09-25-2004...I went to Birmingham, Alabama last week for work. There's a company down there that makes composite rods that we need for a trauma product and I am on the team that is charged with validating their process. The good part about all this is they seem to really know what they're doing, they've already done a lot of the work we need them to do, and we had plenty of time after the meetings for geocaching in a totally new location. I brought the whole team out looking for a cache at a hilly park in town, which was really cool. Rocky trails up and down steep hills, a stone amphitheater, wooded areas, the whole bit. We found the cache, which was just full of good stuff. I dropped off a travel bug I'd picked up at home and took a toy Mini Cooper for Alex. One of the other guys in the group wanted to go look for some more caches, but we looked for three others and found none. One at an air park was not accessible due to being closed, one at another park was missing (we presume, after looking for a long time in an area without much place to hide, and one had too much muggle activity to look for. Later in the day we ate at a BBQ restaurant recommended by my manager, who just happened to get her PhD at UAB, then I took the car to visit Jim and Judy, who just happened to be staying in B'ham with friends because Hurricane Ivan trashed their hometown.

Beth and I went to look at new campers at an RV place in Columbia City last Saturday. We went to look at class C motorhomes but surprisingly didn't like them much. What really caught our attention was the hybrids. The kind with the hard shells and slideout beds. Not only are the quite roomy, we could pull one with the minivan if we got a tow package installed. Not having to buy a truck to pull a camper with dramatically increases our chances of camping next year. We also bowled Saturday, and both did pretty well.

One of the geocaches we couldn't find last weekend really was missing, and now is replaced, so I took the opportunity to go back when Beth went out to her quilting class tonight. It's a cemetery in the middle of a cornfield, literally. There's a narrow access path, barely wide enough to drive down. I went after dinner with the kids...trying to beat the twilight, I didn't quite make it. But since I knew where it was supposed to be, I shined the headlights in that direction and ran there, got it, ran back to the van, and found my way out being blocked by an ATV driven by what was probably the couple that own the farm. Quite peevish, too. Demanding to know who I was and what I was doing there, taking my license plate, asking a lot of angry questions...she didn't believe me (and said so!) when I told her I was just visiting the cemetery because I like historical cemeteries (at NIGHT?!!). I just sat there and shrugged at her when she said I wasn't leaving until I gave her my name, address, and phone number. Eventually they moved out of the way and I went home. They were sure I was up to no good, but I think it really threw them to find the trespasser (not really, it's public land) was a thirtysomething in a minivan with two small children and not a teenager with a spray can.

09-06-2004...It has been a really good Labor Day weekend. Friday we ate the seafood buffet at Teel's with friends. Saturday Beth and I took the kids on a drive about the countryside geocaching. On the way we stopped at Maple Lane...the Amish furniture place we kept trying to go to last November (see 11-30-03) and have never been to. They have some very..very..nice stuff there, and the prices were quite reasonable. They also have a bakery where you can get a homemade from scratch pie cheaper than one at Kroger. Anyway, we drove on looking for small, rural, historic cemeteries where the Indiana Spirit Quest geocaches were hidden, found two, found where one should be but was missing, and failed to find one. Sunday we went down to Ouabache (say "Wabash") State Park to visit some friends who were camping there. Jack and I did some more geocaching while we were there, found two. And I must say that camping with a toddler is exhausting. Alex was into everything and I was paranoid about the campfire. Monday we all went out to hit the Blueberry Festival, which was ok but I wasn't into it this year. Kinda same ol' same ol'. We sold the camper this week. I put an ad in the Auto & RV magazine. It went in Friday, we got the first calls on Friday. It was sold by Monday. Got $2600 for it, which was more than I would have taken. We still get calls for it every day.