Sunday, February 9th - Church and Caching.

We decided to attend the 9:00 a.m. traditional service at Hope Lutheran Church this morning. We arrived about 1 or 2 minutes before the service began and the sanctuary was so full that we had to sit in chairs in the back of the church.

 

 

 

The guest speaker was Pastor John Buuck, past president of Concordia University Wisconsin and former vacancy pastor at Hope Lutheran. He is currently involved in the Food For The Poor program and he reported on mission work in Guatemala and his current project which is focusing on Jamaica where he wants to help build a school. He showed us slides from these countries and remarked that last year, the people from Hope Lutheran contributed more money than any Protestant church in all the U.S. He also related that administration costs are low and about 96% of donations received by this organization go directly to the people they are helping.

 

We returned home, changed into our shorts and went to look for some geocaches that especially interested Cordell.

 

The first one we found was easy to see, but not easy to obtain. It was another one owned by Pilot Searcher and we knew it would be fun. It was a simple bird house suspended in a tree.

 

 

 

Cordell climbed that tree and shimmied up a huge limb while I waited below with my cell phone ready to call 911.

 

 

 

 He used his hiking stick to pull the container up on the limb, retrieved the log and signed it without falling off—a pretty good feat for a man who is almost 71 years old! I cheered him on just as I have ever since we first met as basketball player and cheerleader.

 

 

 

 

 

Our next stop was at the Edison and Ford Winter Estates. I have never, ever seen such a big banyan tree. The circumference of its aerial roots is 390 feet. It was brought from India in a butter tub and was 2" in diameter and four feet high when given by Harvey Firestone and planted by Edison in 1925.

 

We had a hot dog lunch in a delightful outside café in the park. We plan to return here for a full tour with our friends, Jim and Barb Hauser while they are visiting with us.

 

We went back to Lakes Park to look for two more caches. I am not accustomed to caching in the Florida terrain. It would have been better if I had worn long pants today because the palm leaves cut my legs.

 

 

To add insult to injury, we were not able to find either of the two caches we were looking for. However, as we were walking back to our car, we did find a HUGE rattlesnake sunning itself off the trail. I made a note to myself to be more alert when I am in the jungle like territory.

 

 

There were lots of people in the park today taking advantage of everything that is offered there. Children in swim suits were running around playing hide and seek. Even though Lakes has been designated by the American Heart Association as an official "Smart! Walking Path!", we saw more people riding all manner of bikes and roller blading than were walking like us. Lots of people were grilling and I thought it was amusing to see a pizza guy making a delivery there.

 

We ate a quiet dinner at home and settled back to watch more of the Olympics on television.