GRAND CANYON #2 - PEOPLE PICS

GRAND CANYON #1 - Straight Shots

CHURCH OF THE HOLY DOVE
So, we're driving down a small Arizona highway. It's raining outside. T tells me this probably means geocaching is out for now, but I am still kind of tracking upcoming ones with my GPSr. I see that we are coming up on one, but figure we won't be able to stop for it...until we see the door, the door of the Church of the Holy Dove. Wow.
We zoomed past it, but were so intrigued we turned around and came back. The door, which you see in the first photo, was unusually small, and took up the entirely of the front of the small building. There was a geocache somewhere behind the church, but the rain was coming down, so we ran out of the car and in through the unusual door. As we shut the door, a woman in a pickup pulled up and parked next to our vehicle. She came into the church, too.
Turns out she is a local, and frequent visitor to this holy place. She pulls her windbreaker off and begins telling us the history of this unusual place. She indicates a guest sign in book, and tells us to write a little prayer in the notebook by the altar and leave it for the next guests to share. She often comes here, she says, to celebrate her faith. Sometimes she has company, but mostly she enjoys the place solo. This woman has been helping with the wildfires in the west, and tells us of her job refueling the helicopters that bring the water to fight the fires, and of eating her meals in the town outside of the Grand Canyon we are headed to next. She shares history of weddings and baptisms that have been held in the place. Then she writes down her own prayer and leaves us to enjoy the place alone.
The inside is remarkably roomy, and stark, but fills one with a sense of peace. One does indeed feel closer to God in a place like this. The children check out the altar. I read the verse that the Bible on the altar is open to, and write a prayer in the book. I notice that the woman's prayer was one of thanks for the rain, and left ours asking for a safe journey and strength for our family.
As we left the sanctuary, the rain had stilled, and so had all our tension from the first day of our journey. We all felt at peace and calm. I was able to go behind the church and to the side to find the geocache, which was an ammo can filled with trinkets and holding a sparkling gold keychain travel bug, which I was excited about.
We all climbed back in the car, feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the next couple of hours of driving before we reached that night's destination. That calm stayed with me the rest of our trip, though, and so did the appreciation for this tranquil stop on our crazy journey.

Great Western Road Trip Ramblings #1

It is hard to know where to start with a journey of this magnitude. The planning and plotting along was tedious and timeworn. It's generally best, though, to start at the beginning, and so in this case, PHX, where four people - two small and two big - stood waiting for their ride. No, it was not the Winnebago they had conjured visions of, but a steel grey Santa Fe that would carry them on this epic journey to the Western frontier.

This family of four loaded four suitcases and four carry on bags into the back of this Santa Fe, and took off, heading north out of town on 17, Flagstaff bound.

The first stop was unexpected, a sudden need for drinks in the town of Black Canyon, which was remarkably hard to navigate through. T went inside the store for liquid refreshments, while I watched the compass of my GPSr unit align to straight across the street, 500 feet, for a chance at our first geocache of our journey. Here is the online log:

August 5 by hardings (1609 found)This one has the honor of being our first Arizona cache find, although sort of accidentally. We were actually looking for a place to get sodas and I checked the GPSr to see what was nearby, and voila! Was quite a climb for this Texas crew, real close up look at cactus. Lid of container broken and a piece fell off when I opened it, but contents in good shape. Thanks!

Finally, we got on the road again, stopping next at this place, the picture of which sums up my ideal scenery when stopping to find a geocache:

I was so excited to look for this one, but not so excited not to have found it, especially before the thunder and impending rainstorm chased us out of the search area.

Who knew Arizona could be so green?

LURE OF THE OPEN ROAD

GREAT WESTERN ROAD TRIP 2009

begins here...

A Tale (End) of Two Monkeys
Once, my sister had told me, "maybe you just don't understand death." It was her way to trying to oversimplify why I didn't make it to a relative's funeral. I never really got into it with her, but she was wrong, as she usually is. That had nothing to do with it.
In reality, I am more comfortable with it than most people, but it is not even that. I know all about death, from a biological perspective. I know how much time it takes for each stage of cell death to occur, what is happening inside the body, how long until rigor mortis sets in. I have held hundreds for their certain death, and some died in my arms before we could expect it, or plan for it. I know how quickly I need to tag 'em and bag 'em before the smell starts to penetrate the air. I have sat with a stethescope while a literal wall of dead dogs were piling up before me, verifying death before each body was taken to the cooler. I have walked an old horse over snowy fields with her side cut open, trying to make it to the kill area before she keeled over. I have killed many, many times myself, dogs and cats and a few other species.
I know animals are not exactly like people. I know there is something different. The biology is the same, but our emotional attachment is different. We see humans as intrinsically more valuable than animals, even with our own pets. I know a lot of my vet tech friends consider their pets to be like their children...however, I also know that most of them are like me, in that for their human children, there would be no bounds to saving a life or finding a cure for a terminal disease, but our pets come with a financial limit, and in the end, we would all consider euthanasia as a viable alternative to prolonging their suffering, or reducing the impact on our finances.
These days, I am not going over the bereavement process and asking clients to decide on body care, or pick the urn that best represents the way they want to remember their pet. My patients don't have names, they have numbers. Part of the reason we don't name them is to reduce the emotional attachment to them. I always have to tell myself I love them collectively, not individually. I tell myself that not to make myself feel better about their inevitable deaths, but to feel better about the fact that most of the time, their deaths don't affect me emotionally. It is a reminder that I still care, that I am not so blase about death that it no longer bothers me.
Most days, I shake off their deaths like a pair of dirty scrubs at the end of a workday. Death is a part of the job. For a moment, I did the same thing when I was told the news about a couple of animals I had been working closely with. I received the news with the same shrug of my shoulders and little frown of sadness. I saw with my own eyes that their injuries were catastrophic, and accepted rationally that euthanasia was the only alternative.
Later, I began to engage emotionally with their death, and in this, I realized that some part of death is still a mystery to me. Human death we can convince ourselves to accept through our faith. What I mean is the question of where the soul goes. It is unfathomable to believe that the spirit of a person is simply just gone when the body stills, so we attach cultural or spiritual beliefs to its final destination. We tell ourselves that spirit is now in Heaven, or watching over us, or waiting to be reborn in another body, another lifetime.
Many people who work with animals believe that animals have no souls. I don't believe this myself, but we don't do much thinking on what happens to their souls after death. In my mind, there is a beautiful grassy meadow somewhere on the other side, with dogs chasing elusive squirrels in bodies free of pain. This maybe only a personal myth I created to help me deal with constant death around me, some sort of prevention against what they term "compassion fatigue", a real syndrome among my industry.
What do we define as the soul of a person? Their personality, the "inner core', their psychological attributes? If that is so, how can we look at animals and think they have no souls? To me, animals always have personality. There are different ways of approaching animals with different personalities. Based on their responses towards, say, a human approaching them, you could classify them on their personalities and treat them in accordance. A dog who is predominately fearful is handled in a different physical manner than one who is aggressive.
And I knew the personalities of the ones involved. Twelve animals that I had known for two years were placed in the same room, with the same set of controls. Two were put together, and two were put down. I knew the personalities of everyone in that room.
And yet I didn't ask for an ID number. It's like I didn't want to know, wanted to stumble upon it for next documentation and try to put the pieces on it. I was familiar with each one, how they responded to things. I had classified their personalities. I didn't need to know their number to know how things might have gone down.
And now I wondered where it went, where did it go when that needle hit home. Did the patient just die, and that's all she wrote? Is there a heaven for monkeys up there?
Do monkeys have soul? Do they ascend in any meaningful way? Is there a great reward for them up there, for spending their life in a cage, waiting for their turn to die for mankind?
I hope so. And I do love them. Sometimes I think God is working through me, or allowing me to work for them, as directed by him. Is it all part of some grand design?
The problem is, what happened was something everyone thought I would try, at some point down the road. Maybe, but I was years away from it, I felt. It was a wild risk. Yet, it was performed by...not me. I would not have attempted that, but now that someone has, I feel the eyes upon me.
Lord. Lead, guide, and direct me.

Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Museum, San Antonio TX

He had traveled to each location Jesus had visited, and collected this pottery from each location as he went. That whitish one second to the left is from Garden of Getheseme

The Geocache Toilet Seats # 2 and #3.

From the palace in Baghdad


This one has a piece of the Berlin Wall, and stones from WWII concentration camps

Amazing man, full of passion. I spent an hour there listening to him go on about each piece.

One of the Best Stories from this Weekend
Sunday, July 12, 2009
hardings found A Foodie's Paradise (Traditional Cache)

Okay, funny story about this cache. I am in town for a dog show, and was staying closer to the Alamo, but wanted to come this way to see Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Museum. Apparently, I left my GPSr on or something, and it drained the battery and I had brought no extras. I didn't anticipate needing them! Well, now I had to find batteries, which meant a store, one that was open early on a Sunday. Luckily, I took the right path (led my instinct about these things I guess) and ended up here. Only, I had no idea this was the place the cache was in. Well, I had gotten some great salami and cheese here along with the batteries, and on the way out of the store, the cashier and I were talking, and she was saying this was the only grocery store close to downtown at all. Amazing.Once I got the batteries, I couldn't get reception for so long that I had driven north and west of here by about a mile and a half, and did the caches I had planned over there, and made my way here for the cache...ending up where I started at. How wild. At first I almost gave up on the cache, but it was just blending really well. Left a TB. Thanks!

THEY NEVER QUITE TURN OUT LIKE YOU'D LIKE THEM TO

FOURTH FESTIVITIES

I spent my Fourth of July with my best friend and our kids. We checked out the festivities planned in The Woodlands and spent all day swimming, going to parks, and watching fireworks with the kids. The night before, we had gone out to a bar together. Of all the great fun we had during the sixteen hours or so we spent together, the best part, the part I will always remember, was at the end of the Saturday night. Both of the little ones had nodded off, and the bigger kids were outside with my husband and the neighbors, and she and I were just having some girl time. We were standing outside my back porch and she asked me a question about how something I had planned on Thursday worked out for me. We got a good laugh out of the fact that in all that time we had spent together, we had never got past talking about the events of Friday and Saturday. Then, I told her this story, which had us laughing so hard, at my expense, that we were doubled over with our legs crossed trying not to laugh so hard we peed ourselves.
I can't duplicate the story the way I told it. There is something about the written word that is different from true storytelling in person. I'll try to recreate it, though.
Thursday, I had been asked to do a presentation at another company for an audience of people that were much more highly educated than myself on my particular field of expertise. The presentation had actually been moved up a week, so I was kind of thrown off mentally by that, and also by the presence of my boss and her friend, who is the "boss" of the program I was presenting to. In the past four months, I had been asked to give a similar presentation to people within our company, but we are low-tech here and so all the new-fangled presentation devices were kind of throwing me off. On the podium were the microphones and the computer screen with my presentation on it, which was projected on to a big screen with a teleprompter up front on the floor.
There were three presenters that day, and the first one was the "big boss", who runs the entire department and has lots of letters behind her name. She gave a presentation on anatomy and physiology that had me feeling intimidated. Then my boss spoke, also with many letters behind her name, but not as many, and then there was me, with at least half as much education as anyone else and a "fluffy" topic. All these things combined had me a little nervous when I got up to talk. I'm blaming what happened next on all that.
When I got up to the podium and started my presentation, for some reason I walked AWAY from the podium and went up to the floor level, reading my presentation from the teleprompter a' la karoake style. What the hell was I doing? I realized my mistake after the first slide, and headed back to the podium and the mics. However, I was so flustered that the rest of it came out of my mouth like a robot talking. I was trying so hard to not make more mistakes that I was wooden and stiff up there. Also, I was dismayed that all this video footage I had gotten to make my presentation "come alive" would not play correctly.
At the end of the presentation, I sat down in my seat, beating myself up over not being able to "shine" with a stellar speaking performance, when the "boss lady" leaned over at me. I was taken aback with what she said.
"Hey, listen, " she says, "I run this other program at another college, too, and I would like to have you come do this same presentation for those students. Are you interested in doing that?"
Bahahahaha! J and I died over that one. Not what I was expecting her to say at ALL after that!

CREEKSIDE DINING

at The Wines of Colorado
This is where we had lunch on the day of our tenth wedding anniversary. We sat by this creek with a bottle of wine and sampled some good food. We highly recommend the pulled pork. We each tasted five wines before deciding on a Reisling from Plum Creek Cellars. Good times.

Fondue for Two in Manitou at The Mona Lisa

This is where we had dinner that night. We chose the Old World Cheese, the wild game entree, and the Milk Chocolate for dessert. It is very good, very pricey, and an experience worth having at least once. This was my second time here. I went here when Ted and I were first dating with an old boyfriend and we got in a big fight over it. I remembered it as being a little better than it was this time, but I think that is because the wild game was a little too adventurous for me. I find elk meat to be much tougher than beef. We got so full here on food and wine that we were worthless for anything else after this, and curtailed all planned additional activities...

HIGH ROAD TO NOWHERE

The objective was clear: first thing, a cemetary cache. He was ready to go there the night before, but I didn't want to get caught in a unfamiliar graveyard in the middle of the night. Instead, I offered first thing in the morning, after some gourmet hotel coffee.

We drove back out to Manitou Springs. "This is a little bit more like I remember it," he said, as we drove down the main street on a quiet Sunday morning.

The day before, the street had been jammed with people - the normal tourists, residents, and a race through Garden of the Gods that started near the park we had gone to. Lots of freaking cars. This morning, the streets were slightly dewy and we saw only a couple of cars along the way to the backroads cemetary behind the school.

It took us a few times of circling to find the right road. Welcome to geocaching. Sometimes a little planning and Google Earth helps that aspect, particularly in a strange town. And Manitou is definitely a strange town....

So, we arrive and start looking around, although not in the same places. He wanders off to check out the graves and I wander off to find a piece of tupperware wrapped in camo tape near some trees.

After this, we decide we are going to take a hike. We get in the car and start driving around the backroads, looking for the right little fork that would give us best access to The Intemann Trail.

We kept circling, and coming back into the neighborhood that rose along the hill. After a few false turns, we came to a road came High Road.

Well, we just had to take it.

Hairpin turns. No guard rail along the side. I could see sheer down the hill from my window, and it had me a little freaked out. We kept thinking the road was going to end in someone's driveway, but we also never saw a "No Outlet" sign, so we just kept going, past little cottages painted with murals across them, or with a unique statue, or construction. Round and round, and higher and higher, we went.

Until it was time to come down. Funny, I can't remember if the road ended, or if we just gave up the ghost. At any rate, we headed back down, still following the GPS arrow, and getting closer.

Until we end up back where we started. In the graveyard. Only we keep going, back to the back parking lot. Right in front of us in the Intemann Trail, and we are 0.15 to the cache.

Only that's mountain miles. That's switchbacks and uphill climbs, that's a gain in elevation to us Texans, and a heck of a hike on a warm day.

It seemed to go on forever, but at the same time, I never wanted it to end. There was no place I would rather be than where I was right then.

And we saw things out there.

Big things, little things, things made from some kind of amazing geological sequence. Things crafted in nature, and blossoming out for all to enjoy. The trail itself was beautiful, with little shoals of fools gold lighting up in the sun.

The one thing we didn't find was the cache. We followed the GPSr and went along the trail for about an hour. We stopped at the suggested waypoint for leaving the trail, and headed up a dry creek bed littered with sparking shoal. It got a little bit thicker, and steeper, around the time we got to "GZ", or the spot we were supposed to be looking in.

He went high. Figures. I went low. I looked on the east, and he looked on the west. Both of us came up empty handed.

Then he wanted to go down and try another apporach. I didn't want to do that, because the directions clearly stated to exit the trail at that location and head the 400 feet over this way, so it had to be here. The clue was "in some bush". That was kind of hard to interpret, exactly, but at least it gave us a place to start.

We walked back together to the trail, but then we disagreed on what direction to take from here. I was worried we didn't have enough fluids with us to attempt what he was considering, and thought we should go back.

End result was he went off by himself while I watched from the trail. We lost visual contact quickly, when he went off around a switchback, but we had verbal contact...for a while at least.

Meanwhile, back at the trail, I was getting antsy thinking about that unfound cache back there. So I went back to look....twice. No dice.

I had about half of a large Vitamin water in my hands, and occasionally I took a swallow, but mostly I was saving it for him. He was going to need it. He had gotten way high up there, and occasionally I would see the red flash of his shirt, or hear him skid on rocks.

Eventually,

he had to return, defeated. He couldn't get within 100 feet of it from that angle.

I handed him the water, and refrained from telling him I told you so.

"Let's go back."

The walk back was so much more enjoyable. Being able to take your eyes off the GPSr is a blessed thing.

And after all that hiking, so was getting back to the car.

"You know," he said, as we drove away. "I think that was my favorite did-not-find ever."

Mine too.

CASCADE, CO

LOGIC

I am sitting in front of her in a chair, and she clips a questioning glance at me.
"Do you have an unusually high IQ?" she asks me in all serious. I don't really want to get into explaining this, although there is little to explain. I just smile at her and tell her I don't know anything about that.
Later, we talk about a pressing problem, and she says to me, "See, you're trying to apply logic to it. That doesn't work. It's an actual equation. Logic, applied to emotional context, equals frustration."
I don't really understand why it has to be like this. I talk to Jib about it and she says of course, emotions have very little to do with logic.
And when we talk, I tell her it reminds me of something funny. I did take an IQ test once, that I know of. It was a three day long test we took in high school, and when you were eighteen, you could get your results. Three of us went down to the counselors when we were of age and asked for the results. There were three types of tests applied. One was just a general knowledge, and two were mathematical in nature, which included quantitative and qualitative math.
My scores were where I expected them to be. Now, for those who have not looked too deep into IQ tests, what the test really means is how is your "intelligence" compared to your peers. One hundred percent means that you are exactly average. Most courts use around 70 points or below to determine mental retardation. I always figured I would score "slightly higher than normal". On this test, the "genius" level was 130. I got close to that number on two tests, but one test I scored above genius on - qualitative mathematics, or "logic".
This test was mostly recognizing patterns. Part of it involved looking at an imaginary piece of paper. The test described actions taken to the piece of paper, and you had to pick the image that best represented what the result would be. You had to recognize the pattern and anticipate the end result.
Kind of like I do at work, I think. I tell Jibber this, and she agrees.
"That's what makes you good at what you do."
And I think of Misty, who is probably the most "logical" person I know, and nights we worked together under a crazy boss. There were times I was venting, frustrated, and she looked me right in the eyes and said, "Yes, but you are applying reason to an irrational person. It doesn't work." It seems like I do that a lot.
I like reason. I want it to stick around. Reason seems like truth, reason takes in all the facts, reason does not give in to emotional impulse. Reason thinks through what they are going to say based on the circumstances, not on the fly. I like reason, but I can't say I always follow it. I believe I also have high impulsivity, which acts on emotion, and so my life is a series of logical steps interrupted by impulsive dances, all the while focusing on the patterns in attempt to gain some kind of cosmic truth.
"You must know that you are very bright," the lady says to me again, the next time we meet. "Very wise for your years."
Every time I want to agree with this statement, I think that if I took an accurate IQ test now, I would score lower. I know this man who is super smart, and makes me feel like small potatoes. It's all relative to your peers.
This same man posted something online that I found really interesting (shamelessly stoled from the HCGC boards):
"....also always tryyy to keep in mind that 2 people trying to communicate that are 10 or more IQ points apart may come away with a completely different message than intended especially if the communication is written.
This week, I might run into that man at say, a mexican restaurant, and I'm gonna ask him what his IQ is. I'm very curious now.
Then I am going to ask him,
"Now, is this general, or qualitative, or quantitative?"

I mean, let's be logical about this.

Oldest Existing Geocaches

Amended list from Oct 2001,
Checked over for archived caches and updates.
As of June 2009, these are the oldest caches still listed:
1. GC30, 5/11/2000 Kansas, Mingo by The Kansas Stasher

2. GC12, 5/12/2000 Oregon, Geocache by Jerry Connelly

3. GC28, 5/13/2000 Illinois, Beverly by Robert Reindl
4. GC3E, 5/18/2000 New South Wales, Australia, Lane Cove by Paul Edwards

5. GC46, 5/26/2000 New Zealand, Geocache by Kevin AndeO'Byrne rson

6. GC39, 5/26/2000 New York, The Spot by GPS_Fool

7. 19. GC31, 5/31/2000 Kansas, Arikaree by The Kansas Stasher

8. GC1D, 6/3/2000 Georgia, Beaver Cache by Jim Gooch

9. GC43, 6/3/2000 Ireland, Geocache by Chris

10. GC16, 6/4/2000 Oregon, Geocache by Jerry Connelly
11. GC1E, 6/11/2000 Georgia, Stone Mountain by Chris Reynolds

12. GC53, 6/15/2000 Kenya, Rift Valley (Virtual Cache)

13. GC25, 6/17/2000 Idaho, Camels Prairie Stash by Moun10Bike, Cindy, Laura and Jasmine

14. GC37, 6/20/2000 Missouri, Missouri's First - Watts Mill by Steve Brown

15. GCD, 6/21/2000 Washington, Geocache by ajromanelli

16.GC26, 6/21/2000 Idaho, Two roads by Ry Jones

17. GC27, 6/21/2000 Idaho, Eggcellent by Ry Jones

18. GC1F, 6/22/2000 Georgia, Geocache by Jim Pate

19.GC4B, 6/25/2000 New Zealand, Aukland Stash by nz_etrex

20.GC1B, 6/27/2000 Arkansas, Gorilla Stash by Ed Normandy

21.GC18, 7/2/2000 Colorado, Tarryall by Mike Frazier
22 GC40, 7/7/2000 Belgium, Geocache by Pierre Cao

23 GC35, 7/16/2000 Michigan, Power Island by Kluso

24. GC20, 7/17/2000 Georgia, Geocache by Jeff Andrews

25. GC19, 7/20/2000 Colorado, Geocache by Rob Garrison

26. GC 17, 7/21/2000 Oregon, Geocache by Jerry Connelly

27. GC23, 7/21/2000 Hawaii, Geocache by Tim Billings

28.GC21, 8/16/2000 Georgia, Lake Lanier by Jay Chamberlain
29 GC36, 8/21/2000 Michigan, Geocache by Gregory Benn
30. GC3B, 8/27/2000 Utah, Potters Pond by leaper64 & dirk88
31. GC57, 9/9/2000 Arizona, Geocache by Dan Rich
32. GC5B, 9/10/2000 California, Phil's Memorial Cache (Oldest CA. Cache) by GoodDogSD
33 GC5C, 9/17/2000 Idaho, Southern Idaho's First! by Eric
34 GC62, 9/26/2000 Texas Tombstone
35 GC67, 9/28/2000 Colorado, Paul Barclay Stash by Terry Shelton
36. GC 68, 9/29/2000 Alaska, Centurion Guards by Gary Short
37. GC6A, 9/30/2000 Denmark, Kippers in the Jungle by Klaus Alexander Seistrup
38. GC6E, 9/30/2000 Alaska, KidsGeoCache by Gary Short
39. GC70, 9/30/2000 North Carolina, Octopus Garden
40. GC72, 9/30/2000 Finland, Sun Gear by Kalle Reunanen
41. GC74, 10/1/2000 Massachusetts, First Mass by Jeremy Gilbert
42. GC76, 10/1/2000 Georgia, Rock Town
43. GC77, 10/2/2000 Germany, First Germany
44. GC78, 10/2/2000 California, Firestone
45. GC7A, 10/8/2000 Australia, Melbourne's 1st
46. GC7B, 10/8/2000 Arizona T824 Table Mesa
47. GC7E, 10/8/2000 Arizona, Labyrinth Canyon
48. GC7C, 10/9/2000 Utah Beaver Springs
49. GC7D, 10/9/2000 Massachusetts, Lowell, aka Second Mass
50. GC80, 10/9/2000 Utah Little Creek Stash

51. GC85, 10/14/2000 Massachussetts Camera Cache

52. GC 86 10/14/2000 Vermont 1

53. GC89 10/15/2000 Georgia Iron Horse

54. GC8A 10/15/2000 Utah Pony Express

55. GC90 10/19/2000 Mississippi Bonita Lakes

56. GC92 10/22/2000 Oregon Un-Original Stash

57. GC93 10/23/2000 Indiana's First

58. GC98 10/28/2000 Texas Double

59. GC9B 10/28/2000 Utah Clover Spring Stash

60. GC9C 10/27/2000 California Rabbit Eye View

61. GC9E 10/29/2000 New Hampshire Mines Follies

62. GCA0 10/30/2000 California Creekside Stash

63. GCA1 10/31/2000 Texas A Walk in the Park

64. GCA5 11/4/2000 Oregon Hembre Ridge

65. GCA8 11/4/2000 Utah Wah Wah Stash

66. GCAB 11/8/2000 California Orange County Stash

67. GCAD 11/11/2000 Australia Devil Bend

68. GCAE 11/12/2000 New York Sleepy Hollow 1

69. GCAF 11/11/2000 New Zealand Mount Cargill

70. GCBO 11/11/2000 New Zealand Flagstaff Hill

71. GCB1 11/12/2000 New Zealand Unity Park

72. GCB2 11/12/2000 New Zealand Botanical Gardens

73. GCB6 11/13/2000 Georgia Yellow River Stash

74. GCBF 11/19/2000 New York Boston Cache

75. GCBE 11/20/2000 New York Turkey Cache

76. GCC2 11/24/2000 California Azucar Mine Offset

77. GCC6 11/25/2000 Indiana Turkey Run Stash

78. GCC8 11/25/2000 New Jersey gerbiL cacHe

79. GCC9 11/28/2000 Texas No Walk in The Park

80. GCD2 12/2/2000 California Doggie Do

81. GCD4 12/3/2000 California Bovine Hill Stash

82. GCD6 12/2/2000 California Born Free

83. GCDE 12/10/2000 California Igor

84. GCEO 12/10/2000 Massachussets Aldo's Andover Geocache

85. GCE4 12/11/2000 Connecticut Another Brick In the Wall

86. GCE6 12/12/2000 Massachussetts Willow Brook Wander

87. GCEC 12/16/2000 Rhode Island Brenton Point

88. GCED 12/17/2000 Arizona Senda de Tonto

89. GCEF 12/17/2000 Texas CenTex Prime

90. GCFO 12/15/2000 Scotland Scotland's First

91. GCF1 12/17/2000 Australia Frying Pan

92. GCF2 12/19/2000 Massachussetts The Silver Lake Stash

93. GCF4 12/24/2000 South Carolina Modoc Stash

94. GCF7 11/25/2000 Australia's Used-To-Be Highest

95. GCF9 12/26/2000 Nevada XKD-380

96. GCFA 12/25/2000 Florida Christmas Cache

97. GCFE 12/27/2000 Arizona Diablo Point Cache

98. GCFF 12/27/2000 Pennyslvania Stone Wall Stash

99. GC101 12/27/2000 New York Hudson's Folly

100. GC103 12/28/2000 Denmark High Tension in the Bog

Street Scenes, Manitou Springs

June 14, 2009

Left In Manitou

Sometimes I can still see her

Peering out the bedroom windows

Then disappearing

Walking down the blue ramp

Into the park,

Past the penny arcades

Turning left, then heading up Lovers Lane

Where that blue light is always on

Stops at the Dead Man's Tree

Where the noose hangs limply

Then in the dark into the park

With the giant sundial

Only seen in the light of the moon

Take a sip from the fountain of healing waters

Walking over to the big clock

Keeping the time

The time before

The slamming door

And the baby who is always crying

And the mother who was always dying

And the husband who was never around

In this tiny one horse town

Written circa 2001

This is me now, in front of my old apartment in Manitou Springs, Co. I left this apartment in 1998 to move to a ranch with my husband, who was then my boyfriend of only four months. This is me over this past weekend as we celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary by going back to the town where we met and fell in love. I got to go in my old apartment, that was wild! I used to take a walk almost every night, the walk I describe in this poem, in the four months I lived here, and now it exists in my memory. I meant to make that night walk again, but instead we decided this time to create new memories.

COLORADO CHRONICLES

We're not even going to talk

about where the first night went

Nor the morning after

Suffice to say, our plans pushed back

Midday is when we began to make strides

By a creek, down a trail, up a wall

Up a hill, by a rock, in a car

Fountain Creek, site of our first Colorado geocache, Family Reunion, where a local cacher named kwbforest had dropped off our very own travel bug the day before, with a note to leave it for us. This bug had the goal of making it to Colorado Springs, where we were, and was a tribute to our not-quite-perfect love.

Through the Garden of the Gods

We drove past the places of our past

Coming out into Manitou

The town of our youth

Then driving downtown

The streets of our passion

And finally a rest,

Youth not being ours

But belonging to the past,

Like this town, and our place in it