Wabi Sabi Me Geocache

Vacation - Day 8

August 20th, 2007

What a wonderful day it was! Our last day in The Springs, and I really wanted to cross off three more things on “the list” — and we did!

1) Cave of the Winds. We took the 45 minute Discovery Tour and had a great family photo taken inside the cave.

2) Yarn Crawl. Some people like souvenir t-shirts, I prefer yarn I checked with the Colorado Knitters on Ravelry and got their suggestions for “must visit” yarn shops. I’m happy to say that they were right in their recommendations and the staff and selection at the Green Valley Weavers & Knitters and Needleworks by Holly Berry were excellent.

3) Geocaching in The Springs. Throughout our trip I had been having all sorts of fun with our new GPSr (How high are we now? How far to our exit? What’s our ETA?) but wanted to share the fun and do some family geocaching. The first cache we went to “Flea Flicker” was a microcache and although we were apparently standing right on top of it, we never did find it. Of course, that may have been the problem as my children thought it best to look by kicking pine cones and anything else that was in their path. Sigh. The next two were traditional caches in Monument Valley Park but we ran out of time and energy before we could locate them. It didn’t turn out as I had hoped, but before we got tired and thirsty, we did have a lot of fun.

Thanks to the yarn crawl and the lovely shops in Old Colorado City, we ended our stay in Colorado Springs on a high note. Tomorrow begins the train ride home. All that’s left for me to do now is pack

Posted in Travel, Geocache, Knitting | 2 Comments »

Vacation - Day 6

August 18th, 2007

Is our vacation really more than halfway over? Where did the time go? We’ve been walking/hiking/climbing at 6000+ feet in Colorado Springs and this ~~morning,~~ afternoon, we are still in bed. The littles are sleepy, the bigs have sore legs and me, well I’m just plain tuckered out.

Today we will take it light and enjoy a scenic 1.5 hr drive to visit family. I found some geocaches we can check out along the way and have plugged them into our GPSr. We will explore the flora and fauna, do a couple of loads of laundry and come back in the morning.

This is our first wabi sabi vacation. I made a list of things I wanted to see/do but also made up my mind to let the list take second place to the moment. So far, we’ve only done 2 things on the list, as the “moments” we found ourselves in, presented much better alternatives.

More importantly, my children and I are really enjoying ourselves. There’s nothing like sitting on top of a rock and looking out into nothing but sky, clouds and tree tops. I’m soaking up the sights/smells/sounds. I’m sure I will need them in the coming months. The children are playing in the dirt, following tracks, seeing wildlife and breathing deeply as they climb, jump and run. With the unexpected bonus of watching the Naruto Hundo marathon on a 42″ plasma screen each night, what more could you ask for?

Vacations weren’t always like this. In our other life (pre-wabi sabi), vacations often meant that I did all the “work” and the children sometimes missed “fun” in order to stay clean and on schedule. Thank God for deliverance

Posted in Travel, Geocache, Wabi Sabi, Mothering | 1 Comment »