Thanksgiving Day

It was good to see some familiar faces on my way home from work on Thanksgiving Day. I was the manager on duty at the ambulance service in Ellsworth but I live up in Orrington, next to Brewer. I had gone down to work to help cover so that some of the "on duty" people could get a chance to eat the huge Thanksgiving dinner that everyone had brought in. As you might imagine, the emergency phone often rings right in the middle of their planned feast. As it turned out, that morning the crew responded to a very bad car accident where a girl had rolled her car and it slammed up against a tree, roof first. The car had wrapped around the tree, was now "U" shaped, and she was trapped inside between the car and the tree. After a long extrication she was sent via LifeFlight to Bangor and I couldn't help but think that, from now on, she will always have negative memories on Thanksgiving Day. It was a stressful call on a Thanksgiving morning but I was on my way home to try to enjoy my own Thanksgiving feast later in the afternoon.

My route home takes me by several of my own caches and as I was passing one I saw a car parked there and a guy holding something in has hand as he walked down over the hill. Aha.....a cacher! So when I turned around and drove back to say hello I discovered it was Laughing Terry and Lacy out on a cache run to the coast (I made sure he left a chicken). Meeting people out on the trail is always fun and this was no exception. But today geocaching lifted my spirits when they needed to be lifted.....the sport has a way of doing that. Geocaching has given me too many joys to count. An hour later my own Thanksgiving meal was terrific. On this Thanksgiving Day I am thankfull that I became involved in the sport. Just another geocaching story....

Wow, that's great.

Today the day after thanksgiving I was contacted by one of the new cachers I have turned on to the adventure. She was having trouble dropping a travel bug in one of my caches and the owner had contacted her about how she said she had dropped it and it didn't show up. I calmed her down and explained again how to do it.

While on the phone she told me how much fun she had on Thanksgiving, taking her grandchildren out caching. They are having the time of their lives. I am so happy I could bring this to them and hopefully a lot more.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone and Merry Christmas.

EMSDanel - you are so right. This sport unites many of different backgrounds and orientations but all with a common bond. A wonderful destressor, of sorts, for the crazy field in which you work and I used to work.

Ekidokai, yes, it is fun to introduce new folks to caching. Learning of the fun they have and helping is part of giving back to the game/sport - whatever you wish to call it.

I, too, learned what a great destressor this game/sport would be when only 4 short months after starting my husband was diagnosed with Cancer. While he was in the hospital recovering from his initial surgery, walking a trail ~ searching for a cache ~ with my GPSr in hand was great medicine for me. Nature is a wonderful healer.

And, too, I have met sure wonderful, new friends.

As said by others - thanks for being there everyone. And may your Christmas be Merry and if you don't celebrate Christmas - enjoy whatever holiday is special to you!