Long-winded, so much to tell

Well, time to play catch up again I guess!
Here is the agenda:
1. booked a trip to the east coast
2. new hobby
3. a-hole mother nature
4. concert
5. new hobby gone crazy

Camping in Massachusetts?
May 18-21st I will be flying into Newark, NJ and will be picked up by Gail. I met Gail one time in St. Louis last year when I drove hundreds of miles to meet strangers, remember? Yeah, well I have kept in touch with the "Misfits" and most of them live on the East Coast. They have get togethers on a regular basis, then they call me and I get jealous! So, I am heading out for the 2nd annual Northeast Chapter of the Element Owners Club Mass. Camping Weekend. Gail will pick me up at the airport, take me to the campground, and deliver me back to the airport (safe and sound hopefully) on Monday. Should be a whirlwind and a great time. This bunch of people are really great and Gail is going out of her way to get me there. I'm sure I'll have some wild stories to share when/if (!) I return!

I'm a Geocacher...
a what? Just in case anyone reading this doesn't think I am dorky enough as it is, I have discovered a new hobby. My friends Ali and Craig dragged me to a metal staircase on a college campus last January. I think it was -3 degrees and I was told to look for the blinkie. Huh? Well, once Craig found it he showed me a mini metal capsule that had been magnetized to the staircase. This was my first experience with a cache. I couldn't feel my toes or nose, but damn they were excited about their find.
Fast forward to a nice springish evening in March, headlamp on and Cooper leashed I was wandering around on a huge metal bridge looking for a blinkie. I still wasn't completely sold, but a few days later headed out to a new location. Perry Nature area, I had never been there and probably wound never get there unless I was searching for a 35mm film canister hidden in the trunk of a tree. That evening I was hooked. It was fun...load up my car with my friends and some dogs and traipse around territory unknown to me. I have discovered areas outside of Sioux Falls I would never have otherwise.
Here's the deal:
A website was established to monitor and track the "caches." A cache can be anything from the aforementioned magnetized mini object to a 5 gallon bucket. The cache is then placed in a particular location. The hider marks the longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates, names it, offers hints if he/she chooses and enters it on the website. The finder can then enter the coordinates into a handheld GPS unit and off he/she goes to discover the cache. Once found, the finder logs his/her name on the enclosed paper and places the cache back where it was found for other people to discover. Then the finder logs his/her discovery on the website. There are lots of other things too, you can leave items, trade items, move items from cache to cache. Geocaching.com is my new favorite bookmark!

A-hole Mother Nature!
well, on the verge of really hitting my stride with my new hobby mother nature unloaded inches of wet, heavy, sloppy snow on us. That's not cool...though most of it is gone now, but still. Snow in April? c'mon.

Concert at the Qwest
Thursday afternoon Adam and I followed Trichelle to Omaha to meet up with Rebecca and some of her friends for the Kenny Chesney concert. We met for a great dinner, some drinks and then headed to the concert. Pat Green and Sugarland opened for him and all of it was wonderful! After the concert some went for drinks...Adam and I found a cache in a downtown Omaha park. Yep, choosing to scavenge around a park at midnight for a tupperware container instead of drinking. I think I've entered a new stage in life! BUT, we found the cache and could log our first out of state find!

8 1/2 hour hunt
Adam called just after one yesterday and we headed to Dell Rapids, SD. We had 8 caches on the list and came up 50%...not terrible especially once I read about some of them once we got home. I took a nice slide down a muddy hill and almost ended up in the river...Adam did the same though managed to keep his pants much cleaner. Though, I think I almost peed my pants watching him scamper up the mud hill while the earth continually kerplunked into the river below him. It was great. We walked across an 18inch wide and about 20foot long plank to slide around in the mud and we didn't even find that one!
So, once we gave up in Dell Rapids, we picked Alison up and headed to Brandon. We went 100% for those on the list. I found a total of 12 caches yesterday!
Hello, my name is Roberta and I am a cache-addict!!

That's it for now...will post more as the addiction spirals OUT OF CONTROL!