Gaining momentum

One week left.

Work wise, they've hired a new gal that I am training for the courier job and film scanning. It stinks that I don't understand the film request side as I hate having to answer "I don't know" to her questions. But, our boss is around and I'm leaning on her to help make sure the training is complete.

Personally, I think that the stagnant energy I unleashed by clearing out the clutter has swept me off my feet and all I can do is hope the stream is going in the right direction. As the sailing painting says in the doctor's office, "Trust that the wind knows where it's going."

Why do I say that? Last month I unloaded a lot of stuff that has just been sitting around. Afterwards, I went through and smudged the house, opening all windows and doors, and generally renewing the place. The Universe returned the favor.

I decided to go back to school full time (or three-quarters at least), I found the courage to quit my job, I've now moved, and the best news of all? I may have been in the right place, right time, and found a job already.

Got a call on Wednesday that if I was still looking for employment to get in touch. I did better, went down there and talked with the manager. Set up the appointment for an interview on Thursday at 12:30. (Covered my class with two folks taking notes and letting my teacher know.) Thursday, I headed down and went through my first real interview. The manager told me he'd put my name on the list for the district manager and I'd be getting a call on Friday. Friday rolls around, I have a great conversation with the DM, and soon, I'm called back to sign the authorizaions for a background check. :fingers, toes, and eyes crossed: There's nothing I'm aware of on my record, I really really really hope whatever the results are that it's satisfactory and the next phone call is a positive one!

I'm in freefall right now after closing my eyes and taking the plunge, all I need to do is sit back and let the flow carry me towards my goal. So far, things are working.

Caching wise, we finally placed a new cache at one site from the Dodge Campout, went out and found one while it was cold and raining (and then WAP'd the log to psych the owner out), and had a FTF surge when 5 new caches by sierradogs published. Those were fun in that Puzzleman and I were going to hike out to see the beavers along the river, but the photographer we were going with had the wrong time so the hike was cancelled - instead, we head out and start bagged FTF after FTF. Second to last we find ourselves outside sierradogs house having a great conversation, enjoying the puppy's (okay, old body, puppy at heart) sniff tour of the yard, and a fantastic drive through the sheep herds up on the hill to get the final cache. Well, I drove, Puzzleman hiked straight up and beat me by a mere 8 minutes. The pest.

Saturday, Trekrr and I cleared out his house in preparation for me moving back in. Then Sunday we spent the entire day dismantaling one house and moving the entire contents over to his house. I'm actually writing this from my new room. It'll take awhile, but I'll have my place set back up. This is just another step towards my goal. Save as much cash as I can and finish the classes I need for my degree.

I'm on my way!

A leap of Faith

Another same ol week. For the most part, until the weekend, that is.

A few caches published, of course, while I was at work. So I had to wait till afterwards to grab them. Trekrr and I even picked up one in Reno after driving around randomly and looking for a place to eat, ending up in Spanish Springs at a joint called Ghengis Grill. YUMMERS! I loved it and hope we can go back up there.

Then Friday rolled around.

I finished up my morning deliveries, made sure my worklist was caught up, and strolled into the Big Boss' office. "I've been thinking," I started, "that it's time for me to go back to school and finish my degree. Here's my letter of resignation."

Two weeks. In two weeks I will no longer be working. Two weeks to figure out what in the world I'm going to do. But in two weeks, I'm going to set out on a path that I can't see and trust in the most important thing in the world, the vision I have for my future. I finally have a vision, I finally can see beyond the darkness, I finally know the answer to what I want to do with my life. Now to get there!

Saturday, Trekrr and I headed down south to finish clearing out Gardnerville. Once again DNF'd the mini micro one, I'm convinced it's not there. Headed back into town, grabbed my gear, and off to Starbucks I go for our monthly meetup. I was hoping to get my homework done before hand. HA! Who am I kidding?

Another awesome turnout. We even had OKRA and TopazGeogoats stop by and hang out with us. And I got to get rid of more crap. House is slowly being broken down to the basics.

Sunday there wasn't a whole lot of energy to do much, so we drove up to Tahoe to check out the snow level along Kingsbury Grade. Even grabbed an Earthcache along the way. Then back to Carson to take a stab at solving Bernsports new cache, Caching in the Stone Age. We had a good idea where it was supposed to be, but once Puzzleman and BigTruckCrew/Lil Miss Muffit found it, we were convinced.

I had a second reason to find this bugger - the pest of a cache owner put the false coords 94 feet from my front door. I'll get even, don't you worry (unless you're Bern reading this, then you worry and everyone else can sit back and enjoy the outcome!)

First campout of the year!

A few months ago, I got an email from BigTruckCrew linking to a post on Reno4x4.com. It was some guy from Carson Dodge/Jeep inviting all off-roaders out for a day of "geocashing" and camping. He said later that he does know how to spell it, the "gal in the back" didn't.

So that was this weekend, but first the beginning of the week.

Monday morning I'm getting ready for work when suddenly my texts go off. Three new caches, two SHMs and one out in Washoe State Park. Figuring everyone would go after the SHMs, I took off for the one in Washoe. Get out to GZ, have some guy ask me about my truck rack, then continue the search. Nothing! What gives!? Soon another rig pulls up and NVGeoscouter joined the hunt. I had to bail and later on there's a DNF note that says the cache was found during the easter egg hunt. Ah well.

But something on the page catches my attention, a Nevada State Parks Geocaching Challenge? Ohhh. They've since posted additional information, one cache in 6 northern state parks and 6 southern state parks. Three challenges, find the North, South, or Statewide caches. Hurm... ROADTRIP!

GOt my GIS Mid-Term back, whoo hoo 96%! Now I can't wait to see what my Math score was. Erk.

SO Friday night I pack up my bag as if I was hiking the whole weekend. Must...build...up....strength ::thud::

Saturday morning, 5am (ARGH!) Dad picked me up for a quick breakfast and then off to Carson Dodge. We get there and Bill Baker, our host, is waiting with donuts and several other folks. We get the lowdown on the challenge. Go to the coordinates, find the ammo can, and pick it up, keeping the prizes inside and returning the cans. Okay, we can do this. I had brought my netbook to map out the locations and once the sheet of coords was in my hand I started typing away.

We headed out towards Mexican Dam Rd, picking up one in the hills, then south towards Hot Springs Mountain, grabbing two more - and having fun with a range gate that was all the remained of a long gone fence. The one up on Hot Springs was a steep rocky climb, and once we were about 100 feet from the cache, the road banked behind a tree.... and vanished! Dad had to back up and turn around all while sitting at a seriously sharp angle. Loverly.

The last stop on the route was down by the airport, and that cache had been picked up already. So, we had 4 of the 15 sitting in our rig and it was now 2 hours into the hunt. We turned back north to go see if any others were left.

The nice thing about clearing out all of the Eagle Valley and surrounding area? I can say "It's near "______" and Dad can start driving right up there while I fine tune the directions. Think about it, we knew every cache, every access road, almost every hill, and now we were looking for more caches. So I give directions, we get right up there, and find another cache. What?? Why is this one still here? It's only a half mile from the start point.

We check the next one, and find it, and the next and find it. What's going on?? 7 caches now found, despite a long detour, an hour lunch, and an hour dinking around on a road that we saw going off in a different direction (dumb No Trespassing sign...). So we head over to the other area and finally, two caches missing. The others must've come here first.

Off to the campground which was down at a ghost town site of Centerville, south of Markleeville. I've known they close several of the passes over the mountain during the winter, but still it was a trip seeing a big gate across a main highway. All we needed was Gandalf shouting "You Can Not Pass!"

Camping was a blast, though chilly! My 15 degree bag plus the Reactor liner worked out really well, except my toes. I think it's course my rainfly wasn't blocking the mess panel enough and letting in the wind storm right by my feet. Yes, wind storm, it was cold and WINDY! but I slept safe and sound in my little tent. Experiment was a success, now bring on the camping season!!

Sunday, we headed up into Sunrise Pass after a delish breakfast at IHOP. It was fun once again being the only Toyota in a herd of Jeeps. We even stopped an picked up two caches on the road, and got to play in a big sticky nasty mud puddle. One of the Jeeps got stuck briefly, but that's cause my directions weren't clear and she drove too close to the moat edge. I did get pics and video of the rest of us going through. Bill, not only our guide but also one of the sales guys, threatened to put the muddy Jeep on the showroom floor. Now THAT I would buy! LOL

After I got home, Dad and I got to wondering if the rest really were found, so back out into the hills we went and ended up finding two more of the caches he placed. This guy's geo-sense is sharp! While several were to close to existing caches, many were in open areas and almost all were in places that were downright awesome! Two are going to end up with regular caches at them once I stock up some of the cans Clark Gable got me. Also his coordinates were dead on, not bad for a newbie who hasn't done much caching. If he were to get into this full time, we'd all be in trouble and having the adventure of a lifetime!

An Easter surprise

Not much happened during the week. It's Mid-Term time, so in Math we were studying and in GIS we were handing the test back in. Otherwise a usual work week.

Summer classes will be starting soon, so I need to sit down and decide how I'm going to spend the next three months. I'm so close to my GIS Certificate of Achievement that I want to knock out as many classes as I can.

Now the weekend was interesting. Originally the plan had been to go hiking up the Indian Hills area on Sunday so Puzzleman could go with us first thing in the morning. However, the winter storm warning moved our hike up to Saturday. I took my fully loaded pack (all 25 pounds of it) and lugged it along with Puzzleman, BigTruckCrew, dragonflynv, and peruhuntress. I think I did fairly well despite the weight, but the cold air and soon snow eventually took their toll. While the rest went after a few more caches, I made a beeline back to the rigs, (eventually) fired up my JetBoil and had myself a cup of Starbucks VIA while I was sitting there in the snow and waiting.

Sunday, Dad and I enjoyed a quiet restful breakfast, until my phone texts went off. 6 new caches all over the valley! However, our food had just arrived, so we would go out afterwards and grab them. It was actually interesting. Bernsports was running late for a family get together and Puzzleman was running late for something else, so while those two FTF'd everything, Dad and I were the only ones to get all 6 the same day.

Not sure entirely why, but lately, I don't really want to log the caches I'm finding. Maybe it's something to do with the 3000 hanging off the end of my name, but since then, I've been writing notes on any I find and then Ignoring the cache to get it off my active list. Got about 10-15 logged like that so far. Maybe I'll do that for awhile, at least until I want to get back into the smiley side of the game.

Not much else going on. Just surviving day to day.