Happy Bucks

My Dad is the President of the Chino Valley Rotary Club and a charter member. About 6 or 7 months ago, I was at the Thursday Rotary luncheon as Grandma Alice's "companion." (Sounds better than babysitter or driver, right?)

Anyway, lo & behold, with no knowledge on MY part, I found myself suddenly being voted INTO the Rotary. This was something I had avoided since I wasn't sure I wanted to be part of another service organization -- the only 80/20 rule.

To my surprise, I've been really enjoying Rotary. The people are great, the events are fun, gets me out of the home office for a lunch-per-week.

The hands-down BEST part?

Happy Bucks

What ARE happy bucks, you ask? Each week, we pass an envelope around the table of 20 or so Rotarians. And we each get to put in a few dollars and tell about something we're happy for.

Wow! What a novel idea. Sharing happiness, joy, and gratitude. In public. And PAYING to do so. Even in this economy where money is so tight and we've all given up the daily Starbucks or Sonic drinks, this group of special people open their wallets to share. A dollar, $5, maybe $20 if its your birthday...

This morning, after the alarm went off after a not-much-sleeping night, I lay in bed for a moment thinking of all the things I need to get accomplished today. A huge, daunting list. Not to mention the fact that I REALLY need to make some sales both for EatStayPlay.com and Pre-Paid Legal. And then it hit me:

Today is Rotary day. I get to put in happy bucks. By golly, I'd better find SOMETHING to be happy about and quickly. Just that simple thought made a small smile creep over my face. Dude! Be happy or you don't get to play.

So, for right now, I don't know exactly WHICH of my many blessing, quite triumphs and big joys I'm going to celebrate today. But I know that when Happy Buck time comes at the meeting, I've got $3 set aside just to be happy.

Sledding in Flagstaff

Flagstaff, Arizona, is THE place everybody flocks to for sledding, skiing, snowboarding, snowplay, snow men and SNOW SNOW SNOW.

Personally, sledding scares me but who am I to argue with everybody who loves it?

Anyway, I wanted to announce that the new 2009-2010 Sledding In Flagstaff eGuide is done! Find out all about it!

First Blog Post: TheOutdoorPrincess.com

The first blog post on TheOutdoorPrincess.com is done! It is also being published on FindYourGeocache.com

TheOutdoorPrincess.com

I wanted to announce the launch of my new blog: TheOutdoorPrincess.com

This will be published daily and will be all about outdoor recreation. Here's my weekly plan:

Monday: Mystery Monday
The day where I talk about a weekend adventure or other topic that doesn't "fit in"

Tuesday: Find Your Geocache
The day where I discuss geocaching. (What is geocaching?)

Wednesday: Pitch Your Tent
The day dedicated to camping

Thursday: Set Your Hook
Ah! Fishing. Just in time for the weekend!

Friday: Fun Food Fridays
And what blog about outdoor recreation would be complete without outdoor cooking?

Water On Mars

My Aunt Vicki sent me this in an email. I really needed a laugh this morning so I thought I'd pass it along!

Snow

It's snowing.




On October 28th.





And I have to go to Ship & Copy to deliver a UPS package.




Yuck!

Blastoff Network!

Guess what! Blastoff is FINALLY live. That means I can send out invitations to join this network. I've been a member as part of the pre-launch since early September. It's FANTASTIC.

It's been fun. (Cool games)

It's easy.

And, it makes me money!

So, I had to get some new domain names from GoDaddy.com. They are one of the 400+ online retailers that are a part of Blastoff. So, I went THROUGH the Blastoff Mall to GoDaddy.com and purchased my new domains.

I got a CASH BACK on that purchase! Plus, when somebody made a purchase who's in my network (I don't even know who) I got a cash back on THAT too!

It's really cool. But, I don't want anybody to have to WAIT. I mean, if you wait, you'll miss it. You can only be part of ONE Blastoff network so if you don't get in you can't invite your friends.

Do it! Join Now!







(Look at all the links I put in!)

Wipe Out!

I decided to try my hand at placing micro caches. I saw one like this:

Little baggie with a log inside
STRONG magnet
Duct tape

Stick to something metal



So, I decided to place on on a guard rail near my home. Here's your clue: I had to reach through THESE


To place the cache.

I called it Wipe Out! since heavy rains can literally wipe out the bridge!

Date Night Geocaching

Alvin has been WAY into geocaching lately and he's hit a ton of the geocaches here in Prescott. Tonight, for our date night, he took me to some of his favorites.


Alvin really likes micro caches. This was MY favorite for the evening.

Do you see the cache in this photo? I found it to be REALLY hard to spot at first! In fact, I needed a clue.

Soft Opening: Wyoming

Wyoming is having it's soft opening today so I can beta test it. For some reason, beta testing just works better LIVE than local. I'm just flat-out excited to have another state up!



And our VERY pretty default graphic for Wyoming that has been in "storage" for far too long. The state isn't 100% done yet, meaning that I still have attractions to research and put up, but it is better than nothing.

And, this is the first state that I've ever up to, start-to-finish, without any help from Les. It was a good feeling, but far more difficult than I expected.

5 Is Prime

Alvin & I placed a geocache in my neighborhood this evening. I had it all ready for him so it was a surprise outing. I told him to put his shoes on, grabbed the paper bag and off we went.

I called it '5 is Prime'

Williams, AZ Geocaching

Ahh! Geocaching. Since our trackable coins were FINALLY in and we were all together, the four of us (and the dog!) headed out to "get some coins in play" as Dad says.


Out first stop was Jake's Claw TB Hotel where we put in our first geocoin. It's actually harder than I thought, releasing a coin. You know you'll never actually SEE it again; never hold it again. Wow! Big steps!


From there it was on to Ghost Town Puntenney ...


Where I made Alvin crawl into a tree! There were no ghosts, no town, but there was a graveyard. Very cool. The only headstone that we could read was in Spanish -- a 9 month old baby boy.


Are we there Yeti? had some interesting stuff in the cache. I especially like the "big foot."


My group shot posed some unique problems. Alvin's head is cut off since the tree branch MOVED after I fastened the camera to it. We were hot and hungry by this time and I didn't want to get everyone to hold still for another photo.


The next cache had great coords. And we got to test our rock climbing skills at the side of a pull-off. This was where we realized we'd been following another Prescott-area cacher all day.


Vista Point- North Perkinsville Road Series

After that, it was to White Horse Lake for LUNCH. In our planning in the morning, we realized that there were NO caches actually AT the lake. So even though it was last minute, Alvin and I quickly spray-painted a cache container to put out.


Since it was a small container, Mom & I named it "White Pony" You see my geocoin on top. This was the coin I'd carried around in my purse for a week. I gave it the mission of visiting places with strong memories. Complex, I know. But that's why I put it at White Horse Lake -- I caught my first fish there!


The rock we hid it under.


And my FAVORITE group shot of the day. Even Lily got in on the caching action!


By the time we got to Overland Trail- North Perkinsville Rd. series Dad had pretty much had it with all the photos. In fact, this is the ONLY photo I got of the cache. After this, we went to visit Alvin's parents, Al Sr. and Sandy, since they were camping nearby. They'd been waiting for us so we all drove into Williams for dinner.

For not being hungry, our gang ate a LOT.

After dinner, there was time for one last cache and to put out Alvin's geocoin.

We put this at the Kaibab Lake cache. It was getting dark, everyone was tired, and there were muggles where we needed to hike UP the mountain. So we took a very round-about way to get there. Just Alvin and I went; Dad, Mom & Lily stayed in the truck.

At every cache we went to, we also put in geotokens for a free geocoin!

Chino Valley Geocaching

I'm still really excited about our new geotokens, so even though it wasn't "date night" I took Alvin out geocaching. We hit 4 Chino Valley area caches.

We started out with on that my friend Kris put out called What the quail? We found a geocoin there.


Then, we were on to cacti with a view. This one, was, yep IN some prickly pear cactus. But that wasn't the issue. The issue was it was also on an ant highway! Yuck. (I'm not activating the link because the guy archived it and it's no longer an active cache.)

Oh yeah, I got my hair cut!

From there we went to Yuma Flood Zone and had to re-bury the cache. Floods and all!

We finished up with another cache of Kris' called Got Mail? Then, we went to my folk's house to get Lily.

At each of these caches we put in some of the EatStayPlay.com geotokens. These geotokens are good for a free geocoin. A free TRACKABLE geocoin no less! Well, I shouldn't say they are good for a free coin -- there's some work involved.

Geocaching Date

I was just chomping at the bit to get some of our new EatStayPlay.com geotokens out and into caches so for our Wednesday night date, Alvin and I decided to go geocaching! As you can see from the clouds, we knew we'd be limited on how many caches we could get to.

This is Walking Trail near my house and the first stop for the evening. Alvin always makes sure to take LOTS of photos of our progress. We found a "2" off a telephone pole in the cache. That was really neat since telephones have special meaning to Alvin and I have a thing for prime numbers!


From there we went to Jerome Junction.

Alvin opening the cache box.


The log sheet.


Do you see how the sky is getting DARKER?

The last cache of the evening SAID that it was a small (i.e. we could put in geotokens) but I think it was really a micro since all it had was a log sheet.

Time for a Drink was the name but it really meant that it was time for a hint. Yeah, we had to call for help on this one!

We tried to get to one more but we just got rained out. Oh well, next time!

Profiles on Geocaching.com for EatStayPlay and AlvinE

Geotokens

The tokens came! I ordered 4,000 in 4 different colors. And no, they aren't EatStayPlay colors; I thought that if I got dark green, dark blue, and brown that they'd disappear in the bottom of a geocache. ESPECIALLY in an ammo can!

It was kinda strange having different colors...

I'm very pleased with how they turned out. Kris did an excellent job in the designing, as usual. It just took a while to get the guys on the PRODUCTION end to figure out the files. But it all came together in the end.

Here's all four colors.


And the green one. Isn't this guy jaunty? I actually scanned him in. I put these on my page about getting a free geocoin.

I took some to the briefing this evening to show Alvin. (They actually arrived yesterday but there was no time for posting.)

The Geocoins Are Here!

After WEEKS of waiting (and months of planning!) my geocoins have arrived! I ordered 100 custom, trackable geocoins from Larissa at OakCoins.com

Larissa did a WONDERFUL job! She was always patient and answered all my questions. She didn't get worried when I kept changing the size or the amount; she just drew up another quote and sent it to me.

And, the turn around time was great! I got photos from the factory (made me cry) and an email when they were shipped. If you're even THINKING of ordering custom geocoins (trackable or not) you need to get them through OakCoins.com

Anyway, this is my coin - the front. I don't have a good photo of the back. And, I am giving these away FREE on my website! They're at: http://www.EatStayPlay.com/Coin/Blog.html



Isn't it pretty! I can't WAIT to put some out. But first, I need the geotokens...

Punta Cana: Day 4

Today, I think we'd FINALLY had enough of the beach. So we decided to take a shopping excursion into "town". But, when we got to the excursion desk, we found out that there were no more shopping trips that we could even GO on. (The information made it sound like they left all day every couple of hours!)

So we decided to take a taxi. Frankly, this made me happy since the shopping was $35 PER PERSON and I knew a taxi wouldn't cost that much.

When we went to get a taxi I asked the hotel taxi man where we should go since everybody had been giving us different answers. He answered Higüey, (EEEEE-Guh-way the guh is like 'go' and is in the same syllable as way) but saying that that was the place all the OTHER tourist shops got their stuff and that it would be cheaper. Speaking Spanish is GREAT!

The best part: $90 for FOUR of us, round trip!

Our cab driver was named Leo. (Lay-oh) Leo didn't speak much English but he was from Higüey and knew just where to go for trinkets. I got some jewlery of the native stone larimar and some coffee beans for Les & Kathy.

We already knew that tomorrow we'd be going on a safari and there'd be kids who'd want candy so we had Leo stop by a candy store.

This store was probably only 10x15 but it was JAMMED full of candy. It smelled like surgar overload. Wow!

From there, we went to do some sightseeing since all the shopping was done. This is the Basicillica of the city. It's not very old but VERY impressive.

I expect Catholic cathedrals to be cold and dry. The stone whispers softly.

Except this was hot and damp and it didn't SOUND right.

Wooden sculptures behind the alter. There is an image of the Virgin all in gold that people make pilgramages to.


This lady had a mission to be here and she was very serious about it all. I know that I could have lined up a sure-fire county fair winning photo off of this, but I chose not to; this wasn't posed for her. She was on a pilgramage of her own with some very serious business to attend to.

I actually felt bad for even BEING there with my big hat and camera -- like I was cheapening her faith.


From there we went to the oldest church (Catholic of course!) in the Dominican Republic. It is over 400 years old. It even has the requisite pigeons out front!

Now THIS is more like what a cathedral should be like. Even if it's a lot smaller than anything in Spain or even San Xavier in Tucson.


I never saw a sign I didn't want a photo of!

This was in a courtyard outside.

Alvin. I knew he wasn't feeling well by this time.

Dad. Kim. Leo. Mom. Alvin.

We tipped Leo really well since he told me that of the $90 he only gets to take $17.50 home. He was a wife and four kids. I think we ended up tipping him $20 or $25. It was worth it.

This evening was actually the "farewell dinner" for group 1. But, because they couldn't get us home tomorrow, we have another full day. Like I mentioned, we'll be taking a "Safari". Cindy Chantrell recommended it to us.

I got to wear my AMAZING black and yellow dress that dad bought me in Las Vegas.


Larry & Doni Smith with Alvin and I.

Me and Mom and the Totem.