Doggin it

A bag? You're supposed to carry a BAG? Who knew!!! We always just stuff our pockets! a pen a Wal-mart bag for trash trading trinkets and the dog's water bottle (filled, of course!!) SOMEtimes a digital camera Usually, we find ourselves picking up what we call a poking-stick. We found there's a distinct sound made by poking stick into a pile of leaves and hitting a Tupperware box. Nuthin sez THUMP quite like that. But, a bag? Heck, dear wife carries a pocketbook loaded with all that and more, every day, so she's sure not gonna be bothered with a backpack on the treks. THAT will always be responsibility of dear husband.

Oh, heck yeah! We've been to Crystal River, FL 4 different times and thought we knew it from end to end/side to side. Then, we got a GPS and signed up as "geocachers." Well, ok, how hard can this be? We printed all our caches before we left home (NC), charged up the battery (why don't they have SOLAR-powered GPSR's???) and filled up the truck (and the dog's water bottle), ok, and maybe stuck some water in our own cooler (it really does get warm in FL in the summertime) and set out to find some Manatees. Well, we were SURE we were on the right track when we found the most convenient parking lot nearby the bay. We strolled around a little, to orient ourselves and the GPS, but we could never really get to much closer than .2 mile. Eventually, we just started following the arrow, without regard to the distance. We crossed a BUSY 4-lane highway, because, just the other side, was a small city park. Charming, even, with a gazebo and a small stream & footbridge. Very peaceful and relaxing, unless, of course, you are searching for a cache. Finally, we gave up, but pleased that we found a really neat and formerly unknown relaxation point. Dejected, we walked all the way back to the truck. Now, you've gotta understand, Sunny is about 16 yrs old, and for a doggie, that's pretty old. She also has lots of fur, so she looks a little like a polar bear. Did I mention, this fur is WHITE? Well, we prefer it STAY relatively white, and we don't like her tracking tar and other crud into our relatively new, beige camper, so she often gets carried across streets and parking lots. Oh, did I mention, she'd MUCH prefer walking herself (at least MOST of the time), and she weighs in at a hefty 32 pounds? Anyway, here we are back at the truck, when dear wife decides to check the coords just one more time. Geez, who know one little digit could make such a big difference in the "distance to target?" We were in the right place the whole time! At least, our TRUCK was!!! The moral of the story: if you're gonna enter the wrong coords, you just might get lucky and find a really charming city park.