Been a Minute

 I was browsing Airbnb the other day, looking at possibilities for a future trip. When was the last time I stayed in one, I wondered? Oh yes, the weekend before Thanksgiving, in Philadelphia. I was there to run the Philly Marathon, and I convinced Nick to come with me. I'm delighted to say that he was agreeable to spending the weekend with his mom! We visited Independence Hall, the historic Eastern State Penitentiary, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Thinker, and (of course) the famous Rocky statue.

(Nick's Converse shoes are the exact same size as Rocky's!)

Race day was cold and windy, but I layered up and was warm enough, and had a great time. The finisher medal was pretty sweet, too. The best part? Having Nick there to greet me at the finish line.

The place where we stayed was an apartment above a flower shop, only a few blocks from the start/finish line and the Museum of Art. What did we do in the evenings? Lie around in the Airbnb and watch Rocky movies, of course!

And the time before that?  Last July, in a room above a detatched garage in a quiet Memphis neighborhood, when I took a road trip there for the Worldwide Cache Fest geocachig mega-event at Shelby Farms Park.

I had big plans to write a whole blog post (or two) about this trip to the Home of the Blues. Despite the sweltering heat, I had SO MUCH FUN, and did so many things, I could write at least five or six of them. Instead I'll give you some of the highlights. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. The National Civil Rights Museum

2.  Crystal Shrine Grotto

3.  Vertical Madness, a geocache 80 feet up in a tree

(Way up there is the geocache. You have to use a harness and ropes to get to it.)

Shannon (Geocaching name Shandrum) the owner of the Vertical Madness cache. He's a professional arborist, and brought all the equipment needed. For several days he stayed by the tree and helped lots of people with this rare find!

4.  Walking through a swamp to find the oldest geocache in Tennessee

5.  Walking (I did a lot of that) across the Mississippi to find a geocache in Arkansas

6.  Seeing Graceland up close, and the place where Elvis and his family are buried.

 

7.  Of course, THE BEST part of the trip was all the great people I got to hang out with!

I spent the 2022-2023 school year taking classes. I've gone back to school, hoping to have a degree in nutrition in a couple of years. I've learned a ton of things about atoms and molecules and bacteria and viruses and the intricacies of the human body. The world is AMAZING, I tell ya.

What else? Hmmm.... OH YEAH, I have a daughter-in-law!  The wedding, according to my 10-year-old nephew, was The Party Of The Century!

And, Nick is now a Virginia Tech Graduate.

Even though blogs are kind of obsolete nowadays, I enjoy mine and hopefully I'll put up a few more this summer! Stay tuned (but I wouldn't hold your breath, haha!)