My 1st Geocache Hunt

So....I was all excited about going geocaching. I used to letterbox but decided to give this a try. There are tons of caches around Branson and I wanted to try out the free iPhone application that I had downloaded last month. Heh....little did I know...it wasn't going to be quite as fun as I had hoped.

Adam and I took off around 7 PM to drive the whopping 2 miles to the closest cache near Table Rock Dam. The weather was perfect and everything is nice and green and there are wildflowers everywhere.

We parked and followed the trail...through tall grass and a LOT of Cedar Trees. For those of you who aren't familiar with ticks, Cedar Trees are what I call Tick Trees. They lie in wait for you to walk under them and then they drop on you. BLECH! So, there I was covering my head under the trees and constantly checking for ticks and rubbing my legs so that nothing could burrow into my skin. Yes, I was absolutely BRILLIANT in my choice of clothing. I didn't think to change out of my shorts. Arggg. Eventually we had to go off the path and into the forest-y area. Poison Oak popping up all over the place, both tiny and large plants. We finally found the ammo box that it was in and I high-tailed it out of there! Sidenote: There were 2 people that found the box yesterday. I had no idea so many people did this on vacation.

As I was looking at some random cacti growing on the side of the trail, I felt something on my leg. At first I thought I was just brushing against the tall grass but NOOOOOO, there were 2 seed ticks crawling on both legs. YUCK. Stupid curiosity of mine. I mean really, who thought there would be random cacti growing in Branson, MO?

We picked off a few ticks before getting into the car and then more at home. I actually yelped at one point as I was looking in the mirror to spot ticks. One was crawling on my thigh (queue yelp), and was running for it when I tried to grab it. Of course it was a big one with a white spot on it. Ewwww. All of the other 15-20 that we found were seed ticks.

I think I may wait until the winter to start looking for these things. It's so sad because the scenery is beautiful around here...you just can't walk around in it.

HitchHiker

I had a little hitchhiker for around 22 minutes on my way to church. I left my house with this ladybug on my windshield and drove to church at my normal speed. At one point I reached around 50 MPH. This guy hung on until I made it to the church parking lot. About 20 seconds after I came to a stop....he flew off. Hehe

My brother rocks!

Once again the Tour of California is here and....once again I am in Branson doing shows. This year the individual time trial in in Los Angeles at the Staples Center. I can't even begin to imagine how insane the crowds must be out there today! They are expecting around 25, 000 spectators today. Wowza! Way more than the crowds we had during the Tour of Missouri ITT a few years back.

That being said, I sent my brother into the lion's den. Poor guy....but awesome guy!

I know what I'm getting for my birthday this year! He bought me a ToC yellow jersey and has already gotten it signed by the Liquigas Riders. Wahooooo! Go Team Lime! Oh....and my name is even spelled right this time. TeeHee

Can't wait to see the jersey in person. Maybe I'll get it before my birthday comes around. If not, I can wait the 6 weeks. Wahoooo. SO excited!

Love you bro!

2010 Family Photo Shoot

Here are a few pictures from our family photo shoot. Like I said, it was a bit last minute but we had a blast.