Geocaching and so much more

Wow, where did November go?  This time of year always seems to fly by.  Hard to believe that December is truly right around the corner and along with it Christmas.

Our work schedules have become more routine, the worst of it being Deane needs to be at work at 10pm each Saturday night to break down the tables and chairs from the dance and set everything up for the church service in the same room the next morning.

Our days off are pretty full, either discovering a new trail to hike, playing pickleball or boccie ball with a group of friends, or discovering treasures  searching for geocaches.  If you are unfamiliar with geocaching, it is a high tech way of taking a hike to find a hidden treasure.  We following co-ordinates of longitude and latitude to find a hidden cache and  when we find it, sign our name on the register, and then mark you found it on line at the geocache.com site.   This is Deane with our first find.  The cache was placed in a pipe in an area that looked like it was suppose to be developed for houses, but the bust in the market left it abandoned.

We've joined a small group of people who have been doing this for quite a while and all over the world.  So far we have 5 finds to our name and in this group some are sporting many hundreds or thousands.  One couple found one in Mazatlan while on a cruise that stopped in that port.  So, this is a new hobby we will take with us as we travel.

The caches are not easy to find.  We have found one in the post of a fence, under a bush and under a pile of rocks.  The containers can be anything from a small pill bottle, an Altoids tin, a larger container and even a little micro cache that is the size of the tip of your little finger.  Hints are supplied, as are the coordinates.  Using the information, along with a GPS will lead you to the general area.  GPS are not exact, so there is a +/- of some feet which makes the hunt more challenging.

We had Thanksgiving here at the resort this year.  I was a co-hostess for our 2 tables of 40 people.

One of our two tables for diner
Deb Barton on left was my co-host

  We had a great time with the resort supplying the turkey, gravy and stuffing.  Everyone else was
 assigned to bring things like mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, vegetables, salads and desert.  There were about 1000 people who attended and it was amazing how organized it was and how smoothly it went off.

Panorama of ballroom for Thanksgiving dinner

Sunset

We took another hike up Silly Hill just east of Mesa with 3 other couples.  It is a climb of about 500 feet in less than a mile, but the view from the top is a 360 degree view.  From Phoenix to the Superstition Mountains to the east and south.  We hiked late in the 

Kathy, Jerry, Ken, Terry, Garry, Judi and Deane
Silly Hill in the background

afternoon to catch the sunset from the top as we had a little happy hour cocktail party.  We were a bit late coming back down as it got dark.  The ranger was there to close the gates and was waiting for the people in the two cars left in the parking lot to return (that would be us!).




We had a little celebration this month.  Deane sweetly remembered the date of our first date.  So we celebrated at an Italian restaurant, like where we first met and had dinner.  We ate and drank until we were so stuffed we could barely waddle back to the car.  Have you ever had a triple chocolate bread pudding?  OMG it was wonderful!

The last day of the month the resort put on a dinner show and all workampers were required to set up, serve and tear down.  The show was Kenny Hess, a country western singer that is popular around this area.  The food was great and I have to admit, all 50+ of us, all dressed in black and white were superb in our serving. The resort served a 4 course meal that was applauded by all.  http://www.kennyhess.com/    The fun part of this night was that so many of us have never done any table waiting.  But we were trained in a short time to SLCR.... serve to the left, clean from the right!!!!  None of us spilled a dish, drink or dessert, and I think to a person, we all agreed that was one career path we could avoid if we were younger.... or had to work again, God forbid our feet could not take it!

So now it is onto December and the Christmas season.  Everyone here decorates their place, be it a park model, an RV, a fifth wheel or a trailer and the decorations have already started.  They have some Christmas programs in the coming weeks, as well as a Christmas Eve church service and of course Christmas dinner.   Let the Christmas season begin!!!!