Geocaching

Waiting is not always easy. You would think Mike and I would be getting better at it but it seems we are indeed getting worse. I know everyone that has ever had their house on the market understands our pain. You keep the house totally clean EVERYDAY! Now I am a good housekeeper, always have been, but this is getting ridiculous. We had not had anybody looking for the past few days so I decided to take some time off. Well, as luck would have it, I got a call today that somebody wanted to see the house this afternoon around 4:00. Note I said around 4:00, that could be anywhere from 3:30 to 5:00 on a bad day. On a good day it means around 4:00. So I got the house in its "show" mode, grabbed our Shih Tzus and headed out for our road trip. They are getting to the point that they know the signs of an upcoming road trip. They are the only ones having any fun with this selling process. The folks came around 4:30 and stayed approximately 15 minutes. Wow, all that work for 15 minutes! One day it will all pay off, at least that is what I keep telling myself!!

With that said, Mike and I decided to look into Geocaching. This is a huge, fun, phenomenon that many fulltimers are involved in as they travel. I went to http://www.geocaching.com/ to see what it was all about. The more I read the more hooked I got. I signed up for a free account and found out that there are many caches hidden in the area around where we currently live and many in Pine Mountain, where we did our hosting last summer. There are not many tools necessary for geocaching but one item that is needed is a hand held GPS. After doing some reading on the subject I discovered that you don't need to purchase the most expensive GPS available for this hobby. We have found the Garmin eTrex Legend might be the one to meet our needs. The GPS should have the following features: basemap, 12 parallel channels to help acquire satellite signals faster , the usual antenna jack, interface jack, memory, power source that can support external power, rocker keypad or touchscreen and most newer GPS devices have functionality specifically created for geocaching. In addition, it was noted that sooner or later you would be glad you purchased a GPS that was waterproof. There are many good GPS devices suited for outdoor use, such as geocaching, but we like the Garmin eTrex Legend and the cost is in the mid range. Once we have purchased the GPS we will begin our first search. We are excited and should be able to purchase the GPS this weekend.

It sure beats cleaning and waiting for that 15 minutes of glory and besides getting outside and smelling the fresh air has to be better than the usual Pine Sol and Scrubbing Bubbles.

Waiting

I am not good at waiting! It is a very hard thing to do. You feel like your life is on hold and in fact it actually is on hold. It is hard to know just when to put your house on the market. It is all about timing but the minute you put the sign in your yard the waiting begins. You wait for someone to show the house. You wait for them to finish looking at the house because you have to leave while they look. You wait to hear how they liked the house - or not. Then the wait begins again. In the meantime, you wait to begin this new lifestyle that you have planned and dreamed about. Unfortunately, you wait till the weekend so you might be able to have time to take a short trip in the motorhome. Waiting really demands that you develop patience!

Our hosting position ended October 13th. We had a great time and met many super people. All in all it was a very rewarding experience. When we left the campground we stored our motorhome at Pine Mountain Campground. We had stored our other motorhome there and decided to do it again with our current motorhome. It is a nice, clean campground and most importantly, safe. When we arrived there was not an open spot that we could back into and it was a very busy weekend with most schools being out for fall break. We were told to just park parallel in front of the RVs in storage. We understand full campgrounds and the hassle in moving stored RVs to make room for us so we parked where we were told. The only problem with our spot was the access it had to the road. We both felt a little nervous but decided that it was only temporary and it would be ok. We were mostly concerned about RVs turning the corner too wide and perhaps hitting or scratching it. What we didn't think about were children. I should have since I am a retired teacher but it just didn't cross our minds. When we went to move the motorhome we noticed that it now had a scratch running from the rear all the way to the door! A light, faint scratch just about the height of a child with a stick. We were sick! The good news is that it did not break the skin of the paint and can be buffed out. At least that is what we were told. The campground manager has called an RV service company to come and buff the scratch and wax it out. Now we wait!!