Dustin, Sadie and I went geocaching for the first time a couple of weeks ago. If you've never heard of geocaching, basically, it's a modern day treasure hunt :)
D told Sadie we were going to a park, technically it is kind of a park :) She grabbed up a stick to clear the pathway and for protection from bears. Each time we go to our neighborhood park she and her daddy each pick up a stick and go hunting in the bear forest (the bear forest consists of about 10 trees).
Dustin found a geocache destination not too far from where we live so he printed of the coordinates and clues and used the GPS device on his phone. The longitude and latitude had to be converted into the right format. With no pen or paper, I had to remember the numbers 806 (the top numbers) and Dustin remembered the bottom numbers. When it was my turn to get us lost I asked him about every 5 minutes what his number was.
As we were walking through the woods I thought of three things:
1. I hear gun shots and remembered, oh yeah, its youth weekend for deer hunting and we are in the woods, and I don't see any purple on any trees or fence posts (meaning no hunting). Youth, as in, not as experienced with guns as adults. hmm, added excitement!
2. We are wandering around out in the middle of nowhere, following the directions of a complete stranger, to find a box with something in it that we don't know what it is. Then I remember...
3. My sister and I had a Halloween party one Fall (also a birthday party for my sister, born 2 days after Halloween). Other than the costume contest, the biggest deal at the party was the scavenger hunt. The directions led us across the gravel road to our neighbor's farm. No one lived at the small house at the farm so that added an additional amount of eeriness. As we walked closer to the corner of the empty house, a giant gorilla jumped out, hollering and pounding his chest.
The gorilla was actually my dad dressed in a gorilla suit and well giant...um... he's about 6 feet tall, not exactly a giant. With all these ideas running through my head, at this point I'm expecting anything scary to happen, but my curiosity won't let me turn around, even though at this point I'm carrying around the little 3 1/2 year old explorer on my hip (who kept asking if my back was hurting, she's so perceptive :) )
Thanks to my directions, we weren't even close, so Dustin took back over. I knew he was getting close when Sadie refused to go through a little bit of a rougher path. We had been wandering around for about an hour when D announced that he found it. He waited for us to catch up and he pulled out the hidden box.
We had planned to just see what was in the box so that we would have a better idea of what to bring on the next geocache, but how do you explain that to a 3 year old who sees a box full of treasures. She picked out a small flashlight and we were reaching in our pockets to find something to leave. I reached in my right pocket and found my keys. The only thing I had to leave was my surfboard rainbow bottle opener keychain; this was a very sentimental item that was neat to leave since it was our first geocache but hated to let it go to.
The keychain came with the rainbow sandals Dustin got me for my birthday. I realized I needed a pair of Rainbow Sandals when my friend Vanessa and I drove to Florida one Spring. To stay awake while driving I called Dustin (my friend from work), what a great friend to talk to me until well after midnight. While Vanessa and I were relaxing in the hotel hot tub, two guys started talking to us about working at Lalapolosa and how one of them had found a pair of broken Rainbow Sandals. Rainbow Sandals are guaranteed for life, so when he sends them back to Rainbow, Rainbow will send him a new pair. That sounded amazing. Oh, did I mention he was under the influence of LSD? Yes, he also explained to us that when he pulled his hand out of the water, to us, it just looked like dripping water but to him (on LSD) he saw beautiful colors coming from the water. I couldn't stop thinking about the Rainbow Sandals and I couldn't stop thinking about Dustin. Two months later, we were a officially a couple and he got me the Rainbow Sandals for my birthday...that came with the keychain.
1 1/2 years later, we got a new puppy...Rainbow does not guarantee that your new puppy won't chew them up. So all I had left was the keychain and the memory :)
Sadie was excited to have her new treasure!
Earlier that week:
Me: You should wear this glittery unicorn necklace
Sadie: I don't want to wear it, it doesn't match
Me: Your shirt is blue, the unicorn is blue, what doesn't match?
Sadie: I'm not wearing it
Me: Fine I'll wear it then (reverse psychology, right?)
Sometime around noon, I look at myself in the elevator (at work) and I realize, I'm wearing a glittery unicorn necklace. Oh my gosh, who has seen me today wearing this necklace.
If only I would have reached in my left pocket instead of my right. I would still have my keychain and not the unicorn necklace :)
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