Hi, friends! Three days before Christmas seems like a good time to check in and assure you I'm still alive.

I'm still alive.

It's been a busy, busy year and a busy season, but I do believe I'm caught up with gifts and wrapping and, as of last night, baking. The last two packages have been mailed. All that's left to do is deliver a couple of loaves of bread, box up some cookies and fudge to take to all the neighbors, go to the late church service on Christmas Eve, stuff the stockings and put the presents under the tree and the roast in the crock pot.

I've been having issues with my van. Sometimes it doesn't want to start. My mechanic has replaced the starter twice, but he can't figure out what's killing it and the van won't not start when it's in the shop so they can hook it up to the computer and run diagnostics to find out where the problem is.

So yesterday, I loaded the last two boxes into the van, put my bottle of Limbo Bimbo nail polish in my purse, grabbed my shopping list (just a few odds and ends the grocery store was out of on my last trip), and headed off to mail the packages, do the shopping and get a long awaited pedicure. Except the van wouldn't start. Now, I'd been told that if it didn't start and I was in the general area and the mechanic's shop was open, I could call and they would send somebody to me with a voltage reader and other mechanicky paraphernalia to try and figure out what's going on with the van. So I called, but everyone was out to lunch except the one guy who answered the phone. He told me to call back in a couple of hours if I still couldn't get it started.

I sighed, mentally changed my plans for the entire day, loaded my arms with packages and bills and hiked down the icy street to the post office where I mailed everything and the postmaster was kind enough to fetch my mail out of my P.O. box since I'd forgotten to grab the mailbox key out of the van. The funny thing was that she said, "Good news! There are no packages today." To which I replied, "Yay! Now hopefully my van won't start in a couple of hours." Who'd have thought I'd be happy not to receive any packages four days before Christmas and hoping my van wouldn't start? It must be the magic of the season.

I walked home, watched some of the Doctor Who marathon on BBC America, and tried to start the van again. Still dead - woohoo! I made a sandwich for lunch while waiting for one of the mechanics to show up, but only managed to eat half of it before he got here. Turns out the battery was worn out. Shoot - most likely not connected to the other issue. Dave (the mechanic) told me to drive it on over to the shop and he'd order a new battery for me if they didn't have one on hand.

I left the van running while I finished my sandwich, then drove the couple of blocks to the shop where I was told the new battery was on the way and should be delivered within ten minutes. So I sat down to wait, hopeful that perhaps I would get that pedicure after all. Turns out, the battery arrived in ten minutes, but it took about 30 minutes for them to finish working on the car that was already in the work bay. By the time my van was ready and I'd paid for it, I just had time to deliver a loaf of bread and spend some time catching up with a dear friend I hadn't seen in a while. Well, technically, the nail salon was still open, but it was getting dark and I was tired and decided it wasn't meant to be that day and I would go tomorrow (today).

Well, it's tomorrow. I headed out this morning armed with my shopping list, my mailbox key and my bottle of Limbo Bimbo. Here's how today went:

Drove to the nail salon but they were so busy there was no place to park - drove to the dollar store and found a couple of cookie tins - drove to the grocery store and got the stuff on my list - drove back to the nail salon just in time to watch another woman grab the last parking space - sighed and drove to McDonald's to get some lunch - the car in front of me paid for my lunch (that's the first time that's ever happened to me) so I paid for the car behind me (which ended up costing me twice as much as my lunch, but it made me happy) - drove to the car wash and ate my cheeseburger while the new "laser wash" cleaned the salt and sand off my van - drove to Krysten's apartment and left some lasagna in her fridge, a gift under her tree and washed her dishes (sh! don't tell her - it's a surprise) - drove to my friend Connie's house and left some lasagna hanging on her doorknob (and found a gift hanging there for me) - and drove home without my pedicure.

Please, Santa - all I want for Christmas is neatly trimmed toenails painted Limbo Bimbo pink. Is that too much to ask?

I haven't been on social media a lot lately, and I'm way behind on letters to my pen pals. It's been a crazy year. Since March I've been on eight (I think) road trips. I've kind of lost count. I have at least two more ahead of me before the end of October. At the moment I am enjoying a short break from driving while I deal with some insurance and repair stuff and try to let my hands unswell and stop hurting. Here's a brief pictorial of what I've been up to for the past week or so.

My younger sister came to visit me last week. She flew into Chicago and took a bus to Michigan City where I picked her up. Unfortunately, on my way to picking her up, this car slammed into the back of my van at full speed while I was at a red light.

My van doesn't look like it has much damage, but the car went underneath it, then popped up, so the damage is mostly underneath the back of my van and in the cargo area - where there is now a 3-D impression of the front end of a Honda. So that's the insurance and repair stuff I'm trying to get started. The van won't be fixed until next month, but it's okay to drive so the remaining road trips are still on.

My sister and I went to Wisconsin to visit our cousin on Washington Island. We had a great couple of days, even if the Northern Lights were a bust.

We enjoyed beautiful sunsets...

... and peaceful sunrises on the island.

We also visited a lavender farm, climbed an observation tower, and generally explored and enjoyed our time on the island.

Once back in Michigan, we spent a couple of afternoons in beautiful St. Joseph, one day at the south pier with a view of the lighthouses across the river.

The lake looks smooth in all the pictures, but it was actually a bit choppy. Notice everyone wearing jackets.

The navigation beacon at the end of the south pier has been defaced with graffiti since last time I was there, which made for a great photo of my sister (leaning on the steps) and my daughter (leaning against the railing).

That evening we met up with murisopsis for a Wine & Canvas night.

Sunday afternoon was spent at the north pier before I took my sister back to Michigan City to catch the bus to Chicago.

Now I'm working on some writing when my hands allow, but I'm kind of stuck at the moment and need to start again tomorrow with a fresh outlook. If I take a sleeping pill tonight, maybe I'll be awake enough to write tomorrow.

I'm off to Arkansas to see my mom in a couple of weeks, then another trip to Delaware to spend some time with my husband and attend a geocaching mega event in New Jersey, and a mad dash home in time for trick-or-treating.

That's most of the highlights. My finger is too swollen to bend now, so time to stop typing, take that Ambien and go to bed.

I'm so far behind in blogging and pretty much everything else in life, I sometimes feel like throwing up my hands, giving up on adulting and going back to bed. The thought of bed is even more attractive since I'm doing well to manage four hours of sleep a night. [In a funny coincidence, I dozed off after writing the previous sentence.] Here's a little bit of what I've been up to.

... Oops! I fell asleep again.

Let's see, since March I've been to Arkansas twice, Ohio, Colorado and Delaware. In a few days I'll be headed to Wisconsin, followed immediately by another trip to Arkansas, followed by another jaunt to Delaware. Here we all are at Bethany Beach in Delaware.

Tomorrow my little sister arrives and I have a barbershop chorus performance.

Brett's been home three or four times, most recently to celebrate our 36th anniversary with tickets to see Wicked. We also enjoyed a walk on the pier and an afternoon of geocaching with murisopsis and Old Dog Sparky.

I've been to Wine & Canvas three or four times. Here's the painting from last week.

And here's the one murisopsis painted. She did the best one in the class. (Sorry it's crooked. It was sideways on the easel and I rotated the photo.)

I made another fidget quilt. It started because I found a remnant of fleece with a John Deere design. That became the back of the quilt...

... and it inspired the farm theme of the quilt.

Did you notice the awesome, tractor, pumpkin, corn sheep and pig buttons? I found the child's overalls at Goodwill. They were little girl overalls with hearts embroidered on the bib pocket, so I bought a John Deere patch to cover the hearts with. I'm pleased with how this one turned out, but it's weird how I had a clear vision for this quilt and had a terrible time getting it put together, but had no vision for Mom's quilt and it went together quickly and easily.

I finally went onto the new Pottermore website and decided to be resorted for Hogwarts. I guess I belong in Gryffindor because it put me there for the second time. I was sorted into Thunderbird house in Ilvermorny, my patronus is a manx cat, and my wand is Larch wood with a unicorn hair core, 12.25 inches long and slightly yielding.

Because my geekiness knows no bounds, I've also been playing Pokemon Go when I have the time - mostly when I take Boo for walks in the village. The other day when Brett and I were walking on the pier, we found some odd graffiti.

I've been cooking and baking. My sister and I will be visiting our cousin in Wisconsin and we're taking food so she doesn't have to worry about feeding us. I've made and frozen a pizza, a pot of mulligatawny soup and a loaf of homemade bread. Tonight I baked some Amish Cinnamon Friendship  Bread to which I added chocolate chips and cinnamon chips. And I just took one of my Captain Morgan Spiced Pear Pies out of the oven. I've bought the ingredients for my sister to make a coconut cream pie tomorrow. I don't think anyone is going to go hungry on Washington Island.

I've been struggling with arthritis and tendinitis. My insurance company is being difficult about filling a Celebrex prescription, so I tried a cheaper arthritis drug and after about ten days, it made me sick. So I guess I'll take Tramadol to manage the pain when I don't need to drive anywhere (because Tramadol makes me drowsy), and suffer when I do need to drive. It sucks.

And now that my pie is out of the oven, I'm going to take Boo on a moonlight walk through the village, hit up the five Poke-stops along the way, come home and try to stay awake long enough to do a little cleaning. I'm glad it's family coming, because I haven't had the energy to clean for company. It's a good thing Beth is family, too.

I'll be without internet on Washington Island, so I'll check in on Xanga and Facebook when I get back.

This is an updated version of a blog I posted on Xanga five years ago.

Today: Brett is in Delaware and I’m in Michigan. I’m planning to pamper myself with a pedicure before slaving over the stove all day canning salsa.

1 year ago today: We were at the mid-point of our big 35^th anniversary road trip west across the northern plains to Seattle, south down the Redwood Highway to Santa Monica, and east across Route 66 back to Michigan. On this day last year, we drove through a giant redwood tree.

3 years ago today: Brett drew an anniversary masterpiece on the paper tablecloth at the local plunge (one step above a dive) where we ate lunch. We ordered the only non-fried food on the menu (seriously – they deep-fried hamburgers there!) but discovered they were still gut-bombs an hour later when we were half a mile into a hike in the woods, twelve miles from home.

6 years ago today: We were on a geocaching blitz in Columbus, Indiana. We had dinner at a little Italian restaurant and I drank too much wine.  We ate cake at the hotel that night.

11 years ago today: We were in a little B&B on the Maine coast. We’d gone whale watching the day before (a change of plans because of the weather forecast). We spent this day exploring the Marginal Way and had a lovely lobster dinner at a fancy outdoor restaurant that night.

12 years ago today: We went out to dinner and then to a movie. It’s really hard to find a good movie this time of year; the only thing remotely interesting to us was Napoleon Dynamite. We were the only ones in the audience that night so, with the theater to ourselves, we were able to heckle the movie. I think we enjoyed it more than we would have otherwise.

15 years ago today: The horrors of 9/11 were still being televised nonstop. We didn't feel like celebrating.

16 years ago today: We awoke to the gentle clip-clop of horses hooves going down Market Street on Mackinac Island. We spent the day walking, or sitting on benches looking at the lake and the lighthouse. That night we took a carriage to a restaurant that had once been a very rich little girl’s playhouse. It was so dark inside we couldn’t see what we were eating. It tasted good, but it felt like twigs and bits of pinecone.

26 years ago today: We were temporarily living with my parents in Arkansas. We were going to take Krysten out for lunch and miniature golf, but she didn't care about our "dumb old anniversary." We had dinner at Red Lobster and went to the cinema at the mall to see Naked Gun 2 1/2. There were two other people in the audience. Bad movies are a bit of an anniversary theme for us.

31 years ago today: I was alone in Hawaii with a five-month-old daughter. Brett was on his way to the North Pole on a submarine.

35 years ago today: We stopped at the McDonald’s drive-thru and sat in our living room eating Big Macs, drinking cheap wine and playing The Dark Tower, a cutting edge board game on which we’d spent all our extra money.

36 years ago today: We were on top of Mt. Sequoya. It was hot and we were in the middle of a drought. My sister sang songs by John Denver and Bread.

I walked up the aisle between rustic wooden benches to the strains of The Wedding March being played on a violin. My veil wasn’t anchored properly and kept slipping off my head. When we knelt for the prayer, my sister jammed the combs holding the veil into my head so it wouldn’t fly off when Brett lifted the veil off my face for our first kiss as husband and wife.

We had a cake my aunt made for us and punch my mother made.

My great-aunt and great-uncle drove us away in their brand new Lincoln town car while my cousins stood with handfuls of shaving cream and who knows what else, too afraid to use it. We laughed all the way to my aunt and uncle’s ranch where we’d hidden our cars. We changed clothes and retrieved Brett’s car, discovered we’d forgotten a set of keys and went back to his apartment to find them. While we were there, we opened wedding presents. As we headed off to our honeymoon cabin on top of Mt. Winslow, we realized we were both starving. Our ceremony had started at 3 PM and we’d both been too nervous to eat lunch beforehand. So we stopped at McDonald’s on the way out of town and ate in the car as rain began to fall, ending the drought. We felt the welcome rain was blessing our marriage.

I've been married to this goofy guy for 36 years. It just keeps getting better.

I am not a quilter. A little further down the page, I'll post a photo and anyone reading this will nod and think, "She's not lying." I'm not a quilter, but when my niece sent me an article about "fidget blankets," I wanted to make one for my mom. Fidget blankets are designed for people suffering from Alzheimer's Disease or other forms of dementia. They may be made with things attached to pull on, twist, or otherwise play with. They may be made from different types of fabrics to provide sensory stimulation or comfort.

I made several trips to JoAnn Fabrics with no real vision for the project. I bought fabrics of different textures, deciding that for Mom, the feel of the blanket would be the main feature, with only a few doo-dahs to play with and no buttons or beads since she's been in a stage of Alzheimer's that renders her incapable of recognizing what's edible and what's not. In other words, she tries to eat anything she gets her hands on. Because of that, I also decided that every bit of this lap quilt would be machine stitched, to make it harder for her to pick and pull it apart.

I spread the bits of fabric out on my table and played with it for a few days, trying to find inspiration. Ultimately, I decided to keep it simple, with two large blocks of fabric and two groups of four smaller blocks sewn together. One of the large blocks was plain white fabric over which I stitched a handkerchief of Mom's I discovered in a box of her papers and photos I ended up with.

The upper left of the quilt is four small squares of different fabrics. Bright colors, cheerful patterns, one is a soft fleece with knobbly bumps on it, one is a thick satin with a butterfly design. Across the seams I sewed large, rainbow rickrack. On two of the squares I sewed bits of snap tape and made little stuffed hearts with the other half of the snap tape on top. Before stuffing the hearts, I spritzed the polyester filling with Mom's favorite Chantilly cologne.

The top right square is made of that fussy flower fabric that wedding dresses and ball gowns are made of. I didn't add anything to this square.

The bottom right is four small blocks sewn together, three of them the same fabrics as the upper left. The satin fabric was replaced with a soft, shaggy fake fur. On the three non-furry blocks I sewed bits of ruffled elastic for Mom to pull on and twist.

The handkerchief square is on the lower left. I made a heart-shaped pocket and sewed it into the middle of the square. It's to hold a couple of the stuffed hearts. I know these hearts will get lost, so I made eight of them. My sisters can replace the hearts as they get lost and I can make more when needed.

The quilt is bound with wide, satin blanket binding, which I used to make my daughter part of the quilt. She loves blankets with satin bindings.

The back of the quilt is the same heart print fabric as the pocket. Some of the hearts say, "I LOVE YOU MORE." I chose this fabric because every week I write to my mom and the last thing I write is, "I love you SO MUCH!!"

After another trip to the store for fabric markers, I am in the process of writing the names of my parents, all their children and spouses, grandchildren and spouses, and great-grandchildren in the empty hearts. Those names will take up most of the back of the quilt.

This has been my latest art project. I probably spent more time and money than I should have for something that will probably end up picked apart, torn, washed and dried in industrial machines, and ultimately lost, but once I started it became a labor of love.

We are looking for people who would be willing to make one or more lap-sized fidget blankets so we can give one to every person on the Alzheimer's wing of Mom's nursing home for Christmas. We need around 20 quilts/blankets, and they don't have to be as involved as this one was. Then again, this one probably would have been a piece of cake for a real quilter. If you'd like to make one for one of the residents on Mom's wing, leave a note in the comments.

I awoke this morning, after another restless night, to the sound of motorcycles rumbling down our dead-end street and Boo barking downstairs. Today is my second-least favorite day. My five least favorite days of the year, counting down to the worst, are:

5. Mammogram Day

4. Doing the Taxes Day

3. Going to the Dentist Day

2. Support the Troops Festival Day

1. Pap Smear Day

Today, as you’ve surely deduced, is the Support the Troops Festival. It’s less a festival than a pay-to-attend party that lasts from 8 AM until sometime in the wee hours of tomorrow morning. I call it the Redneck Patriots Festival. Hotrods and motorcycles start rumbling through our sleeping village around 7 AM. There are people sitting in private yards on all the streets leading to the field, which they fenced off yesterday as I discovered when I tried to take Boo on our morning walk, to collect the entrance fee. Usually they are in yards at the end of the street closest to the field, but when I looked out my bedroom window, I saw someone sitting in the yard on the corner. If he tries to stop me every time I come home today, I’m going to be pissed.

Actually, I’m already pissed. You’re smart enough that you probably realized that without me pointing it out. These people are going to spend the entire day and most of the night playing loud music over a P.A. system, yelling, getting drunk, and being generally obnoxious. I will have to take Boo to daycare and pay for him to stay overnight because there will be a fireworks show tonight. It’s a nice fireworks show, but they are very loose with the start time. One year, they spent two solid hours awarding door prizes – we are close enough to hear what’s going on and several of the door prizes were guns which I’m pretty sure is not entirely legal. Anyway, that year the door prize drawings lasted so long, the fireworks show was an hour late starting. Village residents can’t go to bed until after the fireworks show because… HELLO! EXPLOSIONS!!  Finally, a little before midnight, somebody somewhere in the village started honking the horn on their car and soon there were hundreds of car horns blaring all over town. They got the message and started the fireworks and they’ve been a little bit better about not starting them so late in the two or three years since then. I imagine that has more to do with complaints to the village president and fear of losing their venue than fear of another car horn protest. We’ll see how they do tonight.

There are only two things that are making this day better for me. One is that I’ve got a few friends from Indiana and a couple of Krysten’s friends coming over to grill sausages and watch the fireworks tonight. I even have the sparklers I hauled to Colorado in my suitcase and forgot about for us to play with while we wait for the fireworks to start. And it’s a cool day so far, so we may be able to start a fire in the fire pit and I have stuff to put in the flames to turn them blue and green and I may even buy stuff to make s’mores.

That was all one thing. The other thing making today better is that, when I opened up the document I keep for writing blog posts, I found this list of 100 things that make me happy and I read the entire list before I started writing this post. It made me happy.

I put Boo’s Batman shirt on him today hoping it will make him feel brave enough to just growl at the noise instead of the incessant barking I usually have to contend with until I take him to daycare in the afternoon. We are going for a walk in the opposite direction from our usual walk and maybe we’ll capture a few Weedles and Pidgies along the way. Someday I’m going to figure out what to do with all these monsters after I’ve caught them. I wish I could turn them loose on the redneck patriots; Boo would like that.

Grr! I'm Batdog; the dog you deserve.

I've been sorting through boxes that have been in my attic for many years. So far, all the boxes have been toys - mostly dolls, and most of the dolls have been Barbies. My mom gave me several boxes of dolls (mostly Barbies) many years ago, and in sorting through them I've found several character dolls, as well. There are dolls depicting Michael Jackson, Donny and Marie Osmond, Dolly Parton, Brooke Shields, Angie Dickinson, Cheryl Ladd, Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, Roddy McDowell as Cornelius from Planet of the Apes, Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce, Sonny and Cher, Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, and a G.I. Joe ripoff of the Six Million Dollar Man called Mike Power the Atomic Man. All of these are for sale if anyone is interested.

While sorting through dolls and doll clothes, I was impressed all over again with my mom's skill in making Barbie clothes. I posted about my homemade Barbie clothes way back in 2008; you can read that post HERE if you're interested. Here's a picture of my Barbie clothes from 1964 if you don't want to read that post.

Here are a couple of outfits Mom made for Krysten.

Sorting through Krysten's Barbie clothes, I was also impressed with myself. I'd forgotten about all the fancy Barbie clothes I made for her when she was little. When she began to outgrow playing with Barbies, I made a few historical Barbie outfits just for the fun of making them. Here are two of them.

As we've gotten older, Brett and I have talked about the eventual need to downsize to a smaller house and, someday, assisted living. We're slowly going through the stuff in the basement and attic. Most of the old clothes and household stuff has been donated to our church rummage sale, but if I can find a weekend this summer that's not already committed to other things, I'll be having a yard sale that will include a lot of Barbie dolls and playsets, the character dolls listed above, and possibly some Batman and Star Trek collectibles. Some things, like the Barbie clothes that link me to my mom and my daughter, have too much sentimental value to sell or give away.

What is gathering dust in your house that you can't bring yourself to part with?

I'm way behind on blogging about our vacation in Colorado. In fact, I think I have the first and last days posted, but nothing in between. After my first day of geocaching in southern Illinois and then driving back up to the St. Louis area, I spent the second day driving across Missouri and picked up Brett at the Kansas City airport. We then drove to central Kansas for the night (with one stop to accidentally climb a hill in the Flint Hills) and made our way to Colorado Springs, with a brief stop in Mingo, Kansas (to find the oldest active geocache in the world) along the way.

We only spent one day in Colorado Springs, but we tried to cram a lot into it. We weren't entirely successful. After checking out of the hotel in the morning, we headed toward the wilderness west of the city. Our goal was to find the oldest cache in Colorado, called Tarryall. The drive took about an hour-and-a-half and there was some lovely scenery along the way. This is a random shot I took out the window of the van as we drove through the boonies.

It was the middle of nowhere, but the road was really nice, until suddenly it wasn't. There was a sign that said "Road Damage Ahead" and suddenly there was no road. At least that's what it felt like. We crept down the bumpy track at about 20 mph for what seemed like hours and finally the GPS said we were nearing our destination. That's when we ran into the road construction crew (in the wilderness!) and the barricade (in the boondocks!) and the long line of cars (in the middle of nowhere!) waiting for the pilot car to lead them down the one- lane track, dodging backhoes and other large equipment along the way. We could see where we needed to turn, just on the other side of the barricade, and it was not a pretty sight. It had poured rain the day before and apparently overnight as well. That "road" was a churned up sea of mud and even after a ninety minute drive and a long wait in line behind the barricade, I didn't feel it was worth finding the oldest cache in Colorado if we got stuck in the mud and had to wait several hours for a tow truck to get us out. So we followed the pilot car about eight miles down the remnant of a road that made the other damaged part seem smooth as glass, turned around and followed the line at the other end back through the construction zone and drove an hour-and-a-half back to Colorado Springs.

Next we visited Garden of the Gods. It was beautiful, but really crowded with cars, bicycles and pedestrians absolutely everywhere. There were no parking spaces left in all but two stops in the park and Brett had to be hyper-vigilant driving because most people there were not exercising the best judgment in their walking, cycling or driving. We really enjoyed the scenery, but the people were like swarms of annoying gnats.

After Garden of the Gods, we decided to go to the top of Pike's Peak. Had we been thinking, we would have remembered what Pike's Peak looked like from Garden of the Gods and maybe we would have decided that wasn't the best idea.

The top of Pike's Peak was hidden behind that big cloud. As we drove toward the mountain, it started raining. The closer we got to the mountain, the harder it was raining. By the time we got to the part where you pay to drive the rest of the way to the top, it was coming down in torrents. We discussed it and it was unanimous - driving to the top in those conditions was not a good idea. So we turned around and headed back to Colorado Springs. We heard later that they'd had to close the mountain and rescue a few tourists who got stuck in the downpour at the top. I think they also had to close it the next day. So, yay for good decision making. It was frustrating, though, that we'd wimped out at Tarryall, spent the time in Garden of the Gods playing Dodge the Tourist, and been rained out at Pike's Peak.

I had a couple of geocaches loaded for the trip up the highway to Denver so we wiped the dust of Colorado Springs off our feet and hit the road north. The first cache was about halfway between Colorado Springs and our hotel in Lone Tree (on the south side of Denver). It was called Cache Encounters of the Third Kind. Back when it was placed, there was probably nothing but forest out there. Now there's a high-end housing development with lots of gates and warning signs about security video. There are also bridle trails through the forest and we stopped near one of the trailheads and headed into the woods. It was eerily beautiful. There was a forest fire three years ago and the trees that are still standing are black and have no foliage. There was no underbrush - presumably it burned - but there were millions of tiny white and pink wildflowers growing under the blackened remains of the trees.

We stayed on the bridle trail until it looped around and we realized the cache was somewhere in that sea of flowers. I didn't want to walk through them; they were too pretty to trample! We stepped as carefully as possible and eventually found what we were looking for. At one time, it was a shiny silver spaceship with a glass dome on top and aliens visible inside. It was hovering high overhead with some sort of clever mechanism to lower it. And then one of the most destructive fires in Colorado's history swept through the forest.

The spaceship survived, but it's no longer shiny and silver. The glass dome did not survive the fire, nor did the cable system that it once hung on. Unfortunately, the aliens did not survive, either.

We gave this cache a favorite point for its creativity, its durability and its beautiful location. Our walk through the woods did much to ameliorate the frustrations of the day.

The next cache was on the outskirts of Denver. We got to ground zero and found an electric pole with a long tube attached to it. There was a screw on the bottom of the tube and when I gently tugged on it, I could feel the resistance of a spring inside. I smiled in delight - the cache was named Pinball. I pulled down on the screw as hard as I could and released it, and the tiny cache popped out of the top of the tube. Brett had to find it in the tall grass of the ditch, and I was really glad he was with me because I could not have reached the top of the tube to replace the cache.

We got to our hotel and contacted murisopsis and Old Dog Sparky who had already been in Colorado for several days. They met us for dinner at a nearby Chile's and we discussed whether or not we were going to make it to the Midnight Madness event on the capitol steps that night. Brett and I were planning to go, Mark and Val were not. Alas, Eastern time zone kicked in around 10 pm Mountain time and I decided what Brett already knew, to wit, we were not going to make it any further than our bed that night.

Thus ended our day in Colorado Springs.

Today is my Dad's birthday. He would be 84 years old if he were alive. He's been gone for nine years now and the loss still overwhelms me sometimes. In memory of Dad and in honor of his birthday, I made a pilgrimage to a place that I've always connected with him - Lookout Mountain near Golden, Colorado.

It's a small mountain by Colorado standards, rising only 7,000 feet and change above sea level. There's a large "M" on the side facing Denver made of white rocks. When I was a kid in the 60s, I could see that white "M" every day. On Sunday afternoons, Dad would take us for a ride wherever struck his fancy; Seven Falls, the Royal Gorge, to the top of Pike's Peak, to Cheyenne, Wyoming for root beer floats... but the closest drive and perhaps the one we did the most was to Lookout Mountain to visit the grave of Buffalo Bill Cody.

Standing there looking at the graves of Buffalo Bill and his wife Louisa, I was overcome with emotion thinking about Dad and those Sunday drives and the stories he told and the adventures he tried to give us. He loved Buffalo Bill; I think that was the real reason he took us up there so often.

There is a Buffalo Bill museum at the top of the mountain, but we didn't have time to tour it.

There is also a gift shop which we did spend a few minutes exploring. I bought a postcard for each of my siblings which will be mailed sometime after I get home. I'm sure they will be thrilled to know that the moldy old stuffed buffalo is still standing in a corner of the gift shop.

Brett found Buffalo Bill before we left.

It was a morning of bittersweet memories and laughter through tears at a kitschy little gift shop and the grave of a man who died when my grandfather was a young child.

Today Brett is flying back to Delaware and I will continue the eastward drive home by myself... in the rain...

Haha! Don't feel sorry for me; I've had a wonderful time, spent time with wonderful friends, and relived some wonderful memories. What more could a person ask of a vacation?

I am traveling this week. I left home on Tuesday and headed south for some solo geocaching in southern Illinois, then west to St. Charles, Missouri. On Wednesday morning I drove across Missouri and made it to Kansas City International Airport just as Brett's plane from Philadelphia was landing. The timing was so perfect, I only had to pay one dollar for parking! Brett and I then drove west to Hays, Kansas where we spent the night. This morning we geocached our way across western Kansas. There were several "gadget" caches and creative cache containers. I'll add photos later - I'm really tired tonight and my laptop battery is almost dead and I'm too lazy to get up and find the charger.

[IMAGINE A PHOTO OF A BIRDHOUSE, A DECORATED LOG, AND A MINIATURE GENERAL STORE HERE]

One of the caches we found has been on my to-do list for years. It's called Mingo and it's located in the tiny town of Mingo, Kansas. It is now the oldest active geocache in the world. Because thousands of people are converging on the Denver area this weekend for GeoWoodstock, Mingo, Kansas has become a busy place. I wonder if the locals know what the heck is going on with all these strangers taking pictures of a post at the side of a dirt road, or standing in ditches, or diving into the bushes in front of the Baptist church.

Tonight we are in Colorado Springs. We got here fairly early and thought about heading to Pike's Peak, but it was raining and we were tired and hungry, so we opted to eat at The Black-Eyed Pea and chill (a.k.a. nap) in our hotel room. Tomorrow we will be exploring Garden of the Gods, Tarryall and maybe Pikes Peak.

When we were at dinner, I asked if they served mixed drinks. Our flamboyant waiter asked what I wanted and I said I like drinks with rum and peach schnapps and fruit juice and he replied he knew exactly what I meant because he likes girly drinks, and that he'd tell the bartender and bring me a surprise. He brought me a bright blue drink the bartender threw together - no name for it - and said he'd told her he had a customer who wanted "a drink with boobies" and the bartender said, "I know exactly what you mean - I can do that."

[IMAGINE A PICTURE OF A BLUE DRINK HERE]

It was good and it reminded me of Lake Michigan Water, a drink I enjoyed on Washington Island last year. There was a story about that one and how I became the most popular woman in the bar. Here's the story if you're interested: LINK

In other news, my Xanga subscription has been renewed because Eugenia is a rock star! So if you don't hear from me for a while, it's because I'm too busy with GeoWoodstock and road trips and other fun stuff, or more likely just being lazy.