Geocaching in the rain

I took Emily and Ben with me to go and perform maintenance on one of my Geocaches that I have out there hiding.  It was a fun walk through the woods with two of my kids.  Well except for Ben crying the whole time.  We were in the woods for about an hour and a half.  He cried for all but 10 minutes.   He spent the first ¼ of the trip crying for mommy. The second quarter of the trip was because he didn’t want to go near the water.  The third quarter of the trip he cried because I wouldn’t let him go near the water. And finally the last part of the trip he cried because he wanted Gimmy.  I’m not sure where that one came from.  I guess maybe it was because I always take him in the woods when we are back home. Oh well.  We will get there soon I hope.    He is a picture of the kids as they found the water.  It was like 33 degrees that day.  If the water not frozen its warm enough for playing in right?  LOL j/k.  To my left is a hole with about 8 inches of water in it. I snapped this picture just before Ben started running and tried to jump in it.  I literally caught him in mid air.

The Next Adventure

I love the outdoors.  I can’t really get enough of them.  For the most part if it can be done outside I have done it.  I regularly hunt, fish and geocache. I have hiked/backpacked thousands of miles. I have been spelunking and repelling, snow skiing and water skiing, wake boarding and knee boarding.  I have learned to snorkel, took scuba diving lessons and dived on a reef.  I ride dirt bikes and quads. The list goes on and on and on.  One thing that I have really wanted to do but have never gotten around to doing was Rock Climbing.  This year I will finally mark that off my list.  This isn’t going to be something that I’m going to do once or twice.  I really want to get into making this a habit sport.   So much so that I have spent hundreds on gear and dropped 40lbs already. 

I have found some guys at work that have taken me under their wing to train me up properly and teach me the ropes (pun intended).  I’m really looking forward to starting this series of adventures.

Here is a picture of some of the gear that I bought.  I actually had to return this harness because I shrunk enough that it was to big and wouldn’t tighten down anymore.  Good problem to have right?  

I borrowed some rope from one of the guy who is going to teach me to climb.  He gave me a list of knots to learn.  Knots come easy to me and I learned all 8 in a couple of hours.  Just to verify that I learned them, stopped tying them for over 2 weeks.  When I picked up the rope again I was still able to tie them all again.  After learning all the knots I decided to try them out.  It was cold and the ground was snow covered I tied off to a heavy hook in the garage.  The garage has an 11' ceiling so I could easily suspend myself and practice ascending and descending.  Emily really wanted to try it.  I don't have a harness that fits her, but I did learn how to do a Swiss Seat which is a type of harness made out of a piece of rope or webbing.  She loved it.  Every had that I come home she asks if I can put the rope up for her to climb.  I hope that she keeps that enthusiasm.  Here is a picture of Emily after she climbed the rope all by herself. 

"God never made an ugly landscape. All that the sun shines on is beautiful, so long as it is wild."
- John Muir