Sadly, I Have Slacked Off, Yet Again.

I am not sure why I have so much trouble updating this blog on a regular basis. I normally have enough time to read news, browse Facebook, read my mail, work, be a decent husband, and keep my commitments to our church but sadly I let this blog go untouched for weeks at a time. No excuses. I am slacking off.

Time does not stand still just because my blog goes idle for extended lengths of time. My life rolls on and things continue to change all around me. I am not sure where to begin but I guess I can start with an update on the hobby I am passionate about, Geocaching. If you have been here before you know all about what Geocaching is so I will not bore you with the details. For those who are new, skip on over to www.geocaching.com and read a bit. You may find yourself a new hobby!

About a month or so ago I received an e-mail from a new geocacher having trouble with one of my harder caches. Being new, I was trying to be helpful but not give anything away. Long story short, he eventually found the 2 stage multi I own and we became friends. He and I have been out caching a couple of times and once more with one of his friends from church who was interested. Wayne (my new geocaching friend) is a Christian and has good values. His wife and mine share the same first name and we both are in the same basic age group (although he is a tad older than I am). But oddly enough, if we did not share the bond of Christ, I doubt that I would have befriended him (I can tell you right now this blog is going to rabbit trail quite a bit...I can see it coming! If you cannot stand blogs that do that, I am sorry but I have to tell this as I remember it).

You see, I have another friend, Allen, who is a geocacher and also a fellow Christian and we are much more alike when it comes to geocaching. Both Allen and I like the harder, more challenging caches. Long, strenuous hikes, river crossings, dangerous tree climbs...we live for those things. The one area where Allen and I majorly differ in our geocaching style is that he loves puzzle caches and for the most part, puzzle caches annoy the crap out of me. But I digress.

Wayne is just the opposite. Wayne is more into urban caching where the only real exercise you get is walking from your car to GZ of the cache. While he and I have gone and walked a few times (3 miles or less), he made it clear that he is not partial to those kinds of geocacaches. Nonetheless, we still have gone out and cached together (once his style and twice mine although the one of his turned out to have a 1 mile hike involved). Why? Do I love the sport so much that I overlook mine and Wayne's differences? Maybe but I want to cover that a bit later.

Our first time out together, we went to Oak Point Nature Preserve in Plano to hike the new section they just recently opened up. One of the newer cachers (NatureNed) hid several that I was just itching to try to find. The trek would cover about 3 miles on a warm August day. Wayne did not have any of the waypoints loaded in his GPSr, so he tried using his iPhone to cache. He was not overly successful but he did manage to spot the caches shortly after I did. However he made it clear that he was tired and hot and needed to get something to drink. I understood. Wayne, while close to my age, is 50 and not in the best of shape. What he lacks in stamina, he does however make up with a lot of heart.

The next time that we went out, I told Wayne that we would do some easier stuff. So since there were several new caches along a paved hiking/biking trail in our little city, I suggested that we get those. The total walk was about two miles but Wayne was not really into the actual hike. He suggested we go back a drive to the caches but I convinced him to trek on. He made it and we again stopped for cold drinks before parting ways.

I was beginning to think he and I were not really going to click but the following week Wayne called me up and invited me to his church's men's breakfast. I thought it would be a great thing to meet more Christian men so I agreed. After breakfast, Wayne stated that one of the guys who was at the breakfast was interested in Geocaching and wanted to tag along with us if we went out. I told Wayne I was game and we decided to cache in West Richardson since that was one area I had not been in yet. Scott joined Wayne and I on a short two hour caching run that netted him five geocaches. By the time we found his last one, he was getting good at spotting them. It turns out that he and the rest of his family have been bitten by the geocaching bug and are now hooked. Welcome to the insanity, Scott!

Scott had an appointment that he could not miss so we drove him back to his car and Wayne and I took off to grab a few more caches. I was getting dangerously close to a milestone of 1500 finds and I wanted it to be memorable. I had picked out one and we drove around picking up caches until we grabbed 1499, then we headed off to get number 1500.

Number 1500 turned out to be a bit of hike for Wayne (.5 mile up and .5 back...1 mile round trip) in warm weather, but he made it okay. Actually if not for him I may not have been able to get this cache as he had one very important tool that made retrieval much easier. After getting number 1500 (a 4.5/4.5 out of 5/5 hide) I dropped him off and went on my way. Now to hop on that rabbit trail.

While I like geocaching (okay, I LOVE geocaching), I doubt I would spend my timing doing it with someone I did not like UNLESS there was a greater bond. In this case Wayne and I are very different. While he is not a fan of puzzle caches (like me) he has no desire to hike or take longer walks to grab caches...something I like to do. Instead, we pair up because the bible commands us to love each other. If I were not a Christian, I would not want to be around Wayne because we are very different. However scripture tends to command us to do things that are against our nature: Love our enemies, for meant to love their wives and for wives to respect their husbands, turn away from the lure of the flesh, etc. So with that in mind, I put aside my desires and focus more on others. When Wayne wants to geocache, I ask him where he wants to go and what he is looking for in a cache. And the same goes for Wayne. While he is far from in shape, he pushed on because he was respecting me.

That is what Christianity is all about...relationships. God commands us to have peaceful relationships with others just as we have one with him.

By the way, number 1500 cache "Mollydawg's Retrieval Nightmare" was a collaborative effort. I had some things Wayne needed, he had a few things I needed, and we both worked to retrieve the cache which is well worth the difficulty level (but I feel the terrain is over rated...it really should be no more than a 3 in my opinion). He felt a degree of satisfaction knowing he was part of the process to get a 4.5/4/5 cache he (nor I) would have ever gotten alone.