Adventuring

After a night of little sleep due to the tornado warning, I got up and was determined to enjoy my Memorial Day. After a bit not-so-extreme couponing to score some free/cheap stuff, I decided to have a day of geocaching at a couple different parks and cemeteries.

I quickly learned that it's not a good idea to geocache in cemeteries on Memorial Day. Too many "muggles" as the regular cachers say. So at the first cemetery, all I found were these critters:

 I know that second picture was of a bunny, but was that first one a groundhog? I don't think I've seen one before!

I decided to go to a park. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find the cache there either. I think several of them must have been disturbed by the high winds. But it was right next to this train museum. Although the museum was closed, their trains were right out in the open.

I then went to Christensen Field, where I finally found some caches. Three, to be exact. (Unfortunately, there were still others that I could not find.) Christensen Field is part expo, part senior center, part RV park, part baseball diamonds, and part soccer fields. Since it was a pretty big park, there was a lot of ground to cover. 

Where was this cache found? 

Hmm... perhaps in the suspicious spigot?

Another cache in a tree.

This was my first cache with trading items! I got this plastic seaweed in exchange for the striped headband. 

The coolest part about geocaching is that it really slows you down and allows you to see things you wouldn't have noticed otherwise. I found these two baby birds on the ground underneath a tree.

 While there are many cool things about geocaching, I found one thing that wasn't a perk that day. While I was looking for a cache (that I never actually did find), a cop drove by. Apparently someone at the park thought I was acting suspiciously! Oh well. Below is a pic of my last cache before I left... can you see the cache?

Two days after this adventuring, staff training began. And what better way to start off the first evening than with my second-ever tornado warning? Instead of being all alone like in my first experience, this time I had about 20 people to hang out with.

I would say that, since the title of this is "adventuring", that staff training is the start of a new adventure. In a way, I guess it is. I think that's even what I said last year, especially since last year's theme was "The REAL Adventure". But since this year's theme is "Unbound", I wanted to admit that it sometimes feels more trapped than freeing. I could go on and explain the reasons that it's both an adventure and a trap, but that would probably take too long. But, whether it's the end of many adventures or the start of some new ones, that doesn't really matter. I want to make this summer count!