Terror at Disneyland

Since this blog is about anything and everything, I can write about whatever happens to be on my mind. This morning I was musing about what is the scariest ride at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA. I've never been to Disney World and I haven't been to Disneyland is six years, so my comments may be slightly dated.

None of the rides at Disneyland itself are terribly scary in the traditional sense. If you want that kind of scary, you have to walk across the way to California Adventure. There you have the Tower of Terror which is a falling elevator. It lifts you up, then drops you over and over. Finally, it opens the window so you can see how far up in the air you are as it continues to lift you up and drop you. Not for the faint of heart, especially those with a fear of heights. Also at California Adventure, is California Screaming, a roller coaster which goes very fasts, twists around, and, of course, turns you upside down. Both of the rides are scarier in the traditional sense than anything they have in Disneyland.

In Disneyland, I guess the closest to that kind of thrill is Space Mountain, a roller coaster in the dark. Then there's Splash Mountain, which is a children's ride right up to the last moment, when it drops you out a log ride type drop of several stories. There is the Haunted Mansion, but the thrills and chills in there are more tongue-in-cheek. I doubt anyone over seven would be frightened by anything in there.

Which brings me to the ride I personally consider the scariest ride at Disneyland. That would be, Small World. It may be the dolls, I don't like dolls. It might be the fear that the ride is going to break down and I'm going to be stuck in one of the rooms for an extended period of time. That happened to me once and I sat in a room in the middle of the ride for over half an hour. Come to think of it, that might have something to do with why I don't like dolls.

I'm not the only one to find that ride a bit horrifying. We were getting off of the Jungle Ride once when the pilot said, "Don't forget your kids. Any child left on the boat will be taken to Small World, their feet nailed to the ground and made to sing that terrible song for the rest of their lives."

And now that song is running in your head, my work here is done...

A Word About Geocaching Challenges

Geocaching Challenges are like dares. They're basically someone saying, "I bet you can't do this..." We have done any number of challenges in our geocaching lifetime, from finding caches that started with each of the letters of the alphabet to finding one every day for 410 days. The last one was easy since it came out after we were past 800 days in a row.

We have our own challenge out there. It's called "The Streak" and it is the cache you earn if you cache every day for a full year. You even get a poker chip with a little naked guy streaking on it. It's in very good taste, of course, this is a family sport.

Right now we are working on so many different challenges I can't keep track. We finished the Island County Thomas Brothers Guide challenge this weekend. That went with a minimum of trouble. We had to completely revamp our route when the ferry schedule ended up two hours behind. We drove around and did the route backwards. We still managed to complete the entire thing by early Sunday afternoon.

We had to hike to a couple of the caches and one of them we almost didn't find, but we managed to turn them all up and we had the final in hand by 1:30pm. So my husband suggested taking the ferry to Guemes Island to add another island to... you guessed it, another challenge called the Island Hopping challenge. We have to get 30 islands in Washington state to get that one. They're specific islands too, not just any islands or we'd have it in a flash, there are a lot of islands in Washington.

Then, since we had another day to spare, we spent Monday driving around the North Sound area getting caches in little towns for the Cities and Towns challenge. The owner of that challenge chose a long list of tiny towns all over Washington and to get the final you have to get a cache in every one of the little towns. We will be traveling a lot this summer trying to finish that one.

Doing all these challenges gave us miles on our little racer anyway. So far we have 500 miles on it and we're in second place! Of course, that's after the first weekend, it's a long summer.

The Race is On...

The Terrible Ts' Race Car

In Geocaching I talked a little about trackables.Trackables, and more specifically, travel "bugs" are (usually) small items with a tracking number on them that travel from cache to cache and their travels are logged on line at trackables on the geocaching website.

A travel bug doesn't have to be left in caches, it can be "dipped" in and continued on. That way the distance between the different caches is logged and the travel bug builds up mileage.

Which brings me to the race, Summer Vacation Travel Race.

Each of us has a travel bug. Ours is pictured up above. We will spend the time between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend dipping our travel bug in every cache we find. The team with the most miles at the end of the race wins. What does the winner receive? Aside from the opportunity to be in charge of next year's race? Who knows? Bragging rights, I guess.

The link to follow the current race results is here: TB-run
We are the "Terrible Ts". The race starts today, so far we have no miles.

Our trip this weekend will get us off to a good start. We'll be dipping the little car in caches up and down Whidbey and Camano Islands. We have plans for traveling the state for another challenge later this summer. I don't know if we'll win, but we'll have a lot of fun trying.

The Eternal Train Ride

A few years ago, my husband and I decided to take a train trip to San Francisco.  The trip got off to a slow start when we got to the station and they told us the train was going to be an hour late. We wandered around a little, had some coffee and waited for the train to arrive. We finally left two hours late.

As we got settled into our cabin, the announcement came over the address system that there was construction on the track and there was a mandatory lower speed being enforced.

Soon after we pulled through Tacoma, the train stopped and an ambulance met us. A woman on board was suffering from chest pains. The paramedics checked her out, decided she was fine and the train got back under way.  By that time, it was obvious we weren't arriving at 8:30 the next morning. I was relieved, we could sleep in a little.

We woke the next morning around 9:00. The train was stopped at a station in a small town in northern California. I didn't think anything of it, we had been stopping momentarily at small stations over the entire trip. I started to get concerned when I finished dressing and the train was still at the station. About that time they came on the address system and said "For those of you who are just waking up, we've been sitting here since 5am." There had been a minor derailment down the track from us and we were stuck there until they could bring a crane down from Oregon to clear the tracks. We wouldn't be leaving before eleven at the earliest.

We had breakfast and then decided to wander the small town. We got an espresso from a stand they opened especially for the train and browsed a couple of stores that were open on Sunday morning for the same reason. Then we decided to check out the doll store.

I walked in the door and froze. It's called Pediophobia, the fear of dolls. I don't have it badly and can usually deal with it. I'm not afraid of all dolls, I don't run screaming from Barbie and stuffed animals don't bother me. In fact, I have a surprisingly large collection of stuffed Eeyores. It's the eyes. Dolls with glass eyes give me the willies. All the dolls in that place were set up to be looking at the front door. I walked in, saw all those dolls looking at me and backed back out. "Nope."

The train finally started again around noon. We arrived in San Francisco at midnight, a full 15.5 hours late. For a trip that was only supposed to last 22 hours, that's a long delay. We had fun though, most of the time. Except for those infernal dolls.

Time Passes

A beautiful tree we saw on our walk today

A week ago, I posted pictures of the Rhododendrons in our neighborhood. They were so beautiful I couldn't help but talk about them. Today, when I walked with Mickey, most of them were bedraggled. They're flowers were drooping or outright falling off. They have gone from breathtaking to pitiful in such a short time. It made me think of how quickly time passes.

Last February marked the twenty year anniversary of the day we moved into our house. It seems like yesterday. And yet a lifetime has gone by. My son's lifetime. He is nineteen and was born almost exactly a year after we moved in. In that time we have had five cats and two dogs. Two of the cats and one of the dogs have passed away, breaking our hearts. That is the price we pay for having companion animals in our lives. I can't imagine life without them.

During the time we have lived here, my parents have both died, leaving me feeling adrift. My marriage and family kept me going during those days.

My son has gone through diapers, elementary school, junior high and the first two years of high school. He is finishing the second two years at college and is bound for university in the fall to finish the last two years of his B.S. in computer science. The little boy who took two years to say Mama, using a hand gesture to call me, rather than the word, is going away in three months. This doesn't really seem possible. He can't possibly be old enough to go away, and yet he drives and he votes. He is a grown man as I remind him when he forgets to get his laundry out. He is my baby and yet he is neither mine nor a baby any longer. I will miss him, but he is ready for the world. I'm just not absolutely sure the world is ready for him.

My Favorite In-Laws

My in-laws are amazing people. My father-in-law is a retired naval aviator who attended the Naval Academy. He is an avid golfer and gets out on the golf course every chance he gets. My mother-in-law was the stay at home mom that raised three boys while Dad was off fighting wars. Together they've lived in Texas, Virginia, Florida, Japan and twice in Washington state.

They still travel several months of the year, driving their motorhome and staying on military bases. It's always good to have them home.

My mother-in-law went with me on part of the yarn tour. I asked and she said, "Why not, sounds like fun." We had a wonderful time. We don't get to spend time, just the two of us, very often.

When my son was about six we took him to Knott's Berry Farm and his grandparents went with us. My father-in-law decided to ride a roller coaster. I went along, thinking, "If he can do it, I can do it." We were up in the air at one point and there was nothing around us and he said, "Just like flying off an aircraft carrier." Life lesson: Never let a man who used to fly jets off of aircraft carriers choose your roller coasters.

I adore my in-laws. My parents are gone and they are the only parents I have left. They have always made me feel welcome and part of the family. I have learned from them how to treat a child-in-law.  If, and when, my son brings someone home, they will be welcome.

Obligatory PNW Rain Post

As I sit here, the stench of wet dog wafting past my nose, I am trying to figure out what to write about. We went for a walk this morning, me in my new "mango" colored raincoat and Mickey in his fur coat. I don't believe in dressing animals in clothes unless absolutely necessary. The Sphinx cats up the street are an exception, they're adorable in their little cardigans. Now I am paying the price as Mickey's long hair dries and smells to high heaven.

As you may have surmised, it's raining here in the Great Pacific Northwest. It does that a lot. So much that my husband and I have a running joke about whether it is mist, drizzle, showers or any number of other words we can use to describe different levels of rain. The weather forecast of "Rain turning to showers," always makes me laugh. The worst part is I know what they mean.

Rain doesn't stop anything around here. If it did, we'd never get anything done. People walk, run, hike, bike and, of course, geocache in the rain. It was raining yesterday when I was at Pike Place Market and the place was packed. The market is under cover, but there were plenty of booths that had spilled out into the street and people didn't hesitate to explore them. When I left the market, I drove along the waterfront and it was crowded too.

We even have a festival here called Bumbershoot, which is another word for umbrella. Bumbershoot is a music and artisan festival that happens every Labor Day weekend. Even on Labor day you're likely as not to need your bumbershoot.   Of course, around here, the locals rarely carry umbrellas unless they're going to be out in the rain a lot. They're just one more thing to lose and it's just a little rain. It's not like we'll melt.

Yesterday, there was a guy at the market who was carrying his umbrella closed under his arm. It was one of those long ones with the point on the end. The market crowd nearly pushed me into the point. What a way to go, I can see the epitaph, "Impaled on a Bumbershoot at Pike Place Market."

LYS tour complete at Pike Place Market

I finished the LYS tour today with a stop at a yarn shop right outside the famous Pike Place Market. I arrived a little after 11:00am, but the store didn't open until noon, so I wandered the market for a while. There were the usual breathtaking flower arrangements, food stands and artisans. It's a summer Sunday, so the Market had spilled out into the street with extra booths selling anything from T-shirts to goat's milk and cheese. After almost a week of sun, today is drizzly and people were jockeying umbrellas along with their fish, fruit and flowers. I didn't get down to the end of the market where they throw the fish around, I've seen that though and it's fun to watch and listen to the patter of the fishmongers.I did see the original Starbucks, I was tempted but the line ran out the door. If anyone wants a mug from the original Starbucks, let me know.

Anyway, after wandering the market and managing to get away without spending money I went back to the yarn store and it was open. I had to push an intercom and they let me in, but apparently that's only on weekends. The yarn shop, like all the others, was beautiful with all the wools and cottons in various colors from pastels to jewel tones. I got my last stamp and was finally entered into the drawing for a $500 gift certificate. I know I won't win it, but I can dream. Since it was my last store, I had to buy a little yarn to commemorate the occasion. That's only the third time I've bought yarn on this journey.  Having gone in 21 yarn stores, only buying yarn in three shows remarkable restraint on my part. At least that is what I plan to tell my husband. I have had a lot of fun. I'm tired, but happy.

The funny thing is, next weekend is Memorial day weekend. As I mentioned in Memorial Day Weekend Plans, my husband and I will be hitting the trail on another quest. This time a geocaching one. We will be going some of the same places too. Oh well, at least I'll know where the yarn shops are. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some knitting to do.

LYS tour - Day 2

Nothing of any importance happened today.

My mother-in-law and I went to a store barely south of the Canada border in a tiny town called Birch Bay. We got there at 9:40am and found out they opened at 11:00am.  Talk about a wrench in our plans!

We finally decided to drive down to Bellingham, about 25 miles south and do the two there, then come back to Birch Bay. We did that, getting those two and still managing to get back to the original store by 11:06.

After that we traveled an hour south to grab three more, then back into my in-laws by 3pm. As days go, it was pretty uneventful. We got six stores, bringing my total to 18. I just need three more to complete the tour!

I know, you're fascinated.

Local Yarn Store tour 2012 - Day 1

I managed to visit 12 shops today including the one my mother-in-law and I visited after dinner. I traveled 135 miles and found parking spaces at all of the shops, even the four in Seattle. I got a charm for doing the first 7 and will get a second one when I've done 14.

Nothing much exciting happened, there was the store I had to drive by three times before I found it. When I took the ferry over to Whidbey Island my GPS tried to insist I drive two hours around rather than take the ferry. It didn't recalculate until I was two-thirds of the way across the water.

As excitement goes, that's the extent of it. Not that I'm complaining. I like it nice and stress free. Tomorrow my mother-in-law and I will attempt to get the six north of here. I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

LYS 2012 Yarn Store Tour

Don't they say if you suspect you've lost your mind you probably haven't? I hope that's true because I'm pretty sure I've lost my mind. I decided yesterday to attempt the  LYS yarn tour of 2012. That's a tour of 21 yarn shops scattered up and down Puget Sound from nearly the Canadian border all the way to Renton,WA which is south of Seattle. I have four days to visit all 21 shops and it will include driving nearly three hundred miles, spending two nights at my in-laws and two ferry rides.

I am an introverted person and do not put myself  "out there" easily, but I am going into at least twelve of these shops alone. I'm going to ride one of the ferries alone, which I have never done in the 32 years I have lived up here.  My mother-in-law is riding along on one day and my husband is going on the last day, but the other two days I am going alone. I am nervous and excited at the same time. I'm afraid I'll get lost or won't find a parking place or any number of other minor disasters I could think of. But I'm going to do it. I'll let you know how it goes. I'll post from the road with an app I've never used before, so that should be interesting.

What do I get if I complete the tour? The chance to enter a drawing. That's it. Oh, and free knitting or crocheting patterns at each of the shops. Maybe some door prizes. See? Crazy. But it's mostly just to say I did it. It'll be fun. I hope.

Old Fence Post

Geocaching has been around since 2000 and we have been caching since 2003. During that first year we made some beginners' mistakes. The worst, of course, was my husband breaking his leg, but there were other less drastic and more amusing errors on our part. Like the day we decided to try for the "Old Fence Post" cache.

This cache was in downtown Kent, but that didn't stop it from being in a wild area. We found a parking place as near to the cache as we could get, but still nearly half a mile away. We found what looked like a small path and headed out toward the cache. In less than a minute the path petered out. In another minute we were in swamp water up to our knees. Did we turn back? Of course not, we were already wet, we might as well continue on.

We sloshed through half a mile of wetlands before we got to a dry patch that had an old post in the ground. The Old Fence Post. The cache was under a rock at the base of the post.  As my husband was signing the log and my 10 year old son was going through the cache to see if there was anything he wanted to trade for, I was looking around.

I noticed a group of people walking along and talking about a hundred feet from where we were standing. Suspicious, I started walking over the completely dry section of land to where I had seen the people. There was a nicely paved path leading back in the direction of our car. We looked at each other and down at our sopping wet clothes and shoes and groaned. Then we laughed. We followed the path back and it came out about a hundred feet from our car. It was on the other side of a building which is why we hadn't noticed it before.


It wasn't the end of our caching for the day, but we did go home and change our clothes before we headed back out. After that we paid more attention to the terrain rating. There's a terrain rating on every cache, 1-5 stars. One star means wheel chair accessible, five stars means you need special equipment, like a boat or climbing gear. This cache was rated 1.5 stars, we should have known there was a way in that didn't include wading through a swamp.

Now we just have to go get the "The Bloated Festering Head of my First Victim". That one's a terrain 4, there is no way in except through the swamp.

Butterscotch Sauce

I thought I'd share a favorite recipe. I found it in Betty Crocker's cookbook years ago.  All I know is it's easy and it gets rave reviews. If you want something to take for a dessert, this and a carton of ice cream will go over well with anyone. It's even Gluten-free if that's a thing for you like it is in our family.

Warning: There's nothing good for you in this. It's bad for you, that's all there is to it, but that's okay sometimes.

Betty Crocker’s Butterscotch Sauce

½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
6 tablespoons butter
½ cup heavy cream
½ cup light corn syrup
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Mix all ingredients except vanilla in 2-quart saucepan.  Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until butter is melted and sugars are dissolved.
2. Increase heat to medium; heat to boiling, stirring constantly.  Boil gently 5 minutes, stirring occasionally; remove from heat.  Cool 20 minutes.
3. Stir in vanilla.  Serve sauce warm or cool.  Store covered in refrigerator up to 10 days.  Sauce becomes firm when refrigerated; heat slightly before serving (sauce will become thin if overheated.)

Rhododendrons

The Washington State flower is the Rhododendron. I don't know if it's the same in other states, but in Washington, we have the state flower in nearly every front yard. This time of year is the reason. When the Rhody and it's deciduous cousin the azalea are in bloom, they are absolutely gorgeous. I'm no photographer and my camera was my phone, but I'm going to let my pictures speak for themselves. Happy Spring everyone! I hope my local friends are enjoying the first real warm spell of the year.

My Worst Geocaching Fear

I'll let you in on a little secret about me and geocaching. It's about my worst geocaching fear.

We are fortunate to live in an area that still has a lot of wilderness. Even near our house in the suburb of Kent there is plenty of woods to see and to cache in. It doesn't take much time to be off into wild country. A short drive can have you walking in an area that doesn't see much traffic.

I have faced a lot of fears while out geocaching. I had to walk across a log over water, being afraid of heights made this difficult for me. The fact that I fell off of a dock and into Lake Washington in front of a number of my geocaching friends just weeks before (there are pictures) didn't help. The calls of "here comes the water baby" were a little distracting. I made it across though, both ways.

I have stuck my hand directly into a bunch of nettles and not realized until the stinging started. (It's not as if every person in the state could identify nettles in their sleep.) I have learned not to wear perfume on the trail because it attracts bees, although my husband is the only one who has been stung. Once, my son discovered a bumblebee's nest when he knocked over a decomposing tree, but we managed to escape unscathed.

We have passed many signs warning of bear or cougar, but we tend to shrug those off. I think if we ever really saw one of those animals we'd take pictures. They don't tend to attack, preferring to be left alone. I worry more about my fifteen pound dog, than I do about my husband or myself.

I've got caught in hail and snow, my husband has broken his leg and I have bruised a rib. But my worst fear and I know it's silly, but I'm afraid we're going to find a body, or more likely old bones. On the rare occasions when we've seen bones my adrenaline has gone through the roof before we decided they were deer. It's highly unlikely, I've never even heard of it happening, but my nightmare is to walk around a tree and be staring at a skull.

As phobias go, it's a silly one. The chances of it happening are tiny and, fortunately, it doesn't stop me from caching. Still, when I come to the next log, I look over before I step. Just in case.

Mickey, the Demon Dog

Mickey, the Demon Dog, is the stupidest smart dog you'll ever meet. He is smart. He figures out things in minutes my pug, Scout, would never have figured out. We bought Mickey a water bottle especially for dogs. It has a ball in the top like the ball in a hamster water bottle only bigger. We turn it upside down, he licks the ball and voila! water. I worried when we bought it that he wouldn't get it. Scout would never have gotten it. Mickey figured it out in about thirty seconds. It makes carrying water for him much easier since we don't have to carry a bowl too.

There is agility equipment at the off-leash dog park we take him to. He had most of the pieces down in about ten minutes without any training. He'll jump between platforms, run across the bridge and run up and down the A-frame with little coaxing from us. On a good day, he might even run through the tunnel, but that usually takes some effort on our part.

The point is, he's a smart dog. So why is he so stupid? Why hasn't he figured out that Gypsy doesn't want to play with him? Why does he bark at everything?  And why is he incapable of going on a walk without constantly tangling himself up in his leash?

I take him for a walk every day. He is pretty good about walking on the leash, he doesn't twist me up in it...much. He doesn't pull, unless we're back on our own street, then it's "Follow me, I know the way!" (Points if you recognize the quote.)  But, he tangles himself up in the leash. Sometimes so badly he can't walk. If I look down at him and the leash isn't wrapped around at least one leg, I feel a thrill of surprise. Now you're probably wondering why I use such a long leash. I don't. The leash is six feet long and I hold the end in one hand and the middle in the other. That leaves him about four feet to maneuver with, including the distance from my hand down to him. That's a ways, he's kind of a short dog. I don't know how he does it. He's a Houdini. No wait, Houdini untangled himself, Mickey's a Houdummy.

My little dog is a bit of a coward too. The other day a giant (about four pound) chihuahua came running out of a house barking at Mickey. My fifteen pound dog hid behind me until the owner took the other dog back inside.

While we're on the subject of walks, the oddest thing happened to me on our walk a few days ago. We passed a woman who gushed about how beautiful Mickey was and asked if he was a Papillon. I gave my standard answer of, "we have no idea what he is." She went on a bit about how beautiful he was, I thanked her and we went on with our walk. On the way back we passed her again. She looked at Mickey and said shortly, "Is that the same dog?" Puzzled, I said yes and she muttered, "Doesn't look like the same dog." Apparently, he was no longer beautiful.

So smart, but stupid. Beautiful, then not. My little dog is a study in contradictions. He's a lot of fun though, when he's not barking his fool head off.

My Mom Called Me Flake

My mom called me Flake. Rather than the insult that might appear to be, it was actually because a little girl up the street from us couldn't say Franki. She always called me, "Flakey". My mom shortened it to Flake. My friends would laugh and in high school I pretended to be mortified, but it really didn't bother me. Just a family nickname, a pet name between my mom and me.

When I was five I decided I wanted to be on television. My mom went along for the ride, which lasted a few years as I made commercials and modeled in fashion shows. I even competed in some of those demonized baby beauty pageants. But my mom wasn't your standard stage mother. She was always checking to make sure I was having fun. She wasn't the kind to dress me in frills either. She would buy a dress and take any
bows or other decorations off of it. "Silly fluff,' she'd call it. Needless to say, I didn't win any pageants, my mom wasn't willing to play the game. That's okay, at least I didn't have to stand there while my mom sprayed hair spray all over me. And makeup? On a seven year old? You wouldn't believe the epic eye roll that one got from Mom. When I was ready to move on, my mom packed the dresses up and moved on with me.

My mom was my best friend for many years. We moved from one place to another and I let my friendships slide. I didn't make new ones as easily as some people do, but my mom was always there. When my son was born, my mother retired and became his caregiver so that I could keep working without having to put him in daycare with strangers. She taught him to drink through a straw, talk and say his ABCs. Later she taught him to read.

The sadness comes because dementia set in about that time. My son, who in many ways is the man he is because of my mother, doesn't remember her. He remembers the sad woman who constantly called him by my cousin's name. The last few years of her life were miserable and I wished over and over I could make it better for her. Whenever I visited her I ached for the mother I no longer had. When she passed away it was both a tragedy and a blessing. She was finally at peace and with my father who had passed away several years prior.

My mother was never rich or famous. She never discovered anything important or invented anything special. But she was my mom and she was a great lady. I miss her every day and wish all the time for just one more chance to talk to her. There's no one around who remembers my childhood anymore. My parents and sister are gone. Love your family while they're here and remember your mother on Mother's Day.

Flake

Memorial Day Weekend Plans

Have you made your Memorial Day plans yet? Maybe a trip to the beach or the mountains? How about a baseball game or a backyard BBQ with neighbors? We made our plans last night. We're going to spend Memorial Day weekend in Anacortes, WA. Well, that's where our hotel is going to be.

Now, you might ask why we would go to Anacortes now and not in April when the tulip festival is going on.  The Skagit County Tulip Festival occurs every year in April.  When the tulips are in bloom there are acres and acres of tulips and miles and miles of amateur photographers trying to make a name for themselves by photographing that one accidental red tulip in a sea of yellow. I have never attended the tulip festival, although I've driven by. My husband grew up in the area and has no desire to deal with the traffic involved, so I get my tulip fix by buying them at Safeway.

As I said, my husband grew up in the area and my in-laws still live there, but we're not going to Anacortes to visit them either, although I'm sure we'll have dinner or breakfast a couple of times. We're going to Anacortes, and more generally, Island County on a mission. To finish the Island County Thomas Brothers Guide challenge. It's a geocaching challenge, not unlike the DeLorme challenge I mentioned in Lost in a National Forest. This time the goal is to get a cache on every page of the Island County Thomas Brothers Guide. We have 14 pages so far, and there are 38, so we'll be busy that weekend. It's going to include a ferry ride or two and a lot of driving around.

We already have the Thomas Brothers Challenges for King, Pierce, Snohomish and Kitsap Counties. Island County is far enough away that we can't just drive up and grab caches. Which is fine with me. We get to stay at the Islands Inn, my favorite little inn. If you're ever in the area try them out. Make sure you try the homemade bread with butter and chocolate sprinkles at their complimentary breakfast!  We get to spend a little time with my in-laws who I love dearly and we get to geocache all day for three days. I can't think of a better way to spend Memorial Day Weekend.

I'm planning to write a travelogue of the process, so you'll get to hear about our adventures. Don't worry, just the interesting stuff. Maybe some pictures from the ferry. Hopefully it won't be too exciting. The last time we went to Anacortes to spend Memorial Day Weekend caching, my husband broke his leg and had to be carried out by four firemen. Stay tuned!

What are you doing for the big weekend? Whatever it is, remember it's not just the traditional start of summer. It's also the time we remember the men and women who gave their all for our freedom. Don't forget to take time on Memorial Day to say thank you.

Cytisus Scoparius

  Steve Dewey, Utah State University, Bugwood.org

That's Scotch Broom. Other names include Broomtops, Common Broom, English Broom and Irish Broom. I guess it just depends on who you want to blame.  The Latin name is Cytisus Scoparius. Apparently, Wretchedus Evilus Plantus was taken.  As you might have surmised, I don't care for the plant. That's because I'm allergic. Those little yellow flowers  pop out and I'm taking antihistamine for months.  I can't avoid the plant. I geocache and it is everywhere.

The thing is, Scotch Broom is not supposed to be here. Although it has invaded most of the Eastern and Western portions of the U.S., it isn't native to North America. As you can probably tell from the many different names it goes by, it's native to Europe and was brought over here and introduced as an ornamental in the 1800s.  Like starlings, it was brought over to make the New World seem more like the Old. Like the starlings, it took over. Now it's considered a noxious weed. I, and my many fellow allergy sufferers, could have told them that.

Scotch Broom isn't the only ornamental to go rogue though. On Earth Day my fellow geocachers held an event where they worked with the parks department to tear out ivy that was smothering trees. I'm recovering from a stress fracture so my job was ferrying people from the parking lot to the work site, but my friends worked themselves ragged trying to free trees from the ivy. Ivy isn't native to the area by any means. It's all there because it escaped from someone's yard.

When we're gardening, let's be careful out there.

 Cougar Mountain CITO 2012
Wikipedia Scotch Broom
English Ivy is an invasive species in the Pacific Northwest

Be Careful What You Name Your Pet

Be careful what you name your pet. I have found that there is a certain energy or luck that follows the name you give your pet. At least it seems that way to me. I have had many pets in my life and I have seen the phenomenon a number of times. We had a cat named Dusty. When she was eight weeks old, and almost pure white, she came running by me. I looked at her then looked at my husband and said, "What's wrong with that kitten?" She had climbed into the fireplace and had soot all over her. Ever try to give an eight week old Siamese kitten a bath? We closed ourselves in the bathroom so she couldn't escape and bathed her in the sink. We ended up with tiny scratches all over our hands and one clean, but extremely disgruntled kitten.

When I was a kid we had a cat named Spacey. Boy, was she ever. That cat thought she was a dog. She would hang out with my cocker spaniel in her dog house. She would chase the other cats. The stupid cat would chase the other cats up trees then sit at the bottom of the tree and howl, totally unaware she was a cat and perfectly capable of climbing the tree herself. I don't know what she thought when she made noise and a meow came out instead of a bark. It must have freaked her out. To be fair, my cocker spaniel raised her. Her mom was pretty young and she wasn't much for mothering, other than feeding them. There were only two of them and as soon as mom went out on the prowl, the dog would get them out, drape them over her front paws, lay her head on them and they'd all go to sleep like that. It was pretty cute and after the first couple of nights I stopped worrying about it.

We have a cat named Toby. A male cat with a nice androgynous name. It worked out well when the cat had to have a sex change operation. I'm not kidding. With due respect to people who need sexual reassignment surgery. I would never make fun of them.  Toby wasn't feeling like he was a female in a male's body though, his was entirely a physical issue. His pipes kept clogging up. It was the surgery, to straighten out the pipes so there wasn't a bend in them for things to get caught in, or put him to sleep. We weren't willing to put him to sleep. My husband and son found Toby and his sister dumped on the side of the road when they were out geocaching. The kittens were about two months old at the time.  He turned out to be an expensive free kitty.

Don't get me wrong, it doesn't happen all the time. Brandy didn't drink, Holly wasn't prickly and Gypsy doesn't wander. But when it  does happen, it can be devastating. My mom named one of our cats Squish. She really shouldn't have.

Getting Ready to Go

It's sunny outside and we bought rain gear today. We're beginning the long and expensive process of getting the young one outfitted for university. What does a young man need to begin life on his own? Apparently he needs four pairs of jeans, a fleece jacket and a rain jacket. An especially good quality rain jacket; it's the Pacific Northwest.  

Did I mention a new bicycle? He's going to need that too. He's parking his car off campus for the duration.  The school ID is a bus pass, so that and a bike should get him where he wants to go most of the time. There's other things he's going to need, of course. Sheets and blankets, towels and a trunk to pack everything in.

Then there are the other things we have tried to make sure he has. The common sense not to go to a party and ride home with someone who has drank too much. The sense of self to not get lost in a campus full of other young people trying to find their way for the first time out on their own. The knowledge that he is loved by and precious to, not only his parents, but his grandparents and uncles. Respect for himself and his own opinions and an open mind to listen to other people's even when he doesn't agree. A belief in his responsibilities as a citizen of this country and this world. There isn't a trunk large enough to carry all those things, but I'm fairly sure he has them packed away and ready to go. 

A couple of years ago he went on a school trip to Costa Rica. He was gone for eight days and the boy I sent down, came back a man. I know the man I send to the university will become a much different and more worldly person. I can hardly wait to meet him. I have to believe we've given him the tools he needs to handle the process.

Maybe He's Right

It occurred to me today that my son may be right on the whole my-being-old issue. Or at least I may not be young anymore. I find myself not envying parents with small children anymore. I love little kids, don't get me wrong. I think they're adorable and funny and I enjoy being around them. I just don't want them to be mine anymore. I'm starting to side with the grandparents in the whole "spoil them, then send them home" controversy. Up until now, I've always sided with the parents.

There was a time when I wished I had more than one kid and I envied people their several kids. Not anymore. I'm almost done. My kid is on his way to university in the fall. I'm on the downhill slide. I've made it passed diapers, dirty faces, snotty noses and rude manners.  Okay, I'm still working on that last one. I don't have to worry about the school nurse calling or the school principal. I still do his laundry, but that's going away in September. I don't remember the last time I kissed a scraped knee, although I kind of wish I did. I don't have to worry about little boy haircuts, of course he doesn't cut it at all anymore. 

When my friends are interrupted by their children and they have to deal with the minutia of parenting young children, I sit back and relax and try to look sympathetic. I am sympathetic, I've been there. I know what it's like. Besides, I like their kids.  I don't mind having them around and even look forward to seeing them. If a friend asked, I might even babysit. It sounds like fun. I could spoil them rotten, then send them home.

Lost in a National Forest

This morning I wrote about geocaching. Now that everyone knows what that is, I can tell some funny and not so funny stories about our geocaching adventures. About five years ago, we went on a trip in Eastern Washington which was planned to finish out the "Washington DeLorme Challenge". Our son was at Boy Scout camp and we were free to wander the state for a week. So we packed up our Pug, the late great WonderPug Scout, and headed east in the middle of August.

First let me explain the DeLorme challenge. DeLorme is the name of one of the large state map books. I know you've all seen them. They're approximately, 18x24 inches, and have about 100-150 pages of maps representing the state the book is about. Even in this day of GPSs they are a great help to travelers who have learned not to become too dependent on their device. The DeLorme challenge is to get a cache in  every section  of the state covered by a page in the book. There are DeLorme challenges for several states and we were determined to make Washington's ours on this trip. We didn't. We missed a page and had to take another trip, but that's a different story.

For those of you that don't know the area, Seattle may be wet and rainy, but Eastern Washington is desert and in the middle of August it is hot!  We have a thermometer in our car and this is the only time it was ever consistently in triple digits. Poor little Scout usually rode in the back seat, but on this trip he rode on my lap so the air conditioner was blowing directly on him. When we would stop near a creek, something that happened a lot in that part of the world, Scout would walk in and just stand in it. He was a very hot puppy.  We became very adept at finding ways to avoid leaving him in the car even for a minute.  We would buy lunch at Safeway early in the morning so that we could picnic, then wait until the heat of the day was over or get permission to leave him  in our hotel room when we went to dinner.

The heat notwithstanding, the trip was going fine until the third day. That's when a problem occurred when we went to find the one cache available in one particular page. We followed our GPS's directions into a National Forest and soon were completely turned around. We got to within a mile of the cache, but it was on the other side of a barrier and it was obvious we were in the wrong place. After driving around trying to find a better way in, we realized we weren't going to be able to do this cache. Reluctantly, we decided to give it up. That's when we realized we were totally lost. The GPS didn't know where we were. We didn't know where we were. Our cell phones had no signal. We weren't going to be missed until it was time to pick up our son in five days.  This was not one of our smarter moves. We drove up and down roads, disagreeing about which ones we'd been on before. We saw no one except for some cows that were running free range within the forest. We were both beginning to get frightened. Fortunately, my husband remembered a feature on the GPS called "breadcrumbs" which shows a line where we've been. He turned that on and we were eventually able to follow it out of the forest.

Once we were out on the main road again, we read the cache page more carefully and found that it had directions to within a couple hundred feet of the cache. Feeling foolish for not having read the page more carefully to begin with, we followed the directions and managed to get to the cache site. It took us another forty minutes to find the cache and we were about to give up again when I managed to turn it up. I got a steak dinner out of that. My husband was very grateful that we managed to find the only cache on that page.

My steak dinner had to wait though. By the time we got to our hotel that night, the little one horse town had closed down. The only place that was open was an Arby's. That's okay, by that time we were pretty hungry.  We learned a few things that day. We're still not as careful as we should be, but we make sure our phone is working and our breadcrumbs are on and my husband usually leaves where we're going on his computer.

Geocaching

My husband and I are geocachers. It used to be a family activity back when our son was young enough to allow himself to be seen with us when food wasn't being offered. He's 19 now and if we're not going to feed him, he's not coming. To be honest, he doesn't come quite a bit of the time even when food is offered.

Anyway, back to geocaching. In case you don't know what geocaching is, it's a kind of scavenger hunt played internationally with GPS units or smart phones. The short answer is we use billions of dollars of military hardware to find boxes hidden in the woods.   Someone hides a small box somewhere and posts the GPS coordinates on line, usually at http://www.geocaching.com.  Then people take the GPS units, go out to the coordinates and find the box. Inside the box is a log that the finders sign. There may be trinkets to trade for, but the real goal is just to find the cache and sign the log. Once the cache has been found, the cacher logs back on to geocaching.com and logs their find there as well. This gives the cache owner and other cachers a chance to read about their adventures finding the cache.

A lot of the time, the cache site was chosen by the cache owner because it was interesting and they wanted to show the site to other cachers. It might be a beautiful view, an interesting geological formation or a historical site.  Although a lot of caches are simply fit in wherever they'll go, many of them are definitely worth the walk to get there.

There have been other side things that have grown up around geocaching over the twelve years it's been around.

FTF is First to Find, there is always a bit of a race to be the first one to sign the log of a new cache.

Trackables - Coins or travel "bugs" that have numbers on them and travel from one cache to another. If one is found, it is logged then moved to another cache. Sometimes they have specific goals and can be moved toward those goals.

CITO - Cache In, Trash Out. We make every effort to leave places better than we find them. Also around Earth Day there are usually CITO events where we work with parks departments. etc. to help clean up.

This is what we do for fun. It sounds crazy to the uninitiated, but it gets us out of the house. A friend calls it Goal Oriented Hiking. We get exercise and fresh air. Sometimes fresher than I care for. Did I mention that we are on a caching streak? We have found at least one cache every single day for the past 878 days. In the Pacific Northwest that has had us out in some pretty wet weather, several snow days and one ice storm. Yeah, I know. Crazy. But it's fun, really.

My Son Says I'm Old...

My Son Says I'm Old...

According to my son, I am old. I don't feel old and realistically, at 49, I'm not more than middle aged. My son, however, believes I am old. That has more to do with him being 19, than me being 49. He thinks his father, at 54, is positively ancient.

Our son, our one and only child, will be leaving to finish his last two years of college at a university approximately 100 miles from our home in September. This is both terrifying and exciting to me. I'm not terribly upset about it, which suggests it hasn't really hit me yet. I am looking forward to having the back room back. At this point, and for the last few years, it has been almost exclusively his domain. I walk out there occasionally, look around and giggle at all the plans I have for it. Don't tell him that.

Besides the son, we have a demon dog named Mickey who is just over a year old and not terribly well behaved. We got him when he was six months old, with a broken leg and we didn't get a chance to socialize him until his leg was completely healed. It's a work in progress. We don't know what kind of dog he is. People ask, we shrug. He kind of looks like an Australian shephard, but he's only 15 pounds.

We also have three cats. Gypsy's a Bengal who is 14 years old and still thinks with her claws. She's sweet, but if you startle her, out those claws come. I live in a constant state of scratched. Our black cat is Toby. He, and I'm not kidding here, had a sex change operation. His pipes got clogged up over and over and they said that was the only way to save him. We found him on the side of the road when he was a kitten. He is a very expensive free cat. Then there's Robin, the Maine Coon Cat. We inherited her from my mother and she's never really settled in. She always seems to be set off from the rest, no matter how hard I try to include her.

Then, there is my husband. A man with the patience of Job. He has put up with more from me and my animals than any man should have to and does it (mostly) with a smile. I married him because he was the first man I dated who was noticeably smarter than me. After 21 years, I haven't had any reason to regret it. He and our son are terrifyingly alike and tend to get on each other's last nerve because of it. On the other hand, it's always fun to listen to them write code at the dinner table.

That's our family. Stay tuned.