Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Searched by U.S. Border Patrol, Big Foot sighting, Letterboxing & STUFF!


Too bad you HAVE to read the rest of my blog before we get to that excitement!

The excitement started Thursday.  It decided to get cold and snow some.  Not much.  I still took Shane to the park and I tried to figure out my Dad's old complicated gps to try and find a geocache.  No luck with that.   Coincidences involving a certain guy have been going on for the past year.  I am certain they are just coincidences although I kind of wish they weren't.   Also on Thursday I went shopping with Mom.  Paula text me and said she may be coming up.

Friday: Went to the park again.  I cleaned my room and then cleaned Shane's room.  I set up the air mattress for Paula.  She arrived as I was finishing making the bed for her.  We decided to go GEOCACHING! We found 2. Her gps is much more awesome.  It's like the one I rented with my rental car in Los Angeles.  In one geocache was a coupon for 2.00 off a pizza so guess what I had for dindin?

Saturday: My son's dad took Shane for a couple of hours so he could go to a birthday party.  Paula and I went to a letterbox in Gaylord that she hadn't found yet.  We also found a geocache there that was in pretty sad shape.  We then went back home and waited for Shane to be dropped off.  Then off to a retirement party for a cousin of ours.  Shane wasn't all that well behaved when we were there.  We drove around.  We went and checked on a box she had planted to make sure it was still there.......it was.  We were gonna look for geocaches but ended up not.  We attempted the one at the park again with no luck.

Sunday:  Shane and I went to church of course.  Then we came home and went with Paula to Alpena and surrounding areas letterboxing.  We found a few.  We had a mishap of getting halfway there and realizing we didn't have the clues though.  Alpena isn't exactly close by.  I live on the Northwest side of Michigan....it's on the Northeast.  My parents were kind enough to bring them to us.  We just each drove towards each other til we met.  While finding Water Lily, we had an interesting time.  First while walking through the woods we see this guy with a mohawk in spikes carrying a plastic gun.........ummmm okay I had to keep shushing my son so he wouldn't ask loud questions about the guy.  Then we were on a different part of the trail.......I look behind me and see this THING....Big Foot? Swamp Thing? Walking Leaves? Anyway it was climbing up the hill behind us with a gun.  I turned my head back around sort of startled.  Then I look back at it again and its much closer and of course I start laughing cause that's my thing.  I THINK these kids were playing laser tag.  He was wearing a sniper costume that was all hairy and leafy.  It was still a bit freaky to see.

Monday:  We decide to try and do a lot of letterboxes in the Traverse City area.  We left early since my son had to be at his Dads later in the afternoon.  I had to weigh in at WW in TC too (which was not cool btw).  Okay on LbNA there is a box for Crystal Mountail Art Park........it says it's in TC....but really it's like a 40 minute drive from TC.  And the clues make it sound like it's not that hard and don't mention anything about the hike being difficult.  IT WAS! OMG.  I think I burned off every calorie I had ever eaten.  We had to climb a mountain.  I have an almost 3 year old who completely lost patience with this.  He kept throwing himself on the ground didn't want to walk.. Arrrgh not cool at all.  After we finally got the box we went back to TC and found an easy in town box.   Then Shane's dad called and away we went to Gaylord.  From Gaylord we went to the state park in Charlevoix and found 2 more boxes.  I attempted a third one that was yet another loooong walk but the box was gone.

Tuesday:  We're going to Canada!  Paula and I both have enhanced drivers licenses so we can go to Canada and Mexico and anyplace else in North America by land or sea.  We got Paula's oil changed first in Gaylord.  Then we drove to Canada.  We had no problem getting in.  We found 4 letterboxes in Canada which took a few hours.  Then we came back.....arrrrrrrghhhhhh.  First off Paula drops one of our licenses on the floor before it was our turn to pull up to the border patrol booth.  She opened her door and took of her seatbelt to do so.  They probably noticed her doing this who knows.  Then I had sunglasses on which they asked me to remove.  Okay.  Paula's eyes were watering from allergies.  I didn't know exactly how far Mancelona was from Sault Ste Marie.  Anyway either we were suspicious or it was just our lucky day to get the random search.  I am pretty sure they thought we were stoned off our butts though.  They made us pull into a garage and exit the vehicle.  This guy searched Paulas car and started asking us a billion (seriously) questions.  Have you ever been arrested? NO.  Then Paula says she had tickets before.  The guy asks if they were for marijuana!?! NO.. How do we know each other? We're cousins. Then he started talking about some old tv show with identical cousins.  He asked what we did for a living.  I said right now I was a stay at home mom.  He said well you didn't stay at home today....lol..I think.  He found Paula's stash of rubber stamps and carving supplies and asked what they were.  So we told him we were letterboxers and that's what we were really doing in Canada.  When he asked us initially we just said we were visiting some parks up there.  He didn't ask what that was so I guess he'd heard of it.  He asked how many mpg Paula's car got.  He said his got 11...lol..I think. He finally let us go.  That was not at all a cool way to end our trip to Canada lol.  Then we went to Brimley and Bay Mills and found some more boxes.

Wednesday: Paula went home today.  I went and picked up Shane today then we went to the park......