New Year's Day ~ 2025

 It has become a tradition for me to host a geocaching event to end the current year or to welcome the new one. This year was my seventh event on either the 31st of December or the 1st of January. The temperature at 9:00 in the morning was a bit chilly, but the sun was shining. Hubby and I furnished donuts for those attending the Hello 2025 event at Flatiron Park in Apache Junction. Providing donuts is a small thank you to the area geocachers for placing geocaches and to thank them for supporting my events.

I try to greet every one who comes to the event. 

Cade, age 3 was the youngest attendee. He came with his grandpa who attends most of my AZ events. Cade enjoyed the glazed donut and went home with a plastic cobra to add to his animal collection.

If I took the photo, I have added my watermark. Other photos came from Marlene (Eagles Landing from WI) or Sherry (LifeisGuud from WA).

Dick checking out the jeep on the table

AZ residents Paul and his wife and Ann & Howard

geocachers from OR (Dennis) and Bruce from MN (Dennis's wife) and Hubby

Bob also attends all my AZ events

about 50 geocachers attended throughout the 2 hours

Dick and Cat chatting with a visiting geocacher

there were 3 geo pups at the event this year; all were well-behaved

the purpose of a geo event: visit and get to know other geocachers

the virtual souvenir that was awarded that day

I had been awarded a special honor (as have other but not all geocachers) to host an event with special guidelines sometime in 2025. Anyone attending the event got the virtual souvenir. Hubby will host his later this year back in South Dakota.

It was a great start to 2025!

Ending 2024 ~ Some Geocaching

 We ended 2024 by going geocaching with friends, Jon and Sherry. We had (and have, as there are more of them) geocaches by two area geocachers, abeNanna and CacheFamily on our radar. abeNanna are known for their geocaches often titled 'Rusting Away.' You guessed it; the caches usually involve a rusted piece of metal. CacheFamily, a family of 4, have recently started placing gadget and creative geocaches in the area.  Both cachers attended my October event sharing conversations and information. December 30th was the day we chose to follow-up on their suggestions.

four of us wiggled the wooden box until the lid separated from the box

the four cachers

another clever CacheFamily 3-D printed container

Sherry did not have to remove ALL the caps to find the log

another 3-D printed cute container

geocaching in Florence

Hubby and I have found most of the geocaches in the nearby community of Florence, but Jon and Sherry have not. We will need to return as there are several more to find and log.

Another new location for our friends was the Coolidge airport. It was a WWII training center for the 81st Airborne and has some remnants of the base.

the bathhouse

the swimming pool from the shallow end to the deeper end

stone/rock steps from the bathhouse up to the pool

foundations of base buildings, but not barracks

(the barracks have remnants of broken porcelain)

overgrown sidewalk between foundations

another CacheFamily 3-D printed geocache, this one on the base

another photo showing just how dry the desert is this year

This is the only original building from the WWII era. It has been renovated and is used by airport personnel.

The Coolidge airport is an active airport. It houses the air recuse vehicles for Pinal County. None of us knew the purpose of this aircraft.

another better view of the aircraft 

The Coolidge Airport is home to many small private aircraft, like this single engine, one seater plane.

another private plane anchored at the airport

There were several Sprint airplanes in various stages of dismantling on the other side of the airport. 

We visited this airport for geocaching on two previous occasions. The last time we were there we watched people jumping from airplanes while getting some geocaches in November 2016: Coolidge Airport

Our first visit was in March 2013: World War II Airports

Sherry getting a cache at the airport

We drove to Coolidge to complete the Adventure Lab set of caches by abeNanna and to find the bonus cache. Sherry, actually Jon, found the Rusting Away geocache at the Coolidge airport. We had found it in 2013.

One of the reasons besides enjoying the day with Jon and Sherry, was to earn this virtual souvenir to end 2024.

Some Time in the Desert

 We headed to the desert on Friday for a bit of geocaching. Other than attending some events, we had not geocached in AZ since arriving the end of October.

perfect temps, perfect blue sky

a field of cholla

walking along a very busy road searching for hanging containers

Superstition Mountains

5057 Peak on the left

4 saguaros supporting each other

The desert is SO DRY this season. In fact we think it is the driest in our 20 years of coming to AZ. The grass is rather tall, and if there were a fire, it would ignite so quickly. Only the palo verde trees and bushes are green.

our souvenir for spending some time in the desert 

Time with the Grandkids

 We were back in South Dakota for 9 busy days catching all the grandkid activities for December. 

We were able to watch McBe's Taekwondo testing from his third green belt level to his first of 3 blue belt levels. He was tested on form, sparing, and board breaking. His friends gave him antlers instead of bunny ears for the group photo. He and two other boys earned their blue belts at the award ceremony later in the week. His TKD dedication and hard work is paying off!

He had a seventh and eight grade chorus concert on Tuesday night. The following Tuesday was his Edison Middle School band concert. He is a percussionist playing the bass drum and snare drum for this concert. On the Sunday between the two he played a Christmas song at the prelude to the Children's Musical at church.

Miss W performed in the Lincoln High School Winter Chorus Concert on Thursday evening. She was part of a Women's Ensemble and in the Freshman Women's group. The top photo is of the entire Lincoln High School Chorus, grades 9-12, men and women, about 150 students. Bottom left is the Freshman Women and bottom right is the Women's Ensemble. Three different groups performed at the concert along with the HS orchestra for one number and six or more Ensembles performing before the main concert.

We had our family Christmas on Saturday starting with bowling then dinner and gifts at our house. We are back in AZ enjoying warmer weather and sunshine!

Some This and That Around Barcelona

 I planned to post photos of doors we saw as we explored Barcelona, but decided to add some other interesting things we noticed.

building with the first geocache find

which window?

got it!

an elaborate garage door painting

ornate decoration

the door to a shop along one of the side streets

another cache find, this one in a park

tile art in the Metro station

another Metro art

graffiti? art work? 

the central sidewalk in the oldest Barcelona neighborhood

it covers an old river, thus the feel of wavy lines

more doors

public water fountains in the oldest neighborhood

an interesting shop selling only moon shot & p**p  figurines

we both love taking door and knob photos

the half door is perfect for human entrance

another public water fountain

overhead door to another side street shop

ornate doors to a small museum

no knob or handle on this door

This was my favorite geocache find in Barcelona, because of its uniqueness. It is a lamp post and public water fountain with 4 spigots. The water from the fountain is safe for drinking. There is even a spigot closer to the base for animals. We found a traditional cache and then posed for the photo for a virtual geocache. At one time (1800's) there were 18 lamp-fountains around the city. Now there are two.