Cache is not at posted coordinates.
I love to travel and I love to Geocache so I thought I would combine two of my favorite hobbies. I love to travel to new and exciting places.
My love of travel started when I was a child. As a family we would spend the better part of a year planning our trip. The entire family would go - grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins - we always had quite a crew along with us. My great grandfather was a railway conductor and my grandparents were convinced the best way to see the country was to pick two destination and to "ride the rails" in between. It seemed somewhat old-fashioned to me, even back then that our travel would center around traveling by train across the country. I always felt taking a car would allow us more flexibility and let us see more things. In the end, the train did allow all of us to travel together. We could travel through the night without having tired (crabby) drivers. We would all meet in the origination city (didn't seem to have any problems driving or flying there) and our journey would begin. My favorite memory was the time when my cousin Kyle and I....
... I guess that's a story for another time. Anyway, I was helping my son with a school project recently and it caused me to recap and re-tell some of our family journeys. Here they are in order as best as I can remember them.
Summer of 1980: Denver to El Paso - absolutely breathtaking and my first time ever on a train
Summer of 1981: Winnipeg to Houston and back - This trip took nearly two weeks and was georgeous but exhausting. It was also my first time ever in Canada.
Summer of 1982: Calgary to Salt Lake City - the mountains were stunning. We did make it out to the Great Salt Lake - I wasn't that impressed.
Summer of 1983: Sault Ste Marie to Nashville - I remember thinking was a crazy name Sault Ste Marie was - none of us kids could pronounce it correctly and we giggled about it the whole time - drove the parents crazy.
Summer of 1984: Boston to Miami - The train broke down and we actually only made it halfway there. Had to rent two 18-passenger vans to get home. Worst Trip Ever!
Summer of 1985: Chicago to New Orleans - Thought New Orleans was Jazzy! Was too young then to fully appreciate it.
Summer of 1986: Duluth to Houston - Not sure who picked these locations but don't ever need to go back to Duluth again. Houston was the same as I remembered it - HOT.
Summer of 1987: New York to Atlanta - Best trip I remember. Both cities were very cool - smooth sailing in between.
Summer of 1988: My grandmother passed away and the summer trip was cancelled. Had to drive to the funeral instead. Can't even remember what the original plans were. Anyway, we ended up going nowhere.
Summer of 1989: Took two different trips this summer (maybe to make up for the summer before). We went from Los Angeles to Chicago spent a few days there and then went from Chicago to Santa Fe. I Hopi to go back there someday (sorry, just a little southwestern humor).
Summer of 1990: Helena to Los Angeles. I remember thinking that there were lots of beautiful places in Montana. I didn't think Helena was one of them. All I can remember about LA is Venice Beach and some very crazy people there.
After that I was off to college and didn't make any of the summer trips. I think they lasted for only a couple years longer until they fizzled out. It makes me smile to think of those trips - the food, the fighting, and the fun times we had. Nowadays, I take a train when it's quicker or to avoid traffic or parking. I do sometimes stop and reflect back on "riding the rails" as the way I first experienced travel. I got to see a great deal of this great country. What's your favorite train destination?
Look for the code inside the cache container to find the bonus cache for this series.
You can check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com.
Congrats to BoxmanCrew for the FTF