I was planning on including this photo in the last 10 days, but life happens and now seems like the most appropriate time.
Late 2018, a friend and prominent geocacher by the name of George Markusic, was nearing his 20,000 find. I've seen some of your eyes grow big when I tell you I've found slightly north of 3,000. So 20,000 is incredibly impressive. Now if you know George, he's all about those crazy geocaching trips. So for his 20,000 find, he came up with a trip to Central Park in NYC, for basically one day only, to do the Bridges and Arches of Central Park multi. Why this specific cache? Because it requires you to visit every single bridge and arch in Central Park to get information you need to find the actual container. And it's in the heart of NYC. George also made it an open invite to whomever wanted to go.
I initially wasn't going to go because I thought I was going to be working when they were leaving, but George contacted me and said "we're leaving right after work on Friday and driving back Sunday morning. Well that avoided cutting into work so I was fully on board.
We drove 6.5 hours from Cleveland to New Jersey and got there just before midnight. The next morning we made our way to the heart of Manhattan and spent the entire day in Central Park. Sixteen of us total. There were sites, adventures, hilarious moments, memories, and the cherry on top was when we fired party poppers at George as he victoriously held the cache for Bridges and Arches in his hands. It was my third time in NYC, but it felt like the first.
This photo also has another very important reason as to why it made my 30 that I love. Why? Start from the person farthest right and to the fourth person. She's wearing a tan hat and black shirt. Her name is Michelle. I had known her for 3 years now, but she'd been with this group years before. If you ever saw photos of George's crazy trips, she was a constant staple in them. Two days ago, I received the sad news that she had lost her battle with cancer. It came as a shock because I had no idea she was that sick. When she came to NYC with us, you would've had no idea she was sick at all.
We have a saying about the people we know who participate in this amazing hobby. "You're family". Doesn't matter whether you've been in the game for a decade or if you just started. And that's a statement that I've known to ring true time and time again. I experienced it at the first geocaching event I walked into. When I entered the room with the large crowd in the restaurant, I didn't know who to approach or how to introduce myself. As I was pondering how to do this and standing there intimidated, someone was passing by me, stopped, and introduced himself as Bobbo12164 and said I must be Thrill.Seeker (my caching name). That was Bob Laco, who actually started a few months after me and currently has three times as many hides as I do. I was then introduced to George and was warmly welcomed.
Since then, I've meet a lot of amazing people, including Michelle. Now, in truth, I didn't know her as well as I do George and Bob, but I knew her enough to know what an incredible person she was. Michelle was family. She didn't let the world beat her down, she didn't let cancer rule her life. Like I said before, unless someone told you, you wouldn't know she was sick. I wish I would've had more time to get to know her better, but I'm grateful for the time I did. Rest easy Michelle, you will be missed.
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