Geocaching and Stuff.

Good morning everyone.

Once again it's 9am on a Sunday morning, and I haven't even started writing today's blog.  Normally I'm getting ready to click on the publish button right about now.  This has become a trend of late.  It's not from a lack of content.  I have enough geocaching pictures on my phone to create a few stories.  After almost four years of writing geocaching related blogs on a weekly basis, I'm sure I can revisit some earlier stories.  

Life goes in cycles.  It has it's ups and downs.  We go through changes.  I feel I'm experiencing a change.  I'm still geocaching.  I can't see me giving up geocaching.  Some days that's my therapy.  I'm not big on power trails as much anymore, but there is one that I've been picking away at.  I have no idea how many geocaches are on this trail, but it seems to be getting longer over time.  It runs along an abandoned railway.  Somewhere along the way, I park my car and set off on foot.  I'll go one or two kilometers out, then return to my car.  I have mentioned this trail in the past as I have been chipping away at it since the Spring.  It's just me and my thoughts as I walk down the trail.  I don't even look at my phone.  I have the next cache cued up and when I'm close, I can feel my phone vibrate in my hand.  I usually scan the area to see if I can spot the container.  I usually do six or seven caches before heading back.  The problem is that I'm getting further and further away from the city.

My most recent visit to this trail.  I did those five, plus one more elsewhere for the six I needed for the day to bring my total caches found on that calendar day to eleven.  

My view as I head South towards the caches.  It's getting late into October.  We were having some really nice weather, but the more seasonal temperatures have arrived.  It was around 5C or 41F at the time.

The containers were easier to spot with the leaves off the trees.  Another reason why I like doing this trail in the early Spring or Fall.  The finds have been quick, allowing me to get back to my thoughts sooner.

That's my return trip to my car after finding the last cache.  Almost one kilometer out, or just over half a mile.  That was at a normal pace for me.  It probably took two or three times longer getting to the furthest cache as I was stopping to find each cache.

What I've done so far.

What I have left.  The furthest cache is almost 50km or 31 miles from my apartment.  Another 14 kilometers further North is another power trail.  The Manitoba Critter trail.  I haven't even touched that one yet.  I have no idea how many geocaches make up that trail and it continues to get longer and longer.  I can see it intersecting with the Winnipeg River power trail at the other end.  

As mentioned, going on these walks by myself allows me to try and figure stuff out in my life and possibly come up with ideas or plans moving forward.  Lately it has been a struggle to stay on top of my projects.  The Geocaching Guild unfortunately has seen it's demise about ten days ago.  No announcement or fanfare.  I just stopped scheduling posts.  Towards the end, there really wasn't anything scheduled ahead of time.  It was done the morning of and usually late.  

Another thing that came to an end was something I was doing on my own FB page.  From Monday to Friday, I would post a picture, usually of the sun coming up as I saw it from the fourth floor at my work.  I would include what crazy holiday it was for that day, such as banana bread day, say hi to your neighbor day, world naked gardening day (an actual day celebrated the first Saturday in May), and a top 10 list that people tried to guess what made the list.  it was fun to do, but I needed time for me.  

The start of another work day.

Where does my blog fit in to all this change?  I don't know.  I write because I enjoy sharing my stories and thoughts.  It's certainly not for the money.  The Cache Crates I was getting last year was costing me around $40/month, and quite frankly, those boxes are not worth $40.  Cache Advance didn't acknowledge what I was doing as far as I can remember.  The photo contest was coming out of my pocket.  It didn't generate the entries or more readers as I had hoped.  I'm two months shy of my fourth anniversary of writing.

Personally, I'm starting to purge my possessions.  I keep hauling this stuff around from one apartment to the next and some of it never gets unpacked.  Time for it to go.  One thing I'm hoping to sell is my comic book collection that I have had since the mid 1980s.  I'm pricing it out and finding books I forgot I had.  Out with the old and simplify my life.

Doesn't look like much if you're not a collector, but that issue is the first full appearance of the Venom character.  He has his own movie in theaters right now.  I have over 3,000 books that I want to sell.  Wish me luck.

That's about it for this week.  Until next time, it may be next week or it may not, be happy, stay safe, hug your pets, and most importantly, just have fun.

I spent my vacation week looking after this crazy cat.  It was a rough start, but we were starting to bond at the end.