Happy 10th Geo-versary

Greetings! 

It's been awhile since we chatted. Have you missed me? We're still caching, but we've been dealing with a lot over the last year. COVID and then the loss of PopLob. The new year brought another [private] life-changing event.

Geocaching has been a wonderful distraction during some of my most trying days ❤️

But Friday was a big day - the 10th anniversary of my first geocache! It was a bison in a leafy, canopy tree at the Detroit Zoo. This tree was so big the low branches covered several picnic tables. 3inaTree, my brother and his family, were excited to share their new geocaching knowledge. A secret part of me crowed when I spied this beauty before them. 

Since then I have found 10,600 caches, many during my 3,000-day cache-a-day streak. I've also hidden over 200 caches. Luckily, most of these adventures with my Sweet TaGeez, the Free Range Lobsters, and our friend, ShelleyJean.

Time to get back on track - we have new adventures to share!

Cleaning Up Our Game Board

What a stunning day to be out on Belle Isle, Michigan's 102nd State Park located in the Detroit River, separating the US from Canada.

"Rich with history and natural beauty, Belle Isle Park is a Detroit gem and a Michigan state park. The 987-acre island park features the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory, the Belle Isle Aquarium, Dossin Great Lakes Museum, giant slide, athletic fields, picnic areas, tennis courts, Belle Isle Nature Zoo, the James Scott Memorial Fountain and more attractions popular with all ages and interests. The park includes three lakes, 150 acres of wooded area and spectacular views of the Detroit and Windsor skyline." [Pure Michigan]

Today's efforts actually supported three fabulous causes:

• Earth Week Spring Cleanup with the Belle Isle Conservancy
• Belle Isle Spring CITO – Covid Style GC97T4V
• Michigan State Parks Happy Little Trees 5K Walk/Run, raising funds for reforesting our local state parks.

Meeting at the Belle Isle Nature Center this morning, TaGeez and I picked up over 30 lbs of bottles & litter while walking our 5K. Collectively, the various groups gathered 3,000 lbs of litter!

We topped off our day finally claiming the Let's Improve the Great Outdoors Locationless Cache GC8NEAT and our Geocaching.com Season 1 CITO Souvenir.

We loved spending the day on the Isle and "cleaning up our game board!"

HappyBirthday, TaGeez!

Almost 9 years ago I met TaGeez in Birmingham, caching with his brother-in-law. 9,000 caches and a 3,000 day cache-a-day streak later, and this sweet man & I are still happily together. TaGeez calls geocaching.com the "best dating site ever!"

Happy Birthday, my love. Here's to another year of amazing adventures together!

My Own Mars Rover Trackable

Caching on Mars!

Woo hoo! Mars Rover Perseverance has landed on Mars! The recent HQ Podcast shared that geocaching is very popular amongst NASA scientists, which is why there is a trackable code on the rover! 

https://coord.info/TB5EFXK

"Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!"

Rumor has it an image of the 1" square glass trackable will be sent to Earth tomorrow so we can discover it. Such an exciting start to 2021!

Let’s Take a Road Trip!

**We need a road trip! **

Gift from our good friend, ShelleyJean- a travel pillow! We've been to more states than this, but these are the ones we've geocached!

The pillow case (and other travel-related items) are from Campfire Ink (https://www.campfire-ink.com/).

For ease of coloring, I recommend you iron the shiny side of freezer paper to the underside of the coloring area for stability. And to prevent bleeding (darn you, Iowa!), I would set the color after coloring each state with a warm iron and pressing cloth. 

Sun Setting on 2020

2020 was liked a deranged elevator - many highs and many lows. It was dizzying. 

☀️ Surpassed 10,000 geocache finds
☀️ Completed my 3,000 cache-a-day streak
☀️ Until the pandemic, I had 97 months of First-to-Finds
☀️ Enjoyed several adventures with ShelleyJean including Ohio geotours (Cornhenge!) and visits to Lake Erie Birding preserves
☀️ Created a Motown Adventure Lab and enjoyed over a dozen new AL's in Michigan & Ohio.
☀️ Earned each HQ souvenir including the Sun Sets souvenir below. 

It's amazing to see so many fabulous accomplishments. With the pandemic and then a series of losses & setbacks in the last few months, I forgot all the fun. But heading into 2021, things are already looking up starting with the 300+ caches being released on New Year's Day.

Wishing all our geocaching friends a safe and healthy new year!