised both me and Debbie!

We met at the Burger King there since Mom is now vegan and BK has a veggie burger. We had several hours of visiting, lunching, picture sharing, and a good time was had by all. Good thing that nobody wanted to do much else since there wasn't much else to do in Rensselaer!

Mom and Debbie compared injuries. Mom had her hand slammed in a car door while in California, breaking a bone. Debbie had a compound fracture of her little finger in a fall at work. Judy and I both forgot to bring the bubble wrap for them! We felt left out because we didn't have X-rays to show...

After we all said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways, I decided to do a little caching in the Rensselaer area since it had been dark the night before. After caching, I stopped at the local WalMart to pick up some pop that didn't have Michigan deposit. Will be nice to just recycle the cans for a change instead of having to haul them back to the store. Anyway, I ended up leaving my coupon box in the cart. Didn't know that, of course, until Steve called me about an hour down the road, letting me know that Walmart had called. To make a long story short, they are going to mail me the box, very nice of them. I offered to give them my credit card # to pay the postage but they said it wasn't necessary.

Not too long after that, heading north toward Michigan City, the clouds were suddenly starting to get VERY dark. Freakingly dark. Stopped to call Steve to see what he could see on radar. No signal. The next town was LaCrosse, IN, where there was a cache in a small park. As I approached, I could tell there'd already been some rain. Still, it wasn't raining right then so quickly made the cache find. Then tried to call Steve again. Answering machine. By then the wind was really picking up so turned to the radio (had been listening to CDs) and found out there was a severe thunderstorm warning for the area I was in. Still not bad, even looked a little clearer, so decided to go ahead. Rain got pretty heavy, slowing traffic, and it did get windy, but thankfully no hail or even worse. Clearing up by Wanetah, so stopped for a potty break at the Burger King next to the gas station/DQ I'd stopped at yesterday. Believe it or not, I had an -eggnog- shake. They were out of their featured flavor so found some eggnog flavor. Weird to have an eggnog shake in July - must have been my Christmas in July celebration!

From Wanetah did a couple of Indiana Spirit Quest caches (cemetery caches in very old cemeteries - really interesting to see the old stones.) Then stopped and did a couple on the Purdue University North campus at Westville. The first, a DNF, and nobody was around. I mean nobody. Then there was another quite near the entrance to the area. Since I hadn't seen anybody, parked close by on the road even though it was not really a parking area. Sure enough, I came back from the find to see a security car nearby. They didn't stop me, though, and the cache page did indicate security was aware of the caches on campus, so I'm sure (with the geocaching bumper stickers I have on the cachemobile) they figured out what I was doing. And with no traffic I wasn't exactly blocking anything. So almost my 2nd geocaching LEO.

Did a few park & grabs in Michigan City then decided it was time to just go on home. That meant taking I-94 and I-196 instead of going back the way I came. Bad thing about that was I didn't have caches loaded up that way, so it was a pretty much cacheless trip from there. Arrived home at 9:45 p.m., tired and glad to be home to see Steve and Max.

Road trip!

My mom is currently in Winchester, Indiana attending a steel guitar convention with my stepdad, Phil. My sister, Debbie, is working in Illinois. So Mom suggested that we all meet at a central location for the day so we can see each other. That central location, about 3 hours travel for each of us, turned out to be Rensselaer, Indiana. So here I am in my motel room there, waiting for our rendezvous in about an hour.

Why am I already here? I decided this would be a perfect opportunity for a road trip! And you know what I like to do on road trips - geocache!

I left home around 8:30 yesterday morning. My plan was to go south to 84th Street, pick up a few caches that I hadn't yet found down there, then head over to 131, go south to US 12, go west to I-94, west to Michigan City, south on 421 to 114, then west to Rensselaer. Just driving, around 3 hours or so.

Didn't start out so well. DNFd both of the local caches. Steve called me on my cell while I was at the first one, to ask a question, and during the call he asked how far I was. I had to admit, "Alto" which isn't very far!

Ok, so Mom AND Judy just showed up at my motel room so I'm going to finish this later.

(Sunday) It's later. I'm back.

Got over to 131 and picked up a few caches in the Dorr area, then worked my way back to 131 and got a few more. Went a bit out of my way to find a cache called "Cache Cache BEAR" which sought to answer the question, "Do bears cache in the woods?" My answer was, of course, yes! The cache container was one of those large bear-shaped animal cracker containers, just right for the name. That was my only back roads expedition of the day.

In the Kalamazoo area, took one exit (M43) and ended up with 10 cache finds, all park & grabs. Then continued south and picked up caches in most of the little towns along the way. Turned west at US 12 and found a cache in Union, Michigan, which was the last cache I needed for a challenge series called "Ada to Zion" which required me to find a cache in a city for each letter of the alphabet. The final cache was in Niles, near US 12, one reason why I planned the route I did.

Arrived in the Niles area, found a few caches, then found the final for the Ada to Zion challenge. Next stop was the BIG Orange travel bug convention center, an orange barrel set up in the owner's back yard adjoining the St. Joseph River. This owner, MaxB on the River, has moved over 14,000 travel bugs. He travels all over the world, I believe for work purposes, and brings travel bugs wherever he goes. He has moved more than a few of my personal travelers, most recently responsible for bringing the travel bug that Eric gave me for Valentines Day to New Zealand! Unfortunately, they weren't home but I did drop off a large traveler that wanted to see the world, started by a school class.

From Niles, I started looking at the time - and decided I needed to step up the pace, so changed my plans and got onto I-94 not too far away. Did make one last Michigan cache stop, then finally crossed the border into Indiana about 8 p.m. EDT. Found a couple of Indiana caches, then realized caching time would be about done if I wanted to get to Rensselaer before dark.

At Winamac, I realized it was about time to stop for gas. I remember thinking, it'd sure be nice if I found a gas station that had a Dairy Queen attached. Sure enough, there was one not 5 miles later : )

Ended up getting to Rensselaer at almost 10 p.m. EDT (they are on central time.) Got a soft drink and settled into my room at the Knights Inn. Was pleasantly surprised to find that there was wi-fi after all (it wasn't listed in the hotel description) so was able to log my 60 finds for the day. Of course that made for a shorter sleep time.

Woke up, dressed, went to Mickey D's for an Egg McMuffin, and came back to the room. Was just starting to post this entry when Mom and Judy showed up. Our visit deserves its own blog entry so I'll finish this one.

disturbing

Received some disturbing news Thursday afternoon. It had been previously announced that a seasonal employee of Gerber Scout Camp was under investigation by the FBI. Thursday, it was announced just who it was and what he allegedly did.

The employee was the camp director, and the allegations are distribution of child porn. This has rocked the scouting world that I live in for many reasons. I knew this man. This man was one of my sons' bosses when they worked at camp for many years. People are so quick to point the finger when it is someone who is supposed to be of high moral character making such a mistake.

Don't get me wrong, this man made a huge mistake, but the negative publicity generated just because he was a scouter has been huge as well.

My concerns are not only that of a scouter and the impact this has on our program, but also as a mother. I was somewhat relieved this morning to hear that none of the files on the man's computer were created by him (therefore none of the images are those of our scouts.) It remains to be seen if any of those images were shown to our scouts, most especially camp staff. I know that at least one of my sons spent time in the camp director's house. He has assured me that nothing like that went on while he was there. I hope that is the case for all of our scouts.

Glad to have been able to take this short little trip I'm on right now so I could get my mind off this. Didn't sleep well on Thursday night, obviously.