Ringing In the New Year

Having a great time at the Frito Bandito's New Year Eve's event! 

Jigsaw puzzles, origami geo-puzzles and appetizers in a big, cozy library. After we ring in the new year, we will run for the event Cache, earning us our first FTF and a souvenir for 2018!

Happy New Years Eve!

Frigid cold but great energy on the City of Warren Plaza! Another memorable event by Team Gates!

Afterwards a group of us headed to Hope Lutheran to setup for tomorrow's HNY-18 breakfast event. We rewarded ourselves with Green Lantern's Pizza - YUM!

Now off to Frito's to ring in the New Year! Happy New Years everyone!

Refections & Resolutions

It's the cusp of a new year. There are events scheduled and souvenirs to be had these two days. In the spirit of reflections and resolutions:

Reflections: What was your favorite Cache find last year and why?

Resolutions: Which cache do you hope to find in 2018?

Grand Winter Adventures

Seriously, dude. If you don't see adventure around you, you aren't looking for it. It's truly right around the corner, and Winter doesn't put a stop to it.

Take our trip to Warren on Christmas Eve. We wanted a quick park-and-grab to keep the streak going. Here's one that piqued my interest - I don't know why because it only had 1 favorite point, but there you go. Locate a block north of I-696 near Schoenherr (pronounced Shane-her), we found a little pull-off and a log (the wooden kind). So, in our pajamas (it's Christmas Eve, remember?) we started shoveling snow aside looking for this. Frustrated, I turned around to see this:

OMG - isn't this precious?

This guy was watching us, too....

And these guys moseyed along to cheer us on, too! Can you believe this is a business park in an industrial area? 

Shetland Pony and a Donkey

Speaking about being watched, I felt eyes on me in Detroit this week, too.

How cool are they? TaGeez and I were moseying from Eastern Market (oh, sweet memories of Devries & Co 1887) to Belle Isle, and we decided to take the very indirect route. Somehow we happened on this park with these amazing heads! 

Kiwanis #1 Park: Head to 6531 Kercheval at Concord Street to see "Reading Room," three 10-foot heads sculpted from a boulder that encompass a small circular plaza with stone seating, courtesy of CPAD. Though they assumed the land where the sculptures reside was a vacant lot, they later discovered it was an overgrown city park. Since CPAD artists, residents and volunteers cleaned up the park and added the art features, Bresee said, the Detroit Parks and Recreation Department is again mowing the lawn and residents are using it for events. [Crains Detroit]

After hiding a geocache there, we continued down Grand Boulevard to Belle Isle (45+ new geocaches hidden there every Spring). 

Breathtaking.

Peaceful.

Flipping cold.

More adventures ahead this weekend. We have four geocaching events including Visitors from Rhode Island, Gate's HNYE Freeze-a-thon, New Year's Eve in Frito's Library, and gsixx's Happy New Year Event.  TaGeez and I hid 16 caches for that last one.

We should have no problem earning our two Geocaching.com souvenirs for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

As I said, adventure is just around the corner.

Sprocket and Our Adventure Book

Does WikidKriket know me or what?!?

For Christmas, she bought me an HP Sprocket (Bluetooth-connected) printer! 

Admittedly, I had been drooling over hers when she used it at my nephew's wedding in October. Imagine this: family members spread out throughout the wedding to take candid shots and family photos which we messaged directly to her. She printed them right at the table, peeled off their sticky backs and assembled a scrapbook on the spot! Very slick! Each of us had a chance to sign our love and well-wishes to the happy couple. And the bride and groom left the hall with an amazing keepsake. (Score one for Auntie Lorna - she rocks!)

Fast forward three months, and we found a Sprocket under the Christmas tree! And just when I think it can't get any better... I open her second package. 

This one included Our Adventure Book - a replica of the scrapbook featured in Pixar's UP. Ellie and Carl remind me so much of the fun I have with TaGeez. I love that movie, and I love our many adventures!

She saw it and knew it would be a perfect for us! I'm so excited about printing pics from our favorite adventures. Can you believe it's been 5 years already? So glad the scrapbook is expandable :)

And, of course, there's many other ways to use this! We always use the same log book when we host events - it's kinda a scrapbook which includes event and event cache information. Now we can paste our group photos in there! Too cool!

LOVE LOVE LOVE this gift, and we'll see what other fun we can have with it!

Santa has Coordinates

Found this floating around the Internet and thought it was perfect! LOL

Also, if you have not seen it yet, check out the Geocacher's Guide to Surviving Christmas - it's a hoot!
http://thegeocachingjunkie.com/2017/12/21/a-geocachers-guide-to-surviving-christmas-the-geocaching-junkie/

Holly Jolly Holiday Trackable

The response has been great! I've asked my online geocaching friends to wish us a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays in their native language and they are!

My first log came from Abigeo in Polish: "Zdrowych, spokojnych i radosnych świąt Bożego Narodzenia!"

It's just as much fun as receiving greeting cards in the mail!  Feel free to discover it, too!