The Valentine's Day GPS launch!

Today, I was awoken at 6 AM with a lovely new Magellan Global Positing System from the Mr.

I was thrilled; and spent a good part of the day (after I woke back up around 10!) trying to get acclimated to the new unit. I'd never gotten all that familiar with the Garmin unit I'd borrowed; so, I've still got tons to learn in navigational tactics.

By about 2 o'clock; Mae and I had gone to visit the local Civil War Soldier Statue and documented it as Waypoint #2. Waypoint #1 being (of course!) HOME! Still not exactly sure what I'm doing.. but- at least I can accomplish that!

By about 5 o'clock- the dogs and I were ready to make our first venture to search for an actual cache. Not the wisest of decisions; going with no other company than the dogs (one of whom is not the best away from home or on a tandem leash).

Oh, well. We took to the Island Point trail at Lake DeGray.
After the first 1k feet I realized that there was NO WAY I was going to be able to:
a.) keep myself from falling down if I kept my eyes on the GPS screen;
b.) keep the dogs from wrapping themselves and me up in the leashes; and
c.) ever hope to finding the cache.

But- hey! We were OUT, on the trail headed towards the lake and the temperature was pleasant for walking!

I did finally decipher the clue given (with the co-ordinates) while trying to juggle the camera, the GPS, the map AND the leashes. How funny is this?? The clue reads: "I've fallen down and can't get up!" I was just hoping it wasn't prophetic!! Well- the clue gave me enough to look for; but, there were sooo many of them (downed trees) it could actually be and I still don't know the GPS well enough to actually allow it to direct my steps. I will give the dogs credit. Wrigley, especially, can follow a trail quite accurately and is pretty good at pacing. He and I have been walking together long enough that we can both anticipate one another's movements and he did his best to "lead" Sandy-dawg along to the edge of the lake without dragging me down the bank!

They enjoyed dipping their paws in and posed for a picture or two. Again, Wrigley knows just what is expect of him as my most willing photographic subject and I thanked him for it! We were a little too early to witness the sunset even though we passed a couple obviously on their way to the island point that would have just enough time to get settled in with their picnic to enjoy it. I started once to ask them if they were cachers but didn't want to hold them up.

Sandy-dawg was most relieved when she realized we were back at the car. I was relieved I'd not fallen down! Wrigs and I were both happy to drop her off at her house and get home to our comfy sofa and some dinner! Perhaps, I'll get some help in understanding the machine a little better and in the meantime, Dad has an extra lap-top I can use for caching and loading the GPS coordinates.

There is at least one cache on our way to UAMS tomorrow and there are TONS of them between here and Fayetteville when we take our trip this weekend! Dad isn't nearly as interested as I'd hoped he'd be; but, Kim's hubby, Sandy, does seem interested and they do like to hike- so I may have some trail-buddies after all.

Maybe I can even get Mr B himself interested enough to drag the canoe out and up a river to see what we can "see"! He was especially concerned that the GPS unit he purchased had two qualities... a.) it MUST be crash-worthy as I've not got the best record of staying on my feet or from dropping expensive electronic equipment and b.) water (and coffee!) proof! *Grin* He knows me only too well! All in all- a pleasurable day even though I didn't find my first cache! Maybe that's just as well! The dogs couldn't have taken pictures of it happening anyway!!