About a week ago, I made up my mind to make a diary post once a week on Sunday afternoons. As you can see, that went by the wayside the first week. Still, I’m going to try just as something I can look back on and see what was happening in life.
Currently in our county there are just 65 active cases of COVID. Our cumulative numbers stand at 1769 cases total in nearly a year that they’ve been testing for it, and still with just 6 deaths. I’m breathing a huge sign of relief from where we were a year ago. Danny and I go next Monday for our second dose. My daughter’s school is going to be vaccinating them by the end of the month, and on the 22nd I can sign my spouse up for his vaccination. All in all, positive moves for us.
However, people are still dying. I have a longtime friend who was one of my bridesmaids who lost a brother and a sister to COVID in the last two weeks. Her brother was in his 50’s and healthy and spent two months in the hospital battling the disease before he succumbed. Her sister died very quickly last week. It’s a horrible thing to bury one sibling; I can’t imagine burying two in such a short span of time. I get so angry when I see people laughing at the COVID reports. They have no idea the impact this is having on families, just continue to walk the Earth with the attitude “nothing matters unless it happens to me.” Where has our empathy and our sense of community gone? For people who keep saying they want to “take the country back” they seem fine with jettisoning the sense of community and responsibility we once had to each other as long as they perceive a benefit.
On Saturday I went geocaching. There was a chill in the air, but I went out anyway and it turned out to be a nice day. One area I went to was Westbrook, Maine. The picture above is from a giant ice disk that formed in the river there in 2019. I figured this was the last weekend I stood any chance at seeing an ice disk. Unfortunately, no large disk like above, although I did see several small ones. I did not find the geocache near the area, but I’ll be back to search again.
I’m getting more and more antsy to get out, which is a good thing. That usually happens this time of year, though. By the summer I start getting tired and the desire to shut myself off returns. It’s just the cycle of things in my mental health. We will see how this year goes with things maybe getting better in the world than last year. I’m hoping to do more actual hiking again. That also depends on how much the popular hiking areas are overrun with tourists.
I have plans in place for a geocaching adventure out to Mingo. Mingo is the oldest still-active geocache in the country, placed in Kansas in May of 2000. I’m planning on the last week of April driving to Kansas over the course of a few days to log it. Along the way I have found a few things to stop for. Surprisingly, most of them seem to be in Iowa. There’s geocaches at the Buddy Holly memorial, the original Field of Dreams, and the marker for the future birthplace of James T. Kirk. These are some fun things to see while I visit a very different part of the country for me. I’d like to stop in a few other places on the way back, but it’s going to depend on how long it takes me to get out there. I feel safer driving than I do flying right now, and I enjoy road trips.
Stay safe everyone and wear your mask.
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Categories: Geocaching, Personal Stories
” Where has our empathy and our sense of community gone? ”
and
“responsibility”
Thank you, Patti, for raising these points. I’d like to know, myself, so we can all help bring them back!
That ice disk is so cool!!
🙂
Glad you’re almost fully vaccinated,
stay safe,
-Shira
Thanks. Yes, I do miss the sense of community we once had.
I miss the sense of community I always wished I had.
Yes it has become an “every man for himself” attitude instead of “one for all and all for one”! You really should plan on stopping in Casey, IL. It is very fun and just packed with geocaches – almost all are walking distance in the downtown!
I have that on my list because of the “Big things” cache someone mentioned to me. We will see how the time goes depending on how long it ends up taking me.
My new next door neighbors were both in hospital the same time as hubby. They both had Covid. Someone is home now, hopefully both of them, but not sure. I can’t help them because of taking care of hubby, but can do little things like bringing up their garbage cans.
That’s what we all should do is try to help each other in small ways when we can.
So how many days do you think it will take you? We’re supposed to getting a huge storm this weekend but I hope that’s it for spring. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. There are plenty of hides along 70 so I could pick up a few more counties.
The latest I can get Mingo is on Friday the 30th and that would give me 2+ days to drive home if I didn’t really stop. That gives me about a week to drive out there, with stops. We will see how it goes. It’s actually the first night right now I’m more worried about since NY still has a quarantine in place so I can’t check in to a hotel there. I’d have to sleep in my car or just keep caching along the thruway.
I like the idea of keeping a regular diary. I started before the pandemic because interesting things were happening. Then it all stopped, as I stopped. But I too am beginning to live again, even though nothing really has changed for us here in London. We still can’t go out as we have no school age children any more and I seem to have stopped teaching, we still don’t have a reason to go out yet, anyway. My husband has had his t vaccination. Things will be easier for us when he has had both, I hope. I am on a trial so I won’t know for a while whether I have had one or not
Ive been looking up the geahng. it happens here in england too aparrently. Looks l ike fun.
I enjoy it a lot. It brings me to some interesting places I wouldn’t know about otherwise.
I know there’s a new feature here on WP involving stories. I might see how that goes as part of a diary as well. We will see how it goes. I get pretty good ideas but my follow-through is often lacking
i can’t edit the above. The last sentences should have been: I’ve been looking up the Geocaching. It happens here in England too, apparently.
Yes, I figured that’s what you meant. It’s all over the world. I found geocaches when I was in London and Liverpool in 2019
My husband just turned sixty-five and was eligible for the vaccination. He just finished with his second. I’ll have to wait a bit, but that’s okay. We still wear masks when we go outside. Our county is a more hard-hit than yours, but I imagine that’s in part because there are more people here than there. There are roughly three million people here.
As of March 8, there have been 263,000 cases and 4252 deaths.
On to happier things, though—nice pics of ice disks! And happy geocaching!