Staycation, part 2

Thursday arrived far too fast. We started painting - natural straw over steel blue, and then made a quick trip to Brockport to try and be a FTF on a cache at the Seymour Library. No luck, and as it turned out, once again the posted coordinates were way off. While we were there, we checked in the Sherwood Williams Paint store for a border and ended up checking out a book to look further. No luck either there or online, though. For dinner, we ended up going to the Black North Inn, up at Point Breeze (good food!), and then over to Golden Hill State Park where we picked up one more cache - and starting looking for 2 more until we realized that it was too far through the woods to make it back in before dusk, and turned around halfway.


Friday we decided to check locally for a border, and as we were walking out of Cases, we came across 4 packages in the discount bin ($.99 each). They couldn't have been more perfect, if we had sought them out! So we went back to Brockport to return the book, and while we were there, we worked on the Oldies by Goodies challenge, which involved finding the 10 oldest caches in our area. 3 were in Northhampton Park, so we spent a few hours hiking there. Found 2/3, along with several others in the park, but by the time we finished (the day was in the 80s), I had gotten dehydrated and was in a lot of pain (hip), so when we got out of the woods, I just crashed at a picnic table and John was a sweetie and walked the last .25 mile and brought back the car and picked me up. At that point, I didn't care if I ever went geocaching again!

By Saturday, we had finished up the painting (ceiling and walls), and Gail came over to help me hang border. Here is the end result, which I am very happy with:

We rested, picked up the last items we needed in Lockport, along with 2 quick caches and that was our day.

Sunday - last day of staycation - we went to the RocGeo picnic in Durand Eastman Park. John had smoked a pork shoulder the day before, so we brought pulled pork and slider buns. Won a raffle prize of Tilley Hat puzzle solutions, and did a bunch of caches on the way home.

All in all it wasn't a bad staycation at all. Accomplished a major project at home, and did a lot of geocaching!

Staycation

On 8/17, I realized that summer was almost over and I hadn't taken a vacation. And, it turned out that my boss told me I was entitled to 5 days of comp time for my recent trip to Illinois, so I promptly took the next week off. This is what we did:
On Saturday, we went down to Allegany State Park to see Adrienne and family, and geocached the Amish Geotrail on the way down. Went to 10 caches, ended up with 10 buttons and a geocoin. We ended up spending about 45 minutes in Allegany, but that was fine. No one seemed particularly interested in us being there.Biggest caching day ever (23 caches).

Sunday, we started removing wallpaper from the kitchen, so the pink fruit and flowers are no more. We discovered the 24 caches we thought we had done yesterday were actually only 23, with one duplicate, so we got up early enough to get one before the 24 hour time frame was up (I have to get John a geocoin for 24 in 24 now). Other than that, we went over to Batavia, picked up a few there, had dinner at Applebee's and bought paint supplies.
Monday meant washing walls and finishing stripping wallpaper, and in the afternoon we went to look at some cabinets over in Spencerport. Natural oak, 16 cabinets for $1975. We passed on this deal, but left our name and number with the owner (Larry Almeter), who is a carpenter who redoes kitchens and resells the cabinets he removes at a good price. We only found one cache this day, since the just published cache that was nearby turned out not to be nearby (coordinates were wrong). We took the boys with us to Spencerport (A1 and A2), and stopped at a cemetery. Alden kept acting nutso, climbing trees, etc., and John was being grumpy and send "enough", so that was the end of that.
Tuesday, we started priming the kitchen and the boys came over and worked outside removing brush from behind the house, and spent the night after another quick trip to Batavia (where we found an alien cache), so they could get an early start the next morning.
Wednesday we all went to Byron to do a few caches down the old Westshore Railroad bed, and by the Chapel Rd. fishing hole.

Alden got to climb trees this time with impunity, and acquired the geotag of TreeBoy. Aeddon became Cryptomancer. A good time was had by all.

Health update

Earlier this summer, I had what I can only describe as a health scare. Shortness of breath, extreme fatigue, mystery pain. The first cardiologist gave me this terrible diagnosis when I failed my first stress test. Diastolic dysfunction - not good. Not happy with that diagnosis, I got a second opinion, and another test - this time a cardiac catheterization. This showed no blockage, and the new cardiologist (Mishra - who John has been seeing for years), posited that it could be a combination of stress, inactivity and unhealthy lifestyle (that is to say fat, out of shape, and stressed out). One of the first things I did was to drop my summer class and "step out" of school, for the time being. My stress level immediately went down. It also freed up time so that I began to be more active at home (I still need to work on my activity level at work, though.) John and I started geocaching, which meant hiking, and the more caches we found, the better I began to feel. Looking back, it's hard to believe I'm the same person I was 3 months ago - I feel that much better!

Adventures in Geocaching

We learned about geocaching when we went to the 2013 Cornell Geospatial In-service. Although many of our classmates geocached in the evenings, we didn't participate due to my health at the time. But when we got home, we tried it out, with the Culvert cache : STGT:CLO12:Medina Culvert, being our first find. Looking back, it is interesting to see that this is a Seaway Trail cache, although we didn't know it, or have the booklet at the time. We'll have to go back to get it punched tomorrow.

Our next caching trip was out to Indiana to drop off the 2 youngest grandsons. Coming home we hit 7 caches in one day, although John practically had to carry me out of the woods at the John White Game Farm. Since that time I've lost a few more pounds, and the more we cache, the better shape I find myself in. 

So, for the adventure part, I guess I should tell the story of looking for a cache on the canal in Albion this week. We were in the woods when we heard a splash and a scream. A little girl, probably around ten years old, had been fishing on the other side of the canal with her father when she fell in. John and I ran out of the woods, and John was ready to jump in and swim across the canal to rescue her when her father jumped in. The only problem was the canal on the south side is concrete walls, and not easy to get out of. I yelled to the father to stay there with the girl, we would come over and pull them out. A fisherman (Pedro) saw that there were cables hanging from the wall, and told the father to grab onto those and the three of us ran over to them. (I should note that a year ago John couldn't have run, and a month ago I couldn't have done it either). John and Pedro got there first, and pulled the little girl (Natasha) out, and I wrapped her in my Colts hoodie. Then John helped told the father to swim to the barge and helped him out there. Perhaps the story would have ended fine without us, but I know the canal to be unforgiving, and I'm glad we were there to help out.

The next day was John's birthday, and we went east to Sodus Point to do some of the Seaway Trail caches including Chimney Bluffs State Park. Wow, that was a tough one. It was about a one mile hike, uphill both ways. Up quite a steep hill! My legs still ache. Our last cache of the day was at Casey Park, and it was another uphill climb. But, we made it, and I can see how going caching has helped me to become healthier and more fit, so I hope we continue this for years to come. And just wait until I tell John that our very first cache was a Seaway Trail one, and we didn't even know it!

4th of July

It was a great 4th of July. Nothing fancy, just time spent with the family. Jess, John and I went to the Rochester Public Market in the morning, even though it turned out not to be open. There were 2 vendors there, so we got the few items that we were looking for, and then we headed for Sam's before stopping at Lowe's and Wegmans and coming home to finish up prep for the picnic at Gail's. At 2 Corey, Jess, Adrienne and family, and Brandon joined Marge, Lynn and Gail for a cookout that included baked ziti (Adrienne), hots, burgers (with TN bbq/bourbon sauce - us), sausage and tuna, salt potatoes, panzanella (me), brownies and glorified rice (Gail). After lunch the kids and John swam for awhile and then we sat in the garage while the boys played Magic. I think we left around 6; Brandon having traded his truck to A & W, who left earlier - brought the boys over to our house to eat more and play some more Magic. It was just wonderful to spend so much relaxing time with my family - this whole visit with Corey and Jess has been just wonderful and relaxing. I feel so much less stressed this summer than I have felt in years!

Really? What was that about?

Tomorrow, we leave to go to Cornell for 3 days worth of GIS/GPS training. Due to poor planning on my part, we will be leaving from Brockport at 3PM or later, because I inadvertently scheduled journal training for 2PM. So, in order to feel less stressed about it, I decided to try and have everything ready and in the car tonight. I packed the suitcase, kept out my morning pills, and suggested that John do the same. He has two glucose meters, so I thought he could take his current one with, and leave his older one out to use tonight and in the morning. He disagreed with the idea, but gave it to me anyway. Then he freaked out about how I didn't trust him to manage his own healthcare, and how he manages his conditions better than I manage mine. I have no idea where this came from, or why he felt it necessary to humiliate me in front of Brandon, but there you have it.

5/24/2013

Today was first day of compressed work week, which I swear I am doing this summer - no Fridays! We started out early and went to the Public Market because it was Flower City Days, and I wanted to look for some more heirloom tomatoes, but it was cold and rainy when we got there, and very few vendors. Fail. Stopped at Sam's and picked up some things. Then we came back, and dropped eggs off to Laura, and checked on whether my textbook for the class arrived yet. Nope, fail again. But things looked up from there. Good visit with Vinay, where I got all my questions answered (No, yes, no, walking -gradually building up as tolerance grows; we think so - but we'll continue to monitor to be sure; stress test with echo; maybe; NO; changing lifestyle; didn't ask). We also talked about my discomfort with the URMC practice, and he recommended that I try someone else (Mishra) instead. He changed my script from the two I was on, to one different one which should do both. I left feeling like "here was a plan, someone would be monitoring me, and things might be looking up". In fact, I felt better than I had in several weeks, so some of it must be due to a more positive outlook.

Lunch with John at the Boardwalk, I ordered a side salad and a turkey/cranberry wrap. It was really good. Some quiet time at home with John in the afternoon, including a nap, and then stopped by my sister's before picking up my new medication. Finally, we stopped at Old Mill Run and ate dinner, where I had (don't faint) a chicken salad and a side of mac-n-cheese. Of course, I really didn't eat much of the chicken salad because I was pretty full after the mac-n-cheese, but the meal was very good, and we will definitely be back.

All in all, a very good day, and mentally, I'm feeling fine!