Coincidences

A few years ago my Aunt died. She is my mom's oldest sister, and for my large family, there will forever be a missing piece.

Part of the Triangle is driving from Minneapolis to Rochester. I always take the same route from my parents house, because I've tried them all and this one is the fastest. I head toward 55, over the river and on to 52 heading southeast. I feel like I've done this drive a million times.

Last Wednesday, March 3rd I did this drive again. This time I noticed something different. I crossed over the bridge and felt a different kind of familiarity. I glanced over the edge of the bridge and remembered that I was right by Fort Snelling, a historic fort we used to tour every few years in school. Then I remembered this beautiful park I biked and hiked through a few times a couple of summers ago. Next I remembered that you could see the cemetery where Linda was buried from that park. All the pieces came together. The airport, the park and that cold spring morning our huge motorcade crossed that bridge and wound up the hill to the cemetery.

I quickly took the next exit, and without thinking drove toward where the cemetery rested on the hill overlooking the airport. It's a huge place, but I had no trouble picking which path led to Linda's site. I parked the car and got out, but the place was covered in about 3 feet of snow. The Christmas wreaths still floated about the snow pack, and there were a few remnants of people who had visited their friends or family - a half melted snowman with a child's scarf, a tiny Christmas tree.

I stood for a minute, remembering the day my family came here with Linda, and the days and years she fought cancer, until it finally won. I thought about my huge family, and how much I love them. I got back in my car, telling myself I'd be back when the snow melts.

As I continued the drive to Rochester, I thought about how strange it was that I have traveled this path so many times and never realized the cemetery was there. I thought about how sometimes things just come to us. I thought more about those days in March of 2007 and had an odd feeling. What day in March was it that she died? I feel like it was early March, like today, the 3rd. I went home to dig up her funeral booklet out of the place where I keep things like that, and double checked the dates. She died on March 3rd, 2007, exactly 3 years prior to my rediscovery of the cemetery.

I can't explain it and I don't know what it means, but there is something really special about this.

Linda and I with my new cousin Brady.

Geocaching: A Lovely Way to Spend a Sunday

Joe and I discovered geocaching from an episode of the How Stuff Works podcasts. I sounded cool, and we really wanted to try. Well, about 6 months later we finally got around to it.

Geocaching is a sort of treasure hunt for grown-ups with fancy phones. What you do is go to the geocaching website, or use the smart phone app, to find geocaches in your area. A cache is a small package of sorts. Some are tiny, smaller than a thimble, and some are larger. There size determines what you will find inside, the smallest contain only a log on which to write your name and date of discovery.

This is a shot of the first cache we successfully found. It is right across the street from our house in Rochester. Geocaching uses GPS to point you toward the cache. It's a little like the orienteering we were forced to do at many a summer camps growing up, but without all the math and compasses. The first cache we attempted to find was last week in Miami Beach. It had a high difficulty rating, but we thought we'd give it a shot. I was in the beautiful and hidden Miami Beach Botanical Gardens, but unfortunately we didn't find it.

 
Alas, our second trip out was much more successful. This morning we got up early, or what we thought was early, daylight savings time was a surprise. We ventured out and found 6 caches! We didn't get more than a mile from home!

The caches were in parks, along trails, under bridges and hanging from trees. They were magnetic key holders, mint tins, peanut butter jars wrapped in camo tape and old Vietnam war ammo cases. The biggest one contained stuff you can exchange. We left behind a Joe's original mixed CD, and took a DVD about preventing falls in the eldery. I just wrote a paper on this topic for my gerontology class, so I thought I'd try to bring it in for a little extra credit.

Geocaching has its own little culture. There are certain rules to follow in order to protect the purity of the sport. You must be careful to not do anything that would ruin geocaching for others. If you take something you must leave something. If there are muggles (non-geocaching pedestrians) in the area, you must be careful to not draw attention to yourself. You also must never move a cache from its found location.

We found 6, but didn't scratch the surface of what is around in Rochester. It's amazing, these things are right under our noses, but we don't even notice them. The only thing that brought us in from the great weather was the dead iphone battery. The weather is amazing, maybe we will be out again tomorrow!