Geocaching

Our Christmas presents to ourselves this year were a couple of GPS units.  One for the car and one for the trails.  After driving around Scotland with less-than-ideal maps to work with, especially in towns that favor one-way streets, we decided it might be a good idea to invest in a little help.  Hans found some (really) good deals on Amazon after the holidays.

So far the car unit seems to do well.  We had fun driving around a few weekends ago as we watched our "vehicle" (a chipotle burrito) maneuver the streets of St. Louis.

Of course the real test now is for the trail GPS's performance.  This weekend we're probably going to give geocaching a go (though we need to calibrate the elevation settings).  Ideally, in the future we'd like to link our GPS to this blog when we travel so that readers can see an exact pinpoint as to where we are.  Technology is so cool.

The Travel Bug

This summer we may be relocating cross-country (for reasons I'm not ready to disclose until it's official).  Since we'll be trying to save money afterward, our fall vacation is likely to be somewhere within a two or three state radius.  Not that I'm disappointed.  There's still a lot of America that neither of us has explored yet.

Though my mind does wander off the continent at times.  Hans surprised me when I asked him where he'd like to go for our next overseas vacation.  The Alps.  I see an alpine backpacking trip in our future.

I have a lot of spare time at work to scribble in my notebook.  A few weeks ago I made an off-the-top-of-my-head list of places I'd like to visit.  It's fairly daunting to think about.  Provided that Hans and I go on two trips per year (Spring/Fall or Summer/Winter), it will take us the next 11 years to check them all off.  That's not counting the destinations I have yet to cover from a recently-discovered list I made in 2002 (though why on earth I had wanted to go to North Dakota is beyond me).

2002 List	2010 List
Scandinavia Hawaii Petra, Jordan New York City Nevada Arizona North Dakota New Orleans Prague The Italian Riviera Corsica India Thailand Cambodia Greece Istanbul Iceland Scotland Washington D.C.	Rome (again) London (again) Western Scotland/Hebrides Bike Tour New England Savannah Utah (Bryce Canyon, Zion) Yellowstone/Wyoming Japan Egypt Australia / New Zealand Wales Paris (again) Germany/Austria Spain Nova Scotia / Newfoundland Galapagos Islands Argentina Peru Nepal Morocco Russia Vietnam