The Ultimate Travel Bug

Look how tardy we are in posting again...and ALOT has happened with us! Would you like to hear our engagement story?

I (Jess) have decided that it might be cute to do this post from the two perspectives of the story...so, here we go. (Oh, and sorry this is so long...but it is lovely and it is your choice to read! :)

Here is the story according to Jess: To start, for a few months, and more intensely, a few weeks, Josh and I have been talking about getting married, to each other of course. This was very exciting, and we were deeply grateful for the excitement and willingness of our respective families to show support for the monumental decision we were making. While Josh was at my house, during which time we did much geocaching (which you know if you've read our previous blog posts). Also during this time, we decided that we wanted Josh to talk to my parents about his marrying me.

So, one morning Josh told me that he had asked my parents if they would be around later in the afternoon to talk. Yes, they would. I was excited all day and ready for him to talk to them. While doing so, I was told by Josh to go in my room and shut the door...a difficult task for an extrovert such as myself, especially when all this excitement was going on!

Well, Josh traveled downstairs and proceeded to talk with my parents, a conversation that I thought would take about 5 minutes. No no. I sat in my room for 30 minutes, trying to read, trying to pray, trying to do something! But alas, I was too excited and nervous. After my confinement, Josh came upstairs to let me know that everything was a go...the parents were happy about it and completely supportive! Whew, that life milestone completed! Way to go Josh for doing such a brave thing!

Now, I knew. The greatest man that I know was now in the clear to propose to me! When would it happen? Thankfully, Josh allayed my antsy-ness (that may not be a word) by telling me he would not do it at my house and that he would not do it when we traveled to Annapolis soon. In my mind that could only mean when we got back to Cleveland to start school again. Thus, we fast forward to January 10, 2010.

1/10/10 was a Sunday and it started out at church. I remember walking into Christ Community and seeing Josh play the drums as he practiced with the band. When practice was over, he came up to me, very happy that day. After church we went back to his apt for a bit, during which time he asked me if I wanted to go on a "little date" and could we "get dressed up a little bit". Immediately a huge flag went up in my mind...."He is going to propose tonight." Everything crashed through my head at once, and I even told him that I was nervous about something but that I couldn't say what...he was kindly ambiguous and didn't hint one way or another that he knew what I meant.

Then, I had to go and spend 4 hours in my apartment...alone! Josh sent me home and told me he would pick me up later. I was going crazy, running through everything my head with no one to tell but Jesus. I washed dished, unpacked my clothes, sang songs, anything to calm the butterflies! And I couldn't eat a thing! It was crazy. And yet, through all that the side of my brain convincing myself that I didn't know what was going on was hoping to see my roommate Katie when she got in town before we left. I had asked Josh to wait for her to get back before he came to pick me up.

As I neared the end of anything else I could find to clean in the apartment (which was already mostly clean!), I got a call from Katie telling me that she was stuck in traffic in Knoxville, to which I replied that we would probably leave before she got back. Then Josh called me soon and told me he would pick me up at 4:15. Ok, finally I had a time to tell my crazy self, a definite end to what felt like another confinement! Josh also said that he wanted to go find a geocache before we left and it was still light outside...hmmm, ok...this is getting fishy, I thought. I put on my best I have-no-inkling-of-why-that-would-be-weird voice and told him sure!

Then, I got ready...trying to look as nice as I could. I put on some new clothes, and put on a pearl bracelet on my left wrist...hmmm I wonder why that wrist? :) I sat down, ready for him to come, and my nervousness left. I simply breathed deeply and prayed, "God, help me say yes to my best friend today." And I felt peace :)

Then, Josh got there, looking very handsome in his new sport coat. He seemed very cool and calm and told me that I looked beautiful. Then he told me that the geocache we were finding was within walking distance...I continued to play along :) We walked down the sidewalk on lovely Centenary Ave and across Ocoee Street to Lee' campus. We walked across the front lawn by the fountain, and Josh pointed out the spot, asking, "Do you remember when we used to sit there?" "Yes," I replied. We passed a bench where we sat a few times on those cold Spring nights of Spring 2009, when we had just started dating and had no where else to be together but outside on a bench...and lovely times they were :) We walked between Walker Memorial and the Vest Building, across 11th Street, and in view of the Dixon Center Park...and I smiled. There, at the bench where we sat talking for two hours, at the bench where Josh first slid his fingers around mine...was a geocache unlike any other. He walked me across the grass and stopped at a birchwood candle holder and beautiful rosewood jewelery box with a rose perched in the open top on top of black velvet. The moment was so surreal, you don't want to be anywhere else at all and yet don't know where you are all at the same time. Josh began speaking to me...words you want to remember yet can't hear all at the same time. I tried to absorb everything.

He showed me the candle holder, which he made himself of birchwood, in which he placed three candles, only one was lit. They represent, he told me, the three Hebrew word for Love: Dod, Raya, and Ah Hava. Dod stands for the physical love between a husband and wife, Raya means "wife", and Ah Hava represents the companionship between a couple. He told me that the candle for Ah Hava was lit now, the only one we have lit together thus far, and he wants to light all three with me on our wedding day. Then, I remember him kneeling down toward the box and opening a drawer...and there was the most beautiful ring I've ever seen. He pulled it out, turned back to me, and got down (of course!) on one knee...He told me that this ring represents over a total of 130 years of love in his family and that he wants to continue that with me. He told me, "I want to spend everyday for the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?"

And, ladies...you think if he spends all this time preparing a beautiful speech and asks you to marry him in this beautiful setting, that you would be able to think of something equally eloquent with which to reply...no no. I blurt out, "Of course I'll marry you!" Haha, of course I think, "Who woudln't?...Look how amazing he is!"

Then, I leaned down and kissed him and he placed the ring on my finger, and we hugged and smiled...and then realized how cold we were! It was a beautiful, surreal, memorable moment. I wanted to absorb it all and keep it locked away forever...but I know it will always be a part of me, because I know he will always be...and for that I'm grateful.

You might be wondering why I titled this "The Ultimate Travel Bug"...well, of course, don't you think that my engagement ring was the ultimate travel bug? I took if from that lovely geocache and get to take it everywhere with me now!

Now, don't you think you want to hear his side of the story? Tune in to, "The Ultimate Travel Bug Part 2"

*We will do a photo post too!

Quick Update

Hey Friends and Family,

On Tuesday our adventures are going to switch from Nashville to Annapolis for a week... Jess is coming to visit! Its been a long two weeks apart (what's an adventure without your sidekick?) but we are excited about reuniting. Really excited.

So just FYI, there will be daily postings so you can keep up with us. We would recommend subscribing with the link on the right that says "Follow" so you don't get too far behind us. Or if you'd like, we can add you to a mailing list that will automatically send you updates, just let us know by leaving a comment on this post! Either way, we'd love to keep you updated. There are many exciting things ahead of us!

Through the thick of it

Today we had a sleepy day. I think all this bustling around Nashville has started to wear on us a little bit, so we spent most of the day relaxing at home with Dad-Hill. But, what is a day of vacationing without Geocaching? And thus... we went.

Thankfully in Nashville there really is no shortage of Geocaches, so we didn't have to go far out of our way to go find a few. As you can see in the picture below, you could spend a good long while finding Geocaches in this area. Each one of those little squares represents a Geocache.

Today's adventure was very cold. Unfortunately I left all my warm clothes in Maryland, so my fingers were not nimble enough to handle my GPS (aka my iPhone, which on a side note has had more use as a GPS than a phone this past week.) So Jessica, my trusty sidekick and Geocache queen, used the GPS to find these today.

This was the hardest-to-get-to cache we've found yet! We had to hike through all sorts of sticks and vines to find it. Thankfully no sticker bushes or thorns or anything like that. It was sort of neat actually...

Now, my GPS was not being very helpful because in order for a GPS to work properly you have to be moving. However, when you are encapsulated by branches and sticks, moving doesn't come very easy. So in true spirit Jess and I just started searching through every nook and cranny we could find. In this picture she was standing almost right on top of it.

Can you spot it? Miraculously somehow I did.

The cache was almost rusted shut so I had to use my handy Gerber to pry it open. Jess thinks my "working face" is cute and likes this picture.

This next one was in the same park underneath this bridge. Even though the Geo Queen found it, she credits me with the idea of looking there.

There are little magnets inside the cache that keep it attached to the bridge.

I'm cheez'n it big time, baby.

We went to try to find one more, and we were REALLY close trudging through the woods, but my GPS quit and my fingers just about up and quit from the cold, so we headed back to the furnace on wheels, Bella, Jessica's fine steed (car).

Can you believe we've been finding at least two Geocaches every day for 7 days? We can't.

Before Jess and I came to Nashville we promised a lofty goal to find at least ONE Geocache every day. Well, we exceeded our own expectations and found 15 over 7 days! In a few weeks Jessica is coming to Maryland to finish out the rest of Christmas break, so who knows what adventures we will have there!

A Grand Tour of Nashville!

Today was a good day in Nashville Tennessee. It was probably the most I've ever done in a single day, at least in a long time. It was exciting though, and me and the Hill fam had a great time doing it. Let me tell you what we did...

B: If you look on the map above, we drove from A, where the Hills live to B, Loveless Cafe. The Loveless Cafe is an old southern style resturant and hotel where you can get some good country cookin. We forgot to take a picture of what we got, but you can pretty much guess what we had. Fried chicken and bisuits. Mama Hill and I had eggs and French toast actually, because you can get both all day, I think. Loveless is sort of a local tradition.

C: What else is there to do after breakfast but geocache? I don't know... maybe take a nap? We certainly felt like taking a nap, but the weather was so warm and beautiful it would have been a waste. So we set out to the Natchez Trace Parkway Bridge to find our first cache of the day. This bridge is remarkable and gorgeous. You rarely get to see architecture that complements the environment around it, so it was neat.

When we can't find a geocache, we call it a "Geo-crap" because its really annoying. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the Natchez Trace Parkway Bridge cache, either because of our ineptitude or because it simply wasn't there. Hopefully the latter. Here is a shot of me not finding a geocache (rare, but these things do happen)

 

D: We decided to keep on heading down the road to Leiper's Fork, a small town where apparently a lot of stars live. And by stars, I mean people that are famous, not celestial bodies. This cache was a bit tricky, as it had us tracking up a hill and into thick brush. You can see below we had to park the car and walk the rest of the way to get there.

Once we got to the top of the hill, my GPS was pointing straight into thick rocky brush. Mr. Hill walked in a few feet and lifted up a rock and pretended to find it, but what he actually found was a huge brown snake. After standing there for a few minutes, I decided to go in and follow my GPS where ever it told me to go, even if it seemed there was no way in . After about 15 feet of going through bushes and sticks a trail opened up before me and took me right to the cache! [insert spiritual lesson here]

That is my side-kick who followed me fearlessly into the snake infested brush. In the cache was a cool bear pin that Jessica can add to her large pin collection. She put a pin in the cache she got at Mountain Top.

Mom and Dad Hill went in with us too! Here is a shot of Mom Hill trying to get out of all the thorns.

After the cache we decided to visit the small town and stop by one of the shops. We almost made a citizens arrest when we saw this familiar police car sitting out in front of the store! (For those of you who don't know that is the police car from the Andy Griffith Show made in the... well a long time ago before color was invented.)

E: We thought we'd go back into Franklin to find another geocache and stroll around the town for a while, sans the chaotic "Dicken's of a Christmas" we ran into the other day. The cache we found was actually across the street from the Episcopal church we took our picture in front of in the last post from Franklin.

The last people to find this cache couldn't find it and deemed it missing, but we found it! Here is a shot of me putting it back in its hiding place at the base of a flag pole at a military memorial in downtown Franklin.

We decided to take a bit of a Siesta and get some ice cream and root beer floats from Ben & Jerry's, albeit Kilwin's arch nemesis.

We took naps, relaxed, and chatted for a little while before our next adventure for the evening. Mom Hill and Aunt Nancy wanted to go to the Opryland Hotel (don't let the word hotel fool you, its like 5 times the size of my university) to show me what a Nashville Christmas is like. Well let me tell you, it is quite remarkable.

Outside they had trees that had nearly every branch lit. It really is an art, what these places do. They also had this nativity outside of it, which Jess really enjoyed. I sort of felt like they needed to paint the white statues because they reminded me of those white statues you get at an art store that you paint.

They had a lot of these sort of trees that were decorated inside. This is inside the lobby area. The attraction to the hotel are the three huge indoor gardens that are really neat. They are so big you feel like you are outside because they have buildings inside of them (that always freaks me out, buildings inside of buildings.)

From the left, that is Aunt Nancy, Grandmama, Ms. Jessica Caye, and Mom Hill.

We went on a boat ride inside of the hotel, and here is a shot from of a Christmas tree from the boat.

Some of the 15,000 poinsettias the hotel imports every year.

What an adventurous day! We were pretty tuckered out to say the least. Thanks for joining us. We hope you were able to share in some of our fun.

Raccoons!

After church, sunday afternoon naps, and a bit of chatting, there was hardly any sunlight left for geocaching! Did that stop us? No sir. We went out around Brentwood like it was nobody's business. In fact, our first cache was in a nearby business park call Seven Springs. We felt like hoodlums trudging around Brentwood (where the Hills live).

As USUAL, just a minute before this picture was taken, I had been in that same part of the bush looking for the cache. But when Jess looks there, sure enough, there it is! She is the queen of geocaching.

Some of the Caches are really small, like this one. Some of them are in larger boxes. You can see it in there tied to the tree.

That is what a typical log looks like.

The next cache was hidden in a traffic circle. We would stand around trying to act inconspicuous, then when the traffic was clear, we would start rummaging through bushes and around walls and things. I stuck my hand underneath a storm drain (its not disgusting as it sounds), and there it was! It was too dark to take any pictures, but we still took one of us holding the cache. As we learned, when you take a picture of the same two people in the dark, the picture looks exactly the same no matter what the background.

You can sort of see me in the middle of this picture sneaking the cache back into the storm drain without anyone seeing. Even though we're not doing anything bad, it feels like we're doing something bad, which is nice.

And of course, what better way to end a day of day of fun with a bit of ice cream?

Frankly a good time!

Today me, Jess, and Mom and Dad Hill made a trip down to Franklin, TN to do a little Geocaching. If you are from Annapolis, you'd probably feel at home in this city. Its about the same size, and has all the old architecture preserved.

When we got there, we stumbled upon a huge fair going on on main street called "A Dickens of a Christmas". There was all sorts of things going on there from Children's Recorder Orchestra, to Horses and Santa Clauses... everything was a buzz! We meandered down main street soaking it all up on our way to the first cache.

There was an 80s theme dress code. And by 80s I mean 1880. There were so many people dressed as such that when I walked by I felt judged. I bet they were thinking "what is THAT guy wearing..." Outdated costumes as they were, it was a neat experience.

Here is Saint Paul's Episcopal Church. Founded in 1827, its one of the oldest churches around. We went inside and listened to the organist practice for a few minutes (note: going to church while geocaching does not make you a better Christian. Just a holier geocacher.)

We found this cache called "Hard Rock". As you can see, it was located in a hard rock bench. A lot of the time the names of the Geocaches don't make sense till you find the geocache. This one was a thin metal container squeezed between a crack underneath the bench. Jess and I found this one at the same time, so I got lucky.

Here is the Hill family trio, minus Zac.

We trekked back through Franklin to find the next cache. This one was located behind an the old Williamson County jail house (you can see behind us) which is now a restaurant. They actually hanged people in there, which one thing lead to another, and now its a restaurant. As usual, I was about to give up, but Jessica goes right over to the cache. Amazing.

Then after our walk-about in Franklin, we decided to go to see the smash-hit movie The Blindside. We all really liked it, although one of the members of our party had to watch it through watery eyes most of the time ; ). We highly recommend this amazing movie. It is really encouraging to be reminded that people still help people. Also that people still tackle people (in football).

Steeple Chase!

Today's Geocache took us to the Steeple Chase in Percy-Warner Park! It was a bit chilly, but the view was beautiful. We had Dad-Hill along with us, which was a blast.

This cache was cleverly screwed into the bottom of the observation deck like a light bulb. Jessica found it after Mr. Hill and I combed right over it. She's the best at Geocaching. Somehow she always knows right where to go, while I always over think it and think "Why would someone put it there? That doesn't make sense." Sure enough though, there it was.

I've never seen a Steeple Chase before, although obviously there wasn't a race today, but the landscape is beautiful.

On our way to the next cache we spotted some turkeys. It was a good reminder to me to thank their species for all my delicious deli meat sandwiches which has sustained me at school.

Mr. Hill and I spotted this next cache sitting in a tree. We didn't take anything from it, but we did put some information about the Brave Foundation that Mr. Hill works with in Guatemala. They do a lot of work building fire deparments and rescue resources in remote places that have nothing. You can find out more about that here.

Even though the next Cache was not that far away, the roads in this park are like a labrinth and we drove a loooooong way in order to get there. Although we were not "lost" in Jessica's terms, it seemed like no matter how hard we tried to get there, we couldn't seem to get on the right road. It was worth it because we got to see an owl up close!

This is a picture of Mr. Hill and I following our senses (and my iPhone) walking the opposite direction from the cache. As usual, Jessica, who needs no GPS, found this cache. Good job Jess.

This is an example of the random stuff that they have in caches. Mr. Hill was having fun playing with it. We found something called a "Trackable" in this cache. A trackable can be a coin or object with a code on it that you type into the Geocache website. Trackables have destinations on them or goals. The one we found wants to go to Europe, so Jessica is going to take it in the spring!

After a few hours in the hills of Tennessee, we decided to call it quits and go visit with a friend from Church named Mrs. Mosley. She is a sweet lady in her 90s who has known the Hill family for quite a long while.