Geocaching in the mud!

It was Day Two in Monreal, and all went well yesterday. My French must be used more, especially in the sewing environment, to become proficient with all those terms, and I MUST make more effort to make that happen. 

Someone posted this on Facebook and forwarded it to me, and I thought it was hilarious. 

I know that I say this all the time, and I don't like that I say it. I'd like to be busy all the time, but NOT stupid busy. Now, how the heck am I going to do that? Can I be better prepared? Try to space out things that get booked? Cut out some things? Hmmm -- I'll have to contemplate that on my walk this morning. 

OK -- so the walk yesterday was interesting. Since I need to get some geocaching points before Monday, I decided to get myself in gear and incorporate some caching into the walks while I'm here. 

I found a couple of Adventure Labs (part of Geocaching) in a cemetery near the hotel, so that sounds like a perfect place to go. Near for me is a KM away, so that's very close. Let's just say that the running shoes are now christened! You guessed it -- a muddy cemetery -- new shoes -- still not completely melted. I did not bad considering the circumstances, as only one shoe got muddy! And I have to say that it was at the LAST question that it happened! 

The new shoes got christened in the mud

But this cemetery was a bit weird. I also found a great bicycle path that runs for quite a distance, so that was cool, and no need to walk on the sidewalks. 

The bike path

I arrived at the cemetery from the back (I didn't know that), so I was trying to find the gate. There was no gate along the side I walked, so I returned to the bike path. 

I had to walk along that cemetery's fenced perimeter, only to find the entire front open! Now, why is that? Then I had to walk back to the very far corner to get the answer to the first question. 

The entire front of the cemetery is open

So with Adventure Labs, you must find a particular spot and answer a question. Since I was in a cemetery, all the answers had something to do with a gravestone. Let's not forget that all the descriptions, questions, and answers are in French. 

There were two adventures in this particular cemetery, so that was good, and twice I stopped at this grave. That is THE Jean Beliveau from the Montreal Canadiens. 

Grave of Jean Beliveau

So I'm doing well at deciphering the questions and finding the answers. However, I came to one headstone that almost did me in. The answer was easy to spot; it was etoiles. Etoiles has an accent on the e (I don't think I can achieve that on my laptop keyboard as I do not have a numeric keypad). Let's say the answer NEEDED that accent, or I couldn't go to the next step. 

How does one do that on the phone? I tried changing the phone to French. Nope, that didn't help. Can I switch the keyboard to French? That didn't help, either. But after about 15 minutes, I finally found out that by holding down the KEY (in this instance, the letter E), I get all kinds of options for accents. Who knew???? 

I typed in etoiles with the accent, and away I went. I managed to get both of the Adventure Labs complete and find one more regular cache before it was time to head back to the hotel for breakfast. 

Yep -- I"m behind on my walking again, but the others are leaving later today, and I'll be on my own for the next couple of days, so I hope to make up some time in the afternoon. 

If you have a good memory, you'll remember the plane in the hotel's atrium. OK -- so I didn't remember the plane until I got here! 

A plane from WWI in the atrium

I took a quick walk before dinner last night, and here's a closer view of the Olympic Stadium across the river on the main island. I'm on the South Shore. 

The Olympic Stadium

I still have some work to do on one of my presentations, but I'll attempt to finish that off tonight. Then everything is ready to go. 

And when I get back home, I have ONE more week of craziness, and then it's over. Well, I"m still busy, but the traveling will stop for a bit, so that's good. I'll be home for THREE weeks -- I can hardly wait. 

Here's the link to QUILTsocial for the next step in the collage journal cover. I hope you're all following along, as there are so many fun techniques you can try, and it's a great way to use up odds and ends around your house. 

And on that note, I'm out of here to get that walk-in and see what adventures I'll have today!!

Have a super day!!

Ciao!!!