Sweating The Small Stuff

I picked a cache yesterday based on an interesting requirement. I don’t know how many of you have attempted to grab a cache in every degree around your home location, but I did. It’s not something I’m chasing, but it does seem a little interesting. The north is well taken care of. It’s not like I haven’t been all over points north of here. With all my counties in Texas, I’ve also covered much of the south, outside of a few tiny slivers of degree arcs. Most of what I’m missing is between here and the coast. So maybe I’ll be taking a few more trips between the Bastrop and Lockhart areas. But not at the moment…

In the Art of War, a scholar named Du Mu makes a commentary that states, “Treat great things lightly, and small things gravely.” That is one of the concepts I try to live by. Big things are like waves; like Canute, I can’t control the oceans and the moon. Small things, however, can be controlled. So, do what you can and hope for the best or some kind of crap like that. And that’s what I’m doing. I’ve been spending time packing and prepping. My talk is written, but I need to rehearse it a little more to make it smoother, maybe even make a few more revisions. I’ve had to do a bunch of laundry. I’m mostly packed, but it’s weird because I’ve never had to pack for such a long trip before. It’s weirder still because some would call me a bit of a clotheshorse, so traditionally, when I have traveled in pre-caching times, I would pack twice as much as I needed to accommodate wardrobe changes. Now I travel a lot more lightly. I have ten days’ worth of clothes in a duffel bag, ready to board a plane. I need to update my travel plans with the Canadian government, but I can’t do that until seventy-two hours before I arrive. I have trackables to make, uni-coins to glue, last-minute things to grab, and a number of other details to handle.

Additionally, I also have to consider having to write from the road since I’ve got a schedule to keep, and you can see that I’ve got some stuff on my brain. But it will all be worth it. Soon enough, I’ll be on the road again, and it’ll all be worth it.