Happy Place

It's the end of the month which means it's time for P.J.'s monthly photo blog challenge. I thought about this one, then figured that I have a bunch of happy places, things or actual places that I enjoy immensely, so I thought I could make this more about all of my happy places as opposed to just one happy place. I mean, why limit yourself? And I'm sure if I really tried, I could come up with some more, but these are the ones I've chosen for this month's photos and they are in no particular order of importance.

1. It's all about planning

Right now, I'm in the middle of my second round of immunotherapy for my cancer treatment. This is a maintenance round, primarily meant for preventive care, so that's a very good thing. I had my first treatment on Monday and I have two subsequent treatments on the 5th and 12th of next month and then it appears I'll get another 3 month break. What this means in the long run is I'm planning a road trip to Utah and Colorado.

One of the things that has been really frustrating about my illness is it's not really allowed me to plan any kind of trips because I've had appointments, surgeries, and procedures that have take top priority. I get that, but with more free time, I've been able to start planning for future trips again.

I love planning road trips. I love to look at maps and guidebooks and determine what route I will take in order to fully maximize the time I have for this specific trip. This time, the plan is to head to Grand Junction, Colorado and tour Colorado National Monument and Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. 

I've been to Black Canyon of the Gunnison way back when I was around 13. This was actually so far in the past, the park was a national monument at the time and has since been upgraded to national park status by an act of Congress. I've never been to Colorado National Monument, but I intend to spend a day at each park and make Grand Junction my base for the three days and two nights I'm in the region. 

And I will be the first to admit that I started planning this road trip too early. I've pretty much set up my itinerary, have my hotels books and know what I want to do each day and I WANT TO GO NOW! But I can't, because of my upcoming treatments. I should have waited until next week perhaps to start planning, but you'll see later in this post that waiting might not have been a really wise choice either, because next week is going to get busy.

2. Papa and Gaga time

We didn't do this very often last year, but once I got sick, time became a little bit more precious and my daughter and son-in-law started having regular video chats with us so we could see the little one. Usually these happen around dinner time, so in essence we get to eat dinner with our granddaughter on an almost daily basis and we live 300+ miles away from each other. This is just one of the many screenshots I grabbed a couple of weeks ago when we were having dinner together.

Just watching and listening to her babble about her day, what's she's eating, her insistence on seeing our two Pooh bears that she knows are at our house, and seeing her new developments that seemingly happen on a daily basis really takes me to a happy place.

I've heard it said that being a grandparent is the best and I've probably said this more than once on this platform, but it really is. And she's coming to visit in about a week. It will be a short visit, but we are both really looking forward to seeing her and her parents.

3. The Wonders of Nature

I will never be not astounded by the wonders of nature around us. It's probably why I love to travel, to experience new things in nature to me. It also allows me to practice my art of photography and although that's developed and evolved over the years, especially with my reliance more and more with my phone as opposed to my DSLR, I still love going out and hunting down that elusive butterfly, or taking a wonderful landscape photo from some place I've visited. This particular butterfly allowed me to get my phone about two inches away from it, almost as if it knew I wasn't going to try and capture it.

My parents instilled in me a love of nature and I fully want to enjoy it for as long as I possibly can. Already in my mind, I'm planning other trips that I can take in the future. 

4. Hiking

I realize this photo isn't the greatest photo, but it really encapsulates what I enjoy about getting out in nature. I've been asked why I never took up mountain biking as it appears as if I'd be a good candidate for that particular type of exercise and recreation and I think it's mainly because I feel that biking would intrude in some of the other happy places I also like to enjoy, like photography, nature and geocaching. I mean, if you're flying by something at 20 miles per hour, by the time you stop to "smell the roses" or pursue the butterfly, the butterfly has already flown away. And so I walk, and I walk, and I walk.

Before I was retired, I was pretty much limited to hiking on the weekends. Now, I just get up, look outside and if the day looks promising, I'll put on my hiking shoes and head out to a favorite trail and enjoy the day. And what's really funny about all this is, as a school teacher, we're used to loving our summers. Now, I would honestly say that summer is my least favorite season of all. It's so dang hot that unless you get up at the crack of dawn and get out on the trail, it's usually pretty miserable out there. It's so much nicer during the cooler months of fall, winter and spring, when you can go out just about any time of the day and get a good hike in without feeling like you've been on a summer death march. Plus, now that I'm retired, I can hike any day of the week, so I don't have to exclusively go on the weekends when the trails are crowded. Nice quiet trails where I can really enjoy nature take me to a happy place.

5. Geocaching

Did you really think I could get through an entire blog post talking about happy places and not talk, at least a little bit, about geocaching? I didn't think so.

So much of the past 22 years of my life has been intertwined by this silly game that I discovered. As one of my friends, who I later introduced to this game said, "Geocaching. It's hiking with a purpose!" Although I'm not sure I agree with this sentiment entirely, I did see where he was coming from with his explanation.

And yes, part of my next roadtrip will be geocaching related. I'm actually planning on hosting two event caches while out on the trip, one in Grand Junction, Colorado and another one in Salt Lake City, Utah. What better way to meet up with other geocachers in the area than by attending an event. I looked at my itinerary and then searched to see if there were already events planned (there weren't), so I decided to host my own morning coffee events. I usually do this when I'm on a road trip, but this is the first time I've hosted two events while out on a trip. It's kind of ambitious for a 7 day trip, but I'm up to the task.

It's always enjoyable to talk with other geocachers about the game. Who knows, I might end up going caching with one of the people who show up at one of my events.

The other goal of this trip is to get the webcam caches that are in the Salt Lake City area. A webcam cache is where there's a public webcam that you need to stand in front of the webcam and either have a friend back home get a screen shot of you, or you can alternately get a screen shot of yourself off of your phone.

I've signed several challenge caches for finding webcams and since there are four different webcams in this area, it's like a goldmine for cachers working on webcam challenges. To put things in perspective, there are approximately 203 active webcam caches, so they are exceedingly rare. Webcams are no longer recognized as "real" geocaches, so these are the ones that have been grandfathered into the system. They are not getting replaced, so when one gets archived, it's gone and there's not going to be one to replace it. That's why when geocachers see there's a webcam close by, they want to get their photo taken, because you never know if that particular webcam might disappear sometime in the future. Of the 10 that I've taken a photo at, only 4 of them are still active.

And there you have it, my take on the theme Happy Place. Please stop by P.J.'s page and see how other people interpreted the same theme.  And as always, please leave a comment. I won't bite.