Tag Archives: Loudoun County

Oh Snap! Gotta Love A Five-Minute Drive-By Shoot

Sometimes, the best date nights are those spontaneous adventures Mike and I share in our sunshine yellow Jeep Wrangler. After the post-dinner clean-up, we like to put a little gravel in our travel, rolling over Loudoun County’s winding backroads. We always discover a tucked-away visual treat, like a fading sunset melting into a verdant pasture or a tattered old barn, fighting to stand tall against the inevitable decay of time and weather. Last week, we took a side trip off one of our well-worn routes and stumbled upon this barn, its metal roof peeled back by the power of a tornado that touched down a few years back. I didn’t have my Nikon 35mm or one of the family’s Canon point-and-shoots. So these photos were shot with my hubby’s iPhone camera. Oh snap–gotta love a drive-by photo shoot.

Be blessed–and be a blessing,
Martha, LoudounCrazyMom

Fresh Air = Fresh Perspective in Loudoun County

Let’s be honest: We Loudouners are a blessed bunch.

According to the financial powers-that-be, Loudoun is purported to be the wealthiest county per capita in the US. And not only are we wealthy on paper, but we are wealthy in natural resources. Consider our breathtaking landscapes teeming with livestock and crops, and steeped in historical significance. Add in our proximity to the nation’s bustling nucleus, serving up monuments on the Mall and the nation’s greatest collection of free-admission museums. We have everything we need, and certainly most everything we could want–including come November, a Chick-Fil-A in Leesburg!

Sometimes, maybe a little too often, I’m guilty of taking this bountiful Loudoun life of mine for granted. God must have known I needed a fresh perspective–a Fresh Air Fund perspective, courtesy of our most recent house guest. Bubbly nine-year-old Cade, a Queens, NY native, burst into our lives serendipitously.

Tonight, while my children sleep in their comfy beds inside our roomy house, I want to share our Fresh Air experience with you. If one person who reads this decides to open their home and heart to a Fresh Air child, I will be one especially happy Loudoun crazy mom! So here goes.

Sometime before school ended, I responded to a direct mail letter that landed in my mailbox. It was a compelling call to action from the Fresh Air Fund of New York City. This Tommy Hilfiger-supported nonprofit was looking for Friendly Town host families who would be willing to welcome a 6-17 year old boy or girl into their homes for two weeks away, giving them a respite from summertime in the big city.  Friendly Towns are suburban or rural towns stretching from Maine to Virginia. We hosted a Fresh Air child five years ago, the summer before Shelby was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, but hadn’t done so since.

Timing is everything.

When that Fresh Air Fund letter bounced across my desktop, I felt it pull me in. I sent an email expressing interest and then…forgot about it.  Until a few months later, that is, when a Fresh Air fund volunteer contacted me, and arranged to come out to the house to meet our entire family and check out the living quarters.  Yes, it was time to open our home again. We consulted with eight-year-old Sean, who would be the sole Rombach kid home for a week while the other four were away. Was he certain that he could do this? Could he share his room, share his things, be gracious and kind to a little boy he’d never met? He assured us that he could, and even drew a hand-made welcome sign and taped it to his bedroom door.

On the morning of June 30th, our Fresh Air child’s arrival day, I returned home from my morning walk to see the message light on our answering machine blinking. The Fresh Air Fund coordinator was calling from the bus. Our seven-year-old match had cancelled out the night before, but they were able to put another youngster on the bus for us. His name was Cade, he was nine, and he was en route to our house. Okay, mild, controlled panic overtook me–until that inner voice reminded me that I am not in control–ever–that God is, and that if he decided Cade was the boy for us, well, there was no turning back now. I wrapped up my bedroom preparations and hopped in the Jeep, driving the hour to College Park, Maryland to meet the bus and Cade–due to arrive at 12 noon.

I stood there by myself, surrounded by other families, most with their children, holding signs welcoming their Fresh Air children back for the second, third or umpteenth time. Cullen, Bryan and Cady were at camp for another week–Summer’s Best Two Weeks (the best Christian sports camp ever!). Shelby was traveling around Europe with friends. And Sean was at baseball camp until 2pm. It was just me…and a little boy from Queens, meeting and greeting for the first time in the Holiday Inn parking lot.

A stop atop the rocks at Bear's Den.

Can you imagine being nine, climbing aboard a coach tour bus with children and adults you don’t know, driving 3 1/2 to 4 hours south, and then going home with a total stranger? Now that takes a kind of courage and confidence that I don’t think I possess even at 46. On my first trip to New York City, I was so obviously nervous and out of my element that I was an easy target for a scam within five minutes of stepping out of Grand Central Station. Not Cade. He was effervescent with excitement, a smile lit up his entire face. Fearless and ready for two weeks of fun. He knew, better than me, that great things were ahead for all of us. After hugs and hellos, we climbed inside the Jeep, top down at Cade’s request, and headed home to Leesburg–stopping only momentarily for a smoothie and a call home to Cade’s Dad. Our two weeks were underway.

Bryan, Sean and Cade play Monopoly at the kitchen table.

What does an inner-city kid want to do when he lands in Leesburg, Virginia? Anything and everything! Bike riding around the neighborhood was a particular joy. NYC kids can’t ride their bikes in the street like our kids do, here in our safe, suburban neighborhoods. The neighborhood pool was a huge hit, as were the flippers that gave Cade more confidence in the water. He and Sean must have retrieved hundreds of sunken dive toys, over and over and over again.

Cade takes the lily pads by storm at the AV Symington Aquatic Center.

We camped out in our yard and roasted marshmallows over the fire pit. We ate pizza at Fireworks and CiCi’s and Chuck E. Cheese. We went bowling (twice)–a first for Cade, who ended up with a couple of strikes and spares. We drove the winding gravel back roads in our top-down Jeep, stopping at Bluemont Country Store for a whopping scoop of ice cream. We played Jenga, Apples to Apples, and got hooked on Monopoly again (Cade’s idea). We hit the water slides and lazy river at Leesburg’s AV Symington Aquatic Park during its discounted hours of 5-8pm. We hiked to Bear’s Den, taking along our dogs for good measure. Cade doesn’t have pets–and he treasured every minute with ours.

We devoured movie popcorn and sodas as we watched Cars 2 and Transformers 3. We visited the Smithsonian’s Natural History, Air and Space and American History museums. We went grocery shopping, and shoe shopping. We watched the Leesburg Fourth of July Parade and sat in the rain to await the fireworks display. We sucked down free Slurpees on 7/11 and popsicles or ice cream almost every other day. We played computer games and watched YouTube videos. We made pancakes and waffles and sunny-side up eggs. Above all, we celebrated a little boy who said he had the best two weeks of his life, just hanging out with our family. Loudoun County was a world away from an apartment in Queens.

Cade downing waffles with an extra heaping of whipped cream.

The morning we packed up Cade to head home, we all realized that this little guy had left his mark on us all. Talk about happy, positive, and grateful. Cade kept us smiling–and he couldn’t have been kinder or more polite. We thought we were giving Cade a fresh perspective. In truth, Cade gave us one. Is he coming back next summer? You bet–and we’ll be keeping in touch all year long. Who knew what an impact a little Fresh Air could have on our Loudoun County life?!

Sadly, the bus trip from New York City to Northern Virginia is missing something big: more Fresh Air kids. The huge coach touring bus might have carried 40 or more children to Friendly Town homes. Instead, only 14 children were on board. Next year, the Fresh Air Fund hopes to fill the bus to capacity. I wonder…might you consider being a Fresh Air family with us? Could we recruit other families? Would your church or neighborhood put a notice in their newsletter? Ten years from now, could we have Loudoun County Fresh Air reunions?

All you need is an open bed and a willingness to share one or two weeks of your summer with a New York City child. Talk about a good thing. To learn more about hosting, visit the Fresh Air fund website–www.freshair.org  and set the process in motion. By being an early bird, you likely will be able to correspond with your matched child before she/he ever arrives. How cool is that. Cooler still…giving a special child a special place in Loudoun County next summer. Even if next summer isn’t a possibility, maybe you can help the Fresh Air Fund send inner-city kids to one of the group’s four upstate New York camps. A donation does a lot of good for a lot of kids.

Cade heads home to Queens, NY--we miss him already!

Have questions about the program? I’m happy to share our family’s experience. Post your questions anytime!

Tomorrow, we are off to the Newseum, where from now until September 1, any paying adult ($21.95 plus tax) may bring up to 10 children with them for FREE. Award-winning photojournalism, Berlin Wall, and hands-on kids activities…five kids and one mom are on our way! If it’s a crazy-good experience, you just may read about it here.

Have a blessed week in the summer heat!

Martha, one Loudoun Crazy Mom

Country Roots & Caring Folks–Good Things Indeed

Bluemont Store sign

I’m a little bit country.  Always have been, always will be.

Seeing the country in Loudoun County.

By country, I don’t mean cowboy boots and spurs or corn fields and overalls. By country, I mean a deep-rooted attitude about how we’re supposed to treat one another. A frame of mind focused more on being friendly and accommodating, flexible and helpful. It’s a mindset centered more on giving than receiving.

Country folk don’t slam doors, they graciously open them wide for those coming behind.

Country folk don’t rush through life unaware of their surroundings. We listen to the birds. We stop and smell the roses. We see the parade of ants marching across our sidewalks–and we don’t stomp on them just because. We watch. We listen. We take note of God’s creation buzzing and fluttering, creeping and darting, rising and falling all around us.

Country folk might seem simple. They might even appear silly at times. But if you breathe in the joy that comes from having a country frame of mind, there’s a smile waiting on the exhale.

So these simple truths are why I find myself drawn again and again to the backroads of western Loudoun County–and so many other smaller towns around the country. Country isn’t Southern. Or Midwestern. It’s international really. For me, country equates to kindness. Country means putting people first. Country sees the good stuff. And when it’s hidden under a little dust, country knows where to find it.

Across from Great Country Farms, the Bluemont Vineyard boasts exceptional elevated viewing of the LoCo countryside.

View from patio of Bluemont Vineyard, Bluemont, VA.

On a recent weekend, my hubby Mike and I found Loudoun County country in prime form when we headed out west, taking our Jeep off the paved pathways and onto the crunchy comfort of dirt and gravel. First stop: Bluemont Vineyards (18755 Foggy Bottom Road) in Bluemont, Virginia. Who knew that one of the most spectacular vistas in all of Northern Virginia can only be found down rain-rutted Foggy Bottom Road?

We arrived to pick up the vineyard’s generous donation to the Megan’s Walk silent auction — eight tickets to their summer concert series. The first person we met inside the vineyard was the person we were sent to meet…Loree Rupy, and she couldn’t have been kinder or more welcoming. If you haven’t treated yourself to a wine tasting at Bluemont Vineyards (elevation 951 feet) yet, do it soon! Tastings run $5 per person Thursday through Sunday, 11am -6pm. Sit on the patio and breathe in the quintessential country setting, with a view to Tyson’s that’s worlds away from the chaos of NOVA traffic jams. Just sit and sip. Root yourself in a piece of country.

Inside, customers find Virginia wines, crafts and ice cream!

The Bluemont Store is an historic local treasure.

Of course we couldn’t take the most direct route home to Leesburg. We never do. Instead, we stopped at The Bluemont Store (33715 Snickersville Turnpike, Bluemont) for a double dip of Cappucinno Crunch. Behind me in line stood three out-of-towners who spent every minute of their nearly non-existent wait carping about their surroundings. They noticed the dust on some old picture frames. They pulled a country cookbook off the shelf and complained ad nauseum about its contents…”Who would eat this junk,” they moaned. “This place would never fly in Said City,” they boasted. The not-so-nice little me inside wanted to turn around and say, “Go back to Said City then, please, go!” But instead I politely turned around and said something like, “Yes, Said City has its charming bodagos, but this is an incredibly special place, too–a little piece of Americana.”

This family missed the melt-my-heart charm that fills every inch of Bluemont Country Store. The Dad and the little boy in front of me got it. The five-year-old was beside himself with excitement that within a few minutes he’d have his very own cone of Superman ice cream. Dad was chuckling at his son, and talking back and forth with me. The lady behind the counter was a dipping machine, but she’d left her reading glasses at home and was wearing a borrowed pair from the store, still with its bright pink stinker in the corner of the lens. She was adorable. And sweet. And exuded the warmth of a storybook grandmother. And the visiting New Yorkers missed it. They just saw the dust, not the treasure surrounding them. It isn’t about being from New York or Virginia or Georgia or California It’s about being open to the world around you, finding the good stuff that’s right in front of your eyes, if you’d just stop, look and listen. The Bluemont Store is open seven days a week, from 6:30am until 7pm. Stop by and say hello.

Old-fashioned candy jars beckon little hands to hunt for sweet treats.

Philomont General Store...deli sandwiches, Virginia wines and friendly locals.

Thirty minutes later, we pulled over at the Philomont General Store (36550 Jeb Stuart Road, Philomont). I couldn’t drive by without snapping a photo, walking into this time capsule to breathe in a little country air. Two ladies sat on the bench out front, enjoying their homemade deli sandwiches and deep in good conversation on this warm spring afternoon. I asked if they’d mind me taking a photo of them. I told them about my blog, and they said sure–just tell people how good the sandwiches are. So here I am, sharing a little of my own conversation with a couple of mighty friendly souls, who I just happened upon while out driving our beloved backroads.

This is what I love about being out in the country. Just being.

LoCo Bed & Breakfast Tour on Sunday, May 1, 1-5pm

Hamilton's Zion Springs Bed and Breakfast -- on Sunday's tour.

My husband, Mike, and I steal away every now and then to a nearby bed and breakfast, where we can rediscover each other, our newfound surroundings, and give ourselves a breather from life in the fast lane of Northern Virginia. We tumble down dirt roads, intentionally take wrong turns, visit with the innkeepers, and explore the history of the home we’re borrowing for a night. We never fail to unearth something wonderful along the way.

Smithfield Farm Bed and Breakfast in Berryville

With five children, all in weekend sports, our weekend diversions aren’t as frequent as either of us would like, but there are so many in-close options that we’ve found ourselves sneaking away to another world, a bed and breakfast seemingly in the middle of nowhere, that really is just 45 minutes from home. That way, we’re away, but close enough to get home in a flash if Sean needs his fifth set of stitches. Last summer, we found The Smithfield Farm Bed and Breakfast in Berryville, with glorious guest rooms, the most accommodating innkeepers, breakfast so delicious we begged for the recipe (and was graciously obliged). You’d never find it without directions –as it’s tucked down a long winding road, beyond overgrown apple orchards and free ranging pigs. While there, we walked out at night to see what appeared to be thousands of Christmas tree lights twinkling in the giant evergreens. But the lights were nature-made–fire flies dancing within the tree canopy, seeking out their mates. Sort of like Mike and me, finding each other again for 24 hours of bed and breakfast bliss.

This Sunday, May 1, something really special is happening in the towns and countrysides of Loudoun County: the third annual Bed & Breakfast Open House Tour,sponsored by the Loudoun Bed & Breakfast Guild. Tomorrow afternoon, between 1-5pm, you can preview your next couples night out (and morning in) by taking part in the open-door tour. This year, there are 14 bed and breakfast inns on the tour, each of which has been coupled with a local winery or restaurant for on-site tastings. To download the guild’s brochure with detail of each site and partner, visit www.loudounbandb.com.Life is too short not to dance the night away with your mate…so come out on Sunday (the weather looks to be stellar) and see all the historic inns offering you the luxury of a weekend together, just the two of you.

Hamilton's Zion Springs Bed and Breakfast -- on Sunday's tour.

This online mamma has her sites set on saving

hotwire.com

Who doesn’t like saving time? Or money.

I’m online more than I’d like to admit. In fact, my entire life is coordinated via my Google calendar and email. It tells me when my kids have appointments and games. It reminds me when I need to be at school for a “special presentation” or to drop off another teacher appreciation dish. Thank you, Google calendar, for the oh-so-necessary email and text reminders when my mid forties brain doesn’t operate per the instruction manual.

It’s all there.. my life on the little screen. My computer, probably like yours, has become an indispensable tool that’s front and center in managing our household. Matter of fact, our Mac is stationed two steps from the kitchen counter, the hub of all family goings on.

Besides my trusted Google calendar, I started thinking about all the websites I visit regularly–many of which some LoCo folks don’t know about. And since I have nothing better to do this afternoon (okay, I could be planting shrubs, scrubbing floors or getting my dinner started), I can’t help but share my go-to sites. Maybe you’ll find some of these websites become bookmarks on your laptop, too. Or that every now and then, you need to do a little recipe shopping or shoe shopping–and you can’t remember where to go. My list is my list. I’m sure you have your own. And if willing to spill the beans on your quintessential sites, write me a comment. For now, let me share a little of where I go when I let my fingers do the walking.

 1. Hotwire.com — I am head over heels for this travel discount site. It’s definitely my favorite–even let’s you scout out deals on competitive sites from their homepage. Whether it’s booking two hotel rooms in New York City so we can take everyone to see Mary Poppins, or snagging two hotel rooms at 11pm on our drive home from vacationing in Maine, Hotwire.com has never let me down. For NYC, Hotwire hooked us up with two $115 rooms at the midtown Sheraton. On the way home from Maine, booking from our iPhone, we landed two $49 rooms at one of the nicest hotels we’ve ever stayed in as a family. They served a buffet breakfast with real plates and glasses–we felt like celebrities.

The secret to booking through Hotwire is to be fearless, and smart. The site doesn’t reveal which hotel you’ll be staying in until you’ve checked out, but the company works with some of the most familiar names in the business, plus some of the chicest boutique hotels. Hotwire does reveal all the amenities of the hotel before you book: fitness center, breakfast, restaurant, pool, wireless internet, and more. It also gives each hotel a star-rating, which is comprehensively explained on their site. We’ve booked plenty of hotel rooms and rental cars through Hotwire.com–and even explored many of their vacation deals. Don’t let the process scare you away–take a chance and save BIG BUCKS! I give this site a definite A+.

 2.Yipdeals.com — Yep, I’m signed up for the daily emails from major players, Groupon and LivingSocial. But I’m LoCo, and not very many of Groupon’s or Living Social’s offerings are at my back door. That’s what I love about Yipdeals.com– it’s specifically targeting Loudoun County residents. One of the best deals going, which seems to repeat monthly, is Leesburg’s Tally Ho Theatre family movie package. Get this: $20 for 4 first-run movie tickets, good any day of the week, a large popcorn, two medium sodas and a box of candy. Okay, read that again. $20 for what could easily run you $60 elsewhere. They’ve also featured Pev’s Paintball specials, and Layng’s Flower Farm deals. To win brownie points with my teens, I’ve purchased the Tally Ho deal and treated my teen and some friends to a movie night in downtown Leesburg. It’s an easy pickup and drop-off, and they think I’m pretty cool (for about five minutes).

 3. Takethemameal.com – This site was started by brilliant woman from Harrisonburg, Virginia, who was trying to figure out a way to better coordinate meals for friends and family in need. One person typically is charged with heading up this complex undertaking–weeding through a morass of response emails. Takethemsupper.com streamlines the entire process. There’s still one coordinator, but he/she simply sets up the page where mealmakers log in and sign up for a night of delivering dinner. The process takes all of about five minutes–there’s a place to make special notes about meal delivery or diet restrictions, add contact information, and even contact mealmakers about changes in plans (more servings needed, or switching delivery dates). After finding out which days are best for meals, the coordinator inputs the information and Viola!, an online sign-up sheet is created where volunteers register for a date and specify the meal they intend to deliver, thus avoiding four straight nights of lasagna.

The site also allows you to add links, like to one of my other favorites, youvegotsupper.com. When you sign up for weekly menus from youvegotsupper.com, you receive a week’s worth of menus–varied, relatively easy to make, and typically kid-friendly. Choose the recipes you’d like to make for the week, and print out the recipes and grocery list. This site gives me fresh, quick-fix ideas for family dinners, keeping me out of the casserole rut and reducing my “What’s for dinner?” panic attacks.

 4. The 36-hour boutique sale sites. There are too many of these deep-discount websites to list, but I already have my favorites:  Zulily.com; ideeli.com; ruelala.com; beyondtherack.com; hautelook.com and 6pm.com. The basic idea is that at a specific time each day, normally 10am or 11am EST, each of the aforementioned websites feature five or six new boutiques of designer items that will be on sale for just 36 short hours. The key is to be ready to buy when the sale goes live. You can preview the items in the hours before the sale begins, but only premium members, of which I am not, are permitted advance purchasing. Shelby, my high school junior, loves these deep-discount sites, because the designer brands she loves (Joe’s, Rock & Republic, 7 for Mankind) are featured at typically 50-70% off retail.

But if you’re a mom with young children, you MUST find Zulily.com–which is teeming with gorgeous name-brand apparel (including maternity and nursing wear), fashion accessories, custom-order stationery, home decor, shoes, toys, books and more for moms and their children alike. Ideeli.com showcases everything a man or woman requires to make a fashion statement–from high-end sunglasses and footwear to full-length gowns and bathing suits. My best Mom buys so far? A $17 purse for summer, and $100 worth of personal stationery for $50! Shelby’s list is longer and thick with designer names (all bought at steep discounts)! You’ll need to be “referred” by a member to join ruelala.com–but all you need is the email of someone already using the site. Like Ideeli.com, Ruelala.com offers an colorful collection of designer essentials–from reasonable to ridiculous in price, but all ready to go home at the 11 am bewitching hour.

I stop over at beyondtherack.com when I’m doing my rounds, but I haven’t ordered from this site yet. Ruelala, Zulily, and Ideeli appear to be the best and brightest we’ve uncovered so far. Orders from Zulily, Ideeli and Ruelala have all been fulfilled and delivered as promised.

Check out 6pm.com and sign up for special sales alert emails. 6pm carries all your favorite dress-for-success brands, from Betsey Johnson and Johnston Murphy to Nike and Ray Ban. If you’ve seen a brand at Nordstrom or Amazon, more than likely you’ll see it featured on 6pm.com. The special alerts notify you when the sales are, quite frankly, irresistible.

Every day offers something different on each of these steep-discount sites, which is why you’ll quickly find yourself patrolling your favorites, previewing upcoming sales, waiting for that one extraordinary pearl and gold necklace or one-of-a-kind floral  sundress.

  5. Etsy.com. I LOVE craft shows–I find unique, handmade works of the heart absolutely magnetizing. I’ve driven all over the map in search of the next best craft show: Crozet, Richmond, Old Town Alexandria, Harper’s Ferry, Frederick, Chantilly and beyond. With gas prices closing in on $4.00/gallon, thank God for Etsy. I can spend hours admiring the custom crafts of work-from-home moms from around the nation. Sure, there are dads on the site–but they’re completely outnumbered by the ladies. I’m one mom who likes that disparity–go GIRL POWER! I also majorly like the talent.

I’ll have to dedicate another post to some of my favorite Etsy shops. For now, here are a few of my current favs: Jennaration Yarns (especially love the hand-knit owl hat); gypsymoondesigns (stunning bohemian jewelry–lightweight statement makers); tannei casey (groovy patterned totes and purses); evalinen (striking felt jewelry creations); and ecoblingcouture (reclaimed and redesigned jewelry for your own red-carpet moment).

Thanks for letting this Loudoun Crazy Mom gush about some of my best online finds. I’d love to hear about yours–so write away. :) Thanks for stopping by–now get off the computer and enjoy this incredible spring weather. Plant a tree–a mandate from my own eight-year-old earlier this evening. Plant a kiss. Plant yourself in a new, unexplored part of your world. You don’t have to go far. Just go. :)

Hello world!

Oh Geo! Or why muddy meandering makes me happy.

If you aren’t yet familiar with geocaching and you have kids under the age of 18, you’re missing out on making some mudlicious memories. Loudoun County, and Leesburg in particular, is rife with hidden treasures awaiting your discovery.

Our family stumbled on geocaching last spring, after one of my kindergarten kids brought in a geocoin for his show-and-tell. Boy could you tell from that little boy’s ear-to-ear grin that geocaching had given him a veritable king’s treasure. One simple coin and he was richer than rich. I came home that afternoon and immediately googled geocaching, finding geocaching.com.

At first, we just dabbled in this newfound GPS-guided treasure hunt. We’d go out hunting every now and then, our handy dandy Apple iPhone serving as our official GPS device. We always enjoyed the find, but it wasn’t until this month that we officially became bonafide geocaching addicts. Come to find out, there are a lot of similarly minded geocaching nuts out there, all traipsing through overgrown fields, cobbled downtown side streets, and steel and concrete jungles to unlock the mystery of the next geocache. Nothing quite beats the thrill of shouting “Found it” while my husband is 15 feet away digging through rotting leaves, hoping he finds the cache before me. Yesterday, I won 2-1. Yep, that’s right–we spent two hours on our own–after our Costco shopping trip–hiking the muddied, tree-laiden trails of Red Rocks Overlook. The storm took its toll on the pines and hardwoods that frame the trail, but we trudged on, alternating between watching our steps and our iPhones (we used both his and mine, as we were tracking two long-hidden caches). Of the trio we found yesterday–two of which were hidden in 2001–one hadn’t been uncovered for over a month. Talk about feeling special! And then there was the view we’d never seen–a glorious overlook high above the swollen Potomac River. And the up-close chance encounter with some less-timid deer, out for their late afternoon snack. And me in flip flops…toes dipped in deep chocolate mud.

There’s lot to love about geocaching, and it’s for anyone with a sense of adventure. There are easy-to-find caches, or hides, as you’ll hear them referred, and then there are those that would likely stump the best and brightest MIT grads. The variety and number of caches hidden worldwide is astounding–and the number grows daily. There are puzzlers, virtual caches, underwater caches, multi-level caches and the geocaching.com websites states that geocaches can even be hidden in outer space. Not sure when the last Shuttle is launching, but I kind of wonder if there’s a geocache on the moon.

Back to the addiction, it’s consuming. We’ve outfitted a gallon-sized Ziploc bag with all our geocaching necessities–a flashlight for when darkness arrives before the find does, plenty of trinkets and treasures to trade, a camera, and a few ballpoint pens. You never know when it’s BYOP! For the future geocachers, that means “bring your own pen” because the cache is so itty bitty (possibly smaller than the fingernail on your pinky finger) that it was impossible for the cache owner to add a writing utensil. We’ve found camouflaged caches on light posts (a seeming favorite), wedged in rotted out stumps, hanging by a strings in trees and fenceposts, and magnetically clinging to every size and shape of metal.

Last weekend, I enlisted my Mom and eldest daughter, Shelby, for our Edenton, NC geocaching expedition. We were visiting my parents, sharing a beautiful church service at St. Anne’s, dining at the Nothin’ Fancy restaurant (oh my gosh, were the crabcakes and cornbread Bon Appetit good!). But the geocaching bug overpowered me, and thank goodness my Mom was up for treasure hunting in her hometown. We found two of the three on our short list. I can tell, my Mom had fun…we all explored and giggled and amazed ourselves with our ingenuity. Heck, when we couldn’t pull the miniscule log roll from within the magnetic nano we found, Mom headed over to the local fishermen and, in her most gracious Southern accent, asked for assistance. The fisherman stopped fishing, pulled out his rather large knife, and expertly removed the scroll. We got our BYOP ballpoint out and scribbled our code name: 7up4fun. Turned out that the day before, the same fisherman had been sitting on the bench where said cache was located when another geocacher, laptop in hand, had stumbled by on the same search. I can only imagine what that local Edenton fisherman must think of we out-of-town treasure seekers. So my Mom knew best when I was a youngster, and she still knows best. Later that afternoon, for another find, Mom was using a long stick to pull a tiny black and highlight-yellow snake from within the hide location. Thanks, Mom.

We hid our first geocache last night, and it was published among the website listings at around 8:50pm. Twenty-seven minutes later, some other geocaching addict, on his way to a movie with his wife, forewent date night to instead be the FTF (first to find) “Jeepers Peepers”–our ode to the springtime amphibian troubadors. Now it’s your turn to find our cache fully loaded with kid-friendly treasures. In doing so, you’ll find that the greatest treasure you really find is yourself! :)

There’s plenty more I’d love to tell you about geocaching, but why read about someone else’s crazy good adventures when you can start having some of your own. Go to geocaching.com and sign up for a free membership–or go hog-wild with a premium membership (great for even more cheap thrills). Then, let me know what you think. Am I nuts? Or is this the best thing since Andy Gibb and Twinkies?

Go head, use your GPS today to navigate a blessed adventure with someone you love :)