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.