Cam I Am

So.. This year has been an exciting and tumultuous year so far.

The year started off with promise. I got to go on a trip back home to Ontario — something that hasn’t happened for 9 nine years. I visited my family and a few friends on my quick trip back.. It started off well!

Then the 2010 Winter Games were here! An exciting event that I brought the kids to see the sights downtown. We even took the kids to see a Sledge Hockey game for the Paralympics..

Sadly, this was also a turning point. The same day as the hockey game was the same day that my wife and I let our children know that we were separating. It wasn’t an easy decision, but after being together for over 12 years, it wasn’t working for us..

Shortly after I moved out. And since then, things have been a very different. I left nearly everything in the house, so I had to quickly furnish a place as inexpensively as possible. (Well.. the inexpensively part didn’t work out so well). I’ve also had to learn how to operate a household on my own. This is the first time in my life that I’ve had to be on my own. And yes.. I do suck at housekeeping! My ex and I are also still working on how to schedule the kids around our needs, and parent as a cohesive unit that live separate lives now. A challenge indeed..

I’ve met someone as well. This happened much quicker than I thought and she’s had to put up with me. I’ve been all over the map in terms of how I feel about where I am in life, dating and family. It’s been over four months since I’ve moved out and this new lady in my life has been supportive (she’s clearly a sucker for punishment!). I’ve made mistakes and I still keep trying to improve myself.

I’ve had a lot more time for myself. When I don’t have the kids and when I’m not working, I spend time with this new woman in my life (Meghan). I go geocaching, have gone camping a couple times (with another trip planned in a couple weeks), and still am full of good intentions..

So, here it is on a beautiful, sunny holiday Monday. I’m planning to take the kids to the beach today, play in the water and find seashells and some crabs.. I have no idea where life is taking me at the moment, but I’m still moving forward. Who knows where this journey will take me.

Hopefully, I’ll be blogging a lot more regularly now..

Recently, I have bought a couple beautiful British Columbia 2010 Geocoins.

I thought that I’d try something with them.. But first, here is what they look like!

Now, I really like geocoins. I’ve bought a few over the last year and have released them all into the universe to travel. I usually assign a mission to each one. I know lots of people like to have them “travel where the world” without having a set goal. Not me.. I want mine to achieve something!

So, I have these two identical coins. I placed them in the same cache at the same time. They are in a race around the world. One is to travel EASTBOUND and one is to go WESTBOUND only. Will they make it around the world? Who knows! How long will it take? I don’t know! But since I placed them only 2-3 days ago, they are already doing better than I had anticipated they would at this point.

The eastbound coin was picked up within hours of me placing it in the cache. The person that picked it up said that they were heading to the Maritimes in mid-September and would place it in a cache there. I was amazed! I figured that it would take many, many short hops to cross North America, but clearly one person is handling that for me!

The westbound one also seems to be poised for a big jump. I assumed that it would travel to Victoria relatively soon and then sit there for a while.. BUt that isn’t the case! Someone picked it up yesterday and placed it in a Travel Bug Hotel right by the Vancouver Int’l Airport.. It stands to good reason that it may move across the Pacific Ocean much sooner than I thought..

So.. The race is on! Which one will make it back to Maple Ridge first? Will either of them make it? I’ll keep you updated here..

So.. As it stands as of tonight…

Both were placed in my cache, “Building Blocks” (GC232PR) on the evening of July 25, 2010. Westbound has currently traveled about 40km and is near the airport. The eastbound one is in a player’s hands that will deliver it to the Maritimes in about 6 weeks..

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything..  for good reason..

My life the last few months has gone through some radical changes..  I won’t go into the details, but those of you who know me…  well..   you already know..

That being said, this past weekend, I went to Victoria to get away and do some sightseeing..  I had a great time!  One of the things I got to do was go on a whale watching tour.  I have never done this before and was not disappointed!   Here is a clip of the whale watching!

Other than that, I went on a ghost walk, went to the museum, went into the BC Provincial Legislature buildings, and found 7 geocaches in the two days that I was there..

All in all, it wasn’t a bad trip!

In a few days, I’ll be going back to Ontario to visit my family and friends. It’s been over nine years since I’ve been back to Oshawa, and I’ve heard that it’s changed a lot… Some for the better, some for the worse.

I’m looking forward to seeing my brothers and parents. I last saw my youngest brother, Andrew, about 18 months ago. But I haven’t seen my other brother and mother for over 5 years, and my father since 2001.

There are a couple of friends I’m looking forward to catching up with too. Also, it’ll be nice to do a little geocaching on my trip.

I’m ready for a short break from work, the kids, and life… Even for only a few days. Hopefully, I’ll feel a little refreshed and able to focus on my goals for 2010…

Happy New Year, everyone…

Today, I decided to set a goal for myself. As you probably can guess from the title, I plan to find 31 geocaches in the next 31 days.

This all starts tomorrow. I figure an average of one a day isn’t that hard. I pass by dozens each day while I’m at work. Some days I won’t have time, and others I’m sure that I can find two or three.

I don’t have a list of all thirty-one, but there are several I intend to find. One of the trickiest ones to get is in plain sight, at a busy intersection in Vancouver… It’s only 3-4 blocks from work. If I manage to get it, I’ll definately be posting about it!

Aside from that, I plan to hide my first cache sometime this weekend as well. It’ll be fairly close to my home so that I can be sure to maintain it, if necessary.

Let the caching begin!

Our day started out with even better weather than the day before. We had breakfast and then headed into Brakendale to go to the area where you can view bald eagles.

It was only when we arrived that we discovered that eagles can be found there during the winter, and usually leave the area in February. We walked along the trail on the dike until we saw a bear about 300 feet ahead of us. Fortunately, there was a fence between it and us, and we started to walk the other way, but it seems that the bear knew the way around the fence, crossed the street (in front of a pedestrian), and went into the wooded area by the Easter Seals Camp. Now, the Squamish area has plenty of signs and information warning you that you are in bear country and to be aware, but we expected to see them in the campground or provincial park that we were staying in— not a busy street!

So, after bearly containing our excitement/nervousness about running into a bear (yes, I couldn’t resist the pun), we decided to go looking for an estuary that we read about. Well, either we took a wrong turn, or didn’t go far enough, we never found it. At this point, it was getting close to lunch time, so it was back to camp.

After lunch, my youngest daughter, Ainsley, and my wife wanted to have a nap, so me and two other daughters went for a walk along the Four Lakes Trail to find the other two geocaches in the park. Three hours, we completed our 7.5 kilometre walk, including going up and down a hill of about 300 feet in height. My 7-year old and 4-year old were real troopers, not complaining at all. I was truly amazed at how well they did!

The rest of the evening went well. A family had arrived at the campsite across from ours who had a couple young kids, so Megan was happy to have “friends” to play with. It was unfortunate that they arrived the night before we left, especially since they seemed nice and the kids all played well together. After we got our kids to bed, my wife and I sat by the campfire talking well into the evening.

That pretty much sums up our trip. Today was spent packing everything up this morning, heading home, and then the fantastic job of unpacking, putting things away, and 78 loads of laundry!

Today started off much better!

For once, our kids let us sleep in until 7:30! After getting up and making coffee, we made something that my daughter learned in Brownies… Barf-in-a-Bag! As gross as it sounds, it’s just eggs and mushrooms, peppers and onions in a ziploc bag. You seal the bag up (with no sir), smoosh it up, and cook it in boiling water. Very good! Afterwards, Megan and Elisabeth did the dishes. It’s nice that they are old enough to help!

After breakfast, we decided to go for a walk and search for one of the three geocaches in the park. After a short walk, we found it and I finally was able to leave a Las Vegas geocoin that I had picked up in Manning Park a couple weeks ago. We then went to have a quick look at the beach at Alice Lake (which barely qualifies as a lake — more like a big pond), and then it was time to head back to our campsite for lunch.

Within a minute of arriving at the site, one of the park operators notified us that the campfire ban that head been in place since we had arrived was now lifted. As we cheered, we prepared to make our lunch: hot dogs cooked over a fire.

After lunch, we drove into town to Walmart to pick up a couple supplies, and then drove down to Shannon Falls. We spent about an hour there taking everything in, including some ice cream, then took a drive to Brackendale.

Brackendale is the location where the annual bald eagle count is done, so we found where a viewing area is, and plan to check it out tomorrow.

Following our drive, we came back to make a spaghetti dinner, then had a campfire and made delicious, hot smores.

It was the perfect way to end the day..

About three weeks ago, we logged our 13th find. It was a new cache (we were the second people to sign the log) and we decided that we would deploy one of the two Canada geocoins that we had recently purchased and registered. We placed it and then logged that we had dropped it in that location.

Three other people have logged finds for that cache since we’ve been there. The first one left a generic TFTC, the second TNLN, and the third was logged a week ago and says that there is no sign of the geocoin in the cache.

So, my question is this… Do I try and find out what happened to the coin? Do I just write it off as lost?

I know that this is bound to happen eventually. People either don’t know what to to with them and keep them, or just don’t care and take them. Since this is our first coin deployment and it seems to have disappeared from the very cache that we placed it in, it’s kind of soured me on placing anymore. We had set a goal of it making it to Oshawa, Ontario. That seems unlikely now…

It’s been two weeks since it’s been identified as missing. Since we are still new at geocaching, what do I do?

I haven’t written much recently, partially because of time, but mostly because I haven’t thought of anything to write about..

In the last month, my wife, kids and I and really gotten into geocaching.  With 13 finds now, we are enjoying the time out.  To me, it’s great to spend time out with the family exploring the area, and I get to play with an electronic toy..  It’s win-win!

We’ve booked our campsite for a camping trip this summer.  This year, we’ll be going up to Alice Lake near Squamish.  We have never really ventured up into Sea to Sky country, so it’ll be nice to get away!  Now, I just have to wait for July now..

That’s about it.. 

Recently, my family and I have started exploring the world of geocaching.  It all started with my wife talking to a friend who is an avid geocacher that asked if we ever did it.  My wife had never heard of it, but was interested.  She came home that night and asked me if I had heard of it.  I told her that I had, but never thought that she’d be interested in it.

We talked about it, did a little research about it, and talked to our kids.  With the kids, it was an easy sell. “Do you guys want to go treasure hunting?”  My three girls were excited about the idea of little treasures hidden all around the world..

So, we’ve gone a few times.  So far, in the last 3 weeks, we’ve found two caches in Maple Ridge, and two in Penticton, and enjoy spending some family time together, outside, and looking for treasure.  We plan to keep going, especially with the nice weather finally surfacing. 

It’s nice to find an inexpensive, fun activity that the whole family can enjoy; and I still get to play with an electronic toy!