Last Trip of the Year

Well, our last trip of the year has come and gone.  We trekked off to the Southeast on an 18 day whirlwind geocaching adventure.  Our goal was to complete our caching experience in all 50 states.  We had high hopes on grabbing Delaware this year but due to the hurricane, tropical storms and just all around yucky weather, we were not able to get that one last state.  My sweetie was bummed all the way home but brightened up when he looked at the fact that he has made 98% of his goal.  I, on the other hand, managed to get a "bucket list" photo that I have been wanting to take for quite some time.  The opportunity came while traveling through Iowa. 

We traveled through at least 15 to 20 new states and some that we hadn't been in before.  We both decided that Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina and South Carolina looked about the same.  What fascinated us greatly was the way the wild vines covered everything.  You could drive by ravines and it looked very surreal and eerie the way they consumed everything in their path.  We were told that some of those vines were at least 100 years old!  It was very educating for us and we imagined that someone coming upon our civilization in the future would find this very interesting as well!

One of the most disheartening things to us is how many of our American hotel and motels are run by foreigners.  It seems as if the whole quality of the industry has been lowered in that aspect.  We found very few motels and hotels that had good hygiene standards or even had anyone running it that cared about the consumer staying in them.  We saw rooms that were filthily and in great disrepair.  When things were reported, they were fixed with shoddy workmen ship or not fixed at all.  We, as consumers here in America aren't looking for perfection by all means.  The regular, middle class consumers are looking for a decent, clean place to sleep while traveling.  There are many older hotels and motels out there that are actually nice although they may be a little dated.  We were appalled at the attitude these foreign owners took with us and other consumers.  They were rude, pushy and domineering.  There was no flexibility for some of us who came in late in the evening before.  Some of the hotel and motel owners didn't even have ice machines or garbage cans in locations where consumers could use them.  There were signs on the ice machines directing consumers to the office for ice if needed.  We stayed in a few, disappointing motels along our journey and we also were privileged to stay in a few nice ones.  The majority however, were poor at most and these were nationally known chains.  It seemed to us if the foreign owners wanted our business that they should take a little more pride in their ownership and really try to give the consumer a pleasant lodging experience.  Most of the "continental breakfasts" were just meager.  The food that was offered was cheap and non-nutritional.  The hours of the breakfast were usually not user friendly for those consumers that came into the hotel late the night before.  It made us feel sad that persons calling themselves "Americans" would offer this type of service.  Perhaps they need to review what being an American really is.

Most of the states that we visited on this fast paced trip were clean and pleasant.  With exception of a few, already named individuals, all of the people we encountered were wonderful and friendly.  We especially enjoyed the Southern hospitality in the lower Southern states.  These folks were eager to assist and to offer interesting information about their state and city.  We were fascinated with the history that presented itself to us.  We learned a great deal about each state and their resources.  We found a lot of geocaches on our trip.  There were a lot of regular, ammo can caches and this was a nice change to the urban micro container caches that we usually get when traveling to other states.  Our weather was perfect and we only had rain on one day.  However, that rain storm was quite impressive as rain storms go.  I was able to capture a little on my camera which was interesting at most.

All in all, I was able to dip my feet into the Gulf of Mexico while visiting Mississippi.  It was pretty warm and not at all what I was expecting.  I collected sand from several of the states and plan to make an interesting memory of our trip.  We did lots of Geocaching and I took over 400 photographs.  We visited some really interesting places, one of which was Billings Oklahoma.  Although it has the same name as my city, we actually could put this little town in one corner of Billings Montana.  They appeared to be struggling quite a bit with some damaged buildings.  We noticed they were rebuilding them while we visited.  The day we stopped, the temperature was 113 degrees!  I commented to my husband that I had never been to a place that was 113 degrees before, ever in my life.  I snapped a photo of the sign that recorded it so I could show to my co-workers back at work.

We will be venturing out on another trip to California sometime next year to break up the long Montana winter.  It will be exciting to geocache there again.  We also want to take another trip back east to finally get the elusive Delaware.  So cheers for now!  Freedancer

Trip to Devils Tower

The warm weather is finally here and we were able to venture out into the wild to do some long awaited Geocaching!  We packed up the trailer and made our way to the KOA at Devils Tower for a nice weekend of hunting.  The KOA was really nice and after a few trys we managed to back our trailer into our spot.  This backing in thing is one of the areas of camping we haven't mastered yet but we are getting better!

After setting up, we had a great meal of french toast and eggs.  The hubby worked on the computer setting up some caches and I set up the rest of the trailer for our two day stay.  The next day, we started out early to make our way around Devils Tower.  There are four Earth Caches there and we managed to pick them all up!  After this, we headed to Sundance Wyoming to hunt the caches there.  Sundance is an interesting place.  The residential areas aren't exactly square and we had to go around the block a lot to get to where we needed to go.  For a small community, their public areas, parks buildings are well kept and clean.  We hiked around the lake area to locate a cache up by the golf course and made our way back to the city.  Driving there, we saw a beautiful little church so I hollered at my hubby to stop so I could get out and take photo's of the church and the flowers.  It was just precious!

After we finished with Sundance, we headed to Gillette to do more caches there.  While we were getting a cache near Fire Station 1, we were privileged to see a beautiful double rainbow which I was able to capture.  We picked up some of the older caches that we were not able to get on the last trip.  It was pretty hot this day so we got tuckered out quickly and were in need of the water we had back in the car.  We made our way out of town a ways and on to a dirt road which had some caches.  Soon after starting this trail, we realized that all of the caches were the same with no challenge so we stopped after we got five of them.  The hubby was very discouraged as he had spent a lot of time putting them in to our GPS units.  I profusely apologized to him stating that I wasn't able to bear doing a boring trail.  By this time, we were quite tired and we made our way back to the KOA for the night. 

I had decided to take a quick shower before bed and walked over to the restrooms where the showers were.  Upon entering, I caught sight of  a huge black bug with long greasy feelers.  He appeared ready to pounce at any moment on a weary traveler.  As I walked to the shower area, I saw several of the same bug family in each shower.  They were way to huge to wash down the drain and looked as if they would be willing to pick a monstrous fight if I tried to move them out of the shower.  Deciding at that moment to forgo the shower and take a top and tail bath in the trailer was one of the clearest decisions of the day.  I just went back to the trailer and announced to my hubby that he was blessed to get an in-house show.  He didn't complain!  As I got ready for bed after my spit bath, we had a horrendous thunder and lightening show.  It was like God was giving us his own 4th of July celebration.  I'd like to see pyrotechnics beat this fireworks show.  The only thing I think He went a little overboard on was the wind that accompanied it!  It about blew us and our tent trailer over.  To top it all off, one of the big bug's had hitchhiked on one of my bags and was setting up house in the trailer.  I let out a scream and my hubby jumped  up to be my hero again.  He evicted the freeloader out of the trailer minus a feeler.  After this excitement I finally made it into bed and fell fast asleep.

The next morning, we tore down our home away from home and headed back to Billings Montana.  We made a stop at a Geocache site near the open pit coal mine in an abandoned housing area.  After getting this cache, we stopped at the mine for some photos.  I asked if we could take Hwy 14/16 back to Sheridan as I had never been that way.  It was a really beautiful drive and I was blessed to visit the booming town of Ucross!  The sign says they have a total of 25 people in the town.  We were in and out in a matter of seconds!  I stopped to take a few photos of one of the grain bins and their new little park that is being finished up and took off again headed toward Sheridan.  After arriving in Sheridan, my hubby took over driving and we made our way back to Billings.  It was a fun weekend for us.

Our next trip is planned later this summer and you can be assured that I will blog all about it.  For now, I am back at work and busy as a little bee.  I do so hope God richly blesses you all the rest of this year.  As always, Cheers!  Freedancer.

Where the Heck is Spring?

Well I don't know about you but I am fed up with Winter!  It's seems to be just like a borderline, keeps hanging on!  The flowers are trying to bloom but I can see them just peeking out and retreating when they see what Mother Nature has ready to dole out for everyone.

Our first trip of the new year went off with just a small hitch!  We went to Hawaii in January on another Geocaching Cruise with Norwegian Cruise Lines and Geocaching Adventures.  We met up with some old friends from the other cruise and met some new people.  We almost didn't make the cruise after our flight broke down here in Billings.  We had to take a later flight and spent the night in Seattle.  It was a pretty posh motel that we stayed in.  The next day at o' dark thirty we were on the plane to Hawaii and managed to just make the cruise with a few hours to spare.  We checked into the ship and then took off for a few hours to do some hunting.  I had a goal of visiting Dog the Bounty Hunters' digs there in Hawaii which we made our first stop.  I have a new travel bug doll named Walter who wanted to log his first stop at the Dog House.  They were off filming so it was pretty quiet.  We then went around the corner to the Dog Shop where we purchased a few items.

We made our way back to the ship to leave at 7:00 pm and meet up with the other folks in our group of 15.  We went to four islands on this cruise, spending overnights on Maui and Kauai where we rented a car and geocached around the islands.  It was great and on the last day, we took an 8 hour tour of Oahu where we visited the Dole factory and a couple of other areas.  Of course I got some great photo's which I hope will win an award or two at the Montana State Fair.  Last year, I won a Best of Show for one of my jewelry designs which blew me away.  I also was able to get a second place award for my sand collection.  I have more to add to that so I can put it in again for this coming year.  I hope to take home another ribbon!

We both enjoyed our first adventure of 2011.  We were able to go around the end of the Big Island where the active volcano was putting out some hot lava. The ship turned out all the lights so we could see the glow of the lava running into the sea.  The food was pretty good and I especially enjoyed our cabin which was not in the basement of the ship this year!  We did a lot of walking and saw a great deal of beautiful things.  We were pretty tired when we came home and I was glad I took an extra day off to rest.

The government of this country is so messed up!  No one knows what the other hand is doing and it is just too complicated.  Unless the Republicans get a good person lined up to take the presidency, we will be stuck with the one we have now and then...God help us!  I don't want to imagine what will happen!  Do you realize that we are more in debt money wise than there have been stars counted in the sky?  It is hard to believe!  We need to cut spending but they have to watch out a little.  Why not cut spending from the Space budget?  We don't need to be fiddling around with going to Mercury or Mars or beyond.  Lets put all of that money back into the budget and pay off some of the debt.  Instead of paying out so much to other countries, lets start helping our own people.  For God's sake, lets get the hell out of Libia

Well, enough of my ranting.  I just had to get this out as it was just eating at me.  We have one more trip planed this year and are not sure when we will be going yet.  It is to the South East where we will pick up the rest of the states.  After this, we will have gotten caches in all 50 states!  It will be soooooo coooool to put that on our finished "bucket list".

Well my dear friends, take care this year.  I hope Spring, Summer and Fall are all you hoped it to be.  God bless each of you in your endeavors.  As always, Cheers!  Freedancer

A New Year Blossoms New Hope

Well 2010 is now history and 2011 has arrived.  For me, it offers new hope for my life and those of my loved ones.  My beautiful daughter has been married nearly two years now.  She has gained grace and patience and I have gained a wonderful new son-in-law who is as dear to my heart as my own children.

On December 24th 2010 we welcomed a new great-grandson into our lives.  My husbands granddaughter who resides in Pennsylvania gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.  I find it interesting and humorous that I am a great grandmother before I am a grandmother!  However, I will welcome the little sweeties no matter what relation I am to them.  They plan to move back to Montana soon and then we will be able to see him before he turns 21.

Christmas was quite enjoyable this year.  My husband and I managed to get a tree that was not "psychotic and bi-polar" this year.  It actually had branches where they were supposed to be and only one top!  It stayed fresh until the day I took it down.  We had my daughter and son-in-law over for our new family tradition of Christmas brunch.  I loved putting it together for them.  We got them a GPS this year for Christmas and a book about Geocaching.  My husband spent several hours on the computer researching caches in Belgrade and Circle Montana so they could go out and look for some.  By the afternoon, they had already picked a name for their new GPS.  They love to hike so we thought and very much hope that they will embrace this hobby.  It is so enjoyable and very family friendly.

This year finds me in a new building work wise.  I have been contracted with Riverstone Health now for almost three years and we recently moved across town to a brand new office building.  It is all state of the art and economical.  Still, I don't quite feel like I belong there nor do I feel like I still belong to the Mental Health Center.  I seem to be caught in this middle rift where I am a "man without a country" so to speak.  Although, this year at the Mental Health Christmas party I did win a prize which is a first in the 11 years I have been there.  It was interesting how God knew that I needed gas as I won a $15.00 gas card and had managed to get to the part on fumes.

I am confused at the direction this country is going.  I am very glad that the Republicans took back the House.  It was only a mater of time before the American people opened their eyes and saw Obama and his leadership for what it was.  The path he is taking us is not the way we want to go.  He keeps saying he's giving us more jobs but tell that to the people that are about to lose their homes and to those who are living in their cars.  I for one hope that we can get someone into the White House who is not afraid to lead and not so wimpy.  We need a leader who can stand up to all the terrorists and stare them straight into the face.  I am sick and tired of watching our current president make a "media hog" out of himself and when the going gets tough, place his tail straight between his legs and sulk off.  It just makes America look weak and we are not weak!  Thank God the Dream Act was defeated.  There is no way I want to give illegal aliens a leg up in this country.  They have all but bankrupted California by using up all the services and not paying for them.  We should be paying more attention to our citizens who are here and who came here legally before we assist those who snuck over the border.  If we were to sneak over the border of Mexico, we would end up in a Mexican prison for years.  No Mr. President!  Back up the truck, get the supplies and finish the fence so we can get our border states out of the red and into the black.  Be a man for once and put down the basket ball, stand tall and tell the Mexican government if they continue to turn a blind eye that there will be no more assistance except a maned border and a brand new fence that cannot be scaled or dug under.

I don't know about you but is the weather crazy at your house??  We have had snow and cold for quite some time now and frankly, I am fed up with it.  Being a snow bird is looking really good right now.  If I was retired, I would be basking in the sun down south someplace but they aren't doing too well either with all the rain.  Some of the places have had the whole years worth of rain in just a few days.  That cannot be good.

We will be heading out for another Geocaching adventure "across the pond" to Hawaii in the distant future.  The sun will be a welcome companion for 9 days.  We always use the same house sitter who loves to take care of the home while we geocache the day away.  It's a good job for someone who is unemployed and he does such a fine job.  The local police also assist with increased drive bys.  We love to travel when we can and always come back to a clean home.  We are not real sure when we will go yet as I have to look at my work schedule so if we don't make it this year, we will in one of the future years.

So for now, we approach 2011 with great anticipation.  The future holds great promise for us and I hope it does the same for you.  Cheers!  Freedancer