So Close, And Yet…

The hardest part about an upcoming trip is that it never seems to arrive fast enough. In two weeks, I and five of my caching buddies will be boarding a plane and making our way north. Five of us are finishers of the Texas County Challenge. For one of them, this trip will result in her forty-ninth state. For another, it will be her seventh through tenth completed state (but she already has ten countries, so good for her). For a third, well, I’m not sure how epic an achievement this trip will be for him since he has over thirty thousand caches. For the fourth, this will result in her first completed state outside of Texas. And for the fifth, we will be accompanying her on her first trip to Canada.

What will I be getting out of this? First of all, while I’ve been to Boston once before, the northeast is pretty much a mystery to me. I’ve always considered myself a bit provincial because, though I’ve been to many of America’s great cities (Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, and all the cities of Texas), I’ve never been to New York. I won’t be going to New York this trip, mind you, so that won’t change, but I will be skirting its edges, so that’s a start (why I’m not going to New York is its own little story). Coming back with twelve new states, four of which will be completed (have you seen how small those states are up there?) will be nice. And, of course, all those counties and courthouses… It almost makes me salivate thinking about it. Add to it that this is going to be my first time back on the road since Seattle, and I’m about as over the moon as I can be! It’s been so long! An entire year of waiting and biding my time! And it’s almost here! But I still have to wait! Sometimes I feel like I’m wasting away over here, dreaming of new counties to see. But I’ve got to sit through a couple more weeks of meetings and commutes and trips to the store before I can get out there and do what I (think I) do so well. I shall endure, but the anchor chain cannot loose quickly enough for me.