geocaching Archives - Home Is Where The Plane Lands

I love my little man

First and foremost, it has been one year since the birth of my baby boy Logan. He was born one year ago on May 26th, 2009! Time really does fly when you have children. I took the little guy over to have a few hour’s play time with some of the other babies in our complex. He had such a great time and it was so fun to watch him interact with people his size for a change. It honestly feels like yesterday that we took him home from the hospital. That little guy amazes me every day. He is truly a blessing from God.

GEDSC DIGITAL CAMERA — Happy 1st Birthday, Logan!

I talk about the heat here a LOT, I know, but it keeps getting hotter. It now averages about 111 degrees here each day. At night, it’s still in the 90s. That makes us not want to do anything outside. I can see why the malls are so busy here all the time. People leave their houses and the malls are the only cool place to go hang out. We’ve been hanging out in the malls a lot too. We don’t really buy much other than groceries, but just getting out and walking helps to relieve the boredom. Of course, with the heat, I’ve had to be very selective about which Geocaches I go after. The ones in the desert will just have to stay hidden! I’m at 57 (as of tonight) caches found and I want to be at 75 before I leave on July 8^th. Should be doable.

Speaking of malls, we hit up the two biggest ones in Dubai in the last few weeks. The newest one, the Dubai mall, the world’s largest

mall, opened last year and sits at the bottom of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. We’ve been to this mall before but never to the Dubai Fountain. Illuminated by 6,600 lights and 25 colored projectors, it is 275 m (902 ft) long and shoots water 150 m (490 ft) into the air, accompanied by a range of classical to contemporary Arabic and world music. It was built at a cost of AED 800 million (USD 218 million). Yeah, I totally copied and pasted that last line from Wikipedia. It is a really neat fountain though and was fun to watch. 218 Million for a fountain though? Sheesh! Last week we went to the Mall of the Emirates. This mall is about 5 years old, but it’s the famous one with the indoor sky slope inside it. Yeah, they built a ski slope inside a mall. It’s a great idea for people over here I guess. But being an American, I know back home I can drive a few hours and ski on a real mountain. It’s still pretty darn impressive here though.

So here’s a little info about our London trip coming up. The Staton family originally came over to England from Normandy in 1066 with William the Conqueror. Back then we were the “Stauntons”. While in England, we were guardians of a tower (which is now named Staunton Tower) in the famous Belvoir Castle. Some of my relatives seem to think we were royalty and owned the castle. While that certainly isn’t true, it’s always been a HUGE goal of mine to go visit “my castle”. With the vacation to London in July coming up, a side trip of an hour and half north to see the castle was a must. Trouble is, the castle is closed to tourist in July. No idea why, but it is. So I did some emailing. The castle is also the residence of the Duke of Rutland. He and his fmaily live in part of the castle; the rest of it and the gardens outside are for tourist. So I

emailed the staff and asked if there was ANY way I could come have a tour since I would only be in England for a short time. A very nice lady named SallyAnn emailed me back a few days later and said that she wasn’t sure, but she would ask His Grace if it would be possible. Yeah, I had to get permission from the freggin’ Duke of Rutland. I thanked her over and over and last week she emailed me again and said that His Grace, the Duke of Rutland, would be happy for me to come to my… err… his castle. In fact, they’re giving us a private one and half hour tour of it, and then we’re free to wander the gardens as much as we like. How cool is that? Should I mention that it’s technically my castle and that I’m staying? Probably not.

Play rehearsals are in full swing for my upcoming production of Hansel and Gretel. Directing children can sure be a challenge though. Unlike a classroom environment, I have to work with small groups one at a time, leaving the other kids unsupervised. Thankfully the room is small and I find ample things for the other kids to do – like LEARN THEIR LINES. Get this – I’m the writer, director and narrator of the play. The director part is a given since I’m the teacher. I had to rewrite the play though so it fit with the number of kids I had. And I really didn’t have enough kids to fill the role of narrator, and Alanna said no, so I’m doing that as well. Our performance is June 11^th so let’s hope it all comes together!

Now I know I said it’s really too hot to Geocache, but this weekend a group of us are heading to Oman to do just that. There is a cache there that was placed in 2002, and it’s the oldest cache in the area. I wanted to get it before we left for the summer. So a small group of us are heading out bright and early Saturday morning to get it. Yeah, it will be 100 degrees before 10am, but who cares right???

Alrighty folks, I’ll wrap it up here. Take care!

More pics –

I did not get a Turkey

Do people get tired of reading the same things over and over again? I dunno, but I don’t get tired DOING them.

We’ve been sticking to the plan of trying to do something every weekend. Nothing too crazy or expensive. We just like to get out of the house. I located a nice “American style” bowling alley when I went up to Abu Dhabi for the BJJ tournament. So we left one morning a few weekends ago, grabbed a few geocaches and went to the bowlng alley. We got to the place around 11am. I have

never been bowling that early. There was one other family of expats there, otherwise the place was empty. It was nice to just do something normal for a change, something I took for granted in the States. Logan had a great time shoving the bowling balls around on the ball return, though his mother was ever fearful the balls were going to smush his fingers.

In addition to the bowling alley, we visited the Grand Mosque. It is, to me at least, the best piece of architecture in the UAE. It’s what you picture when you think of Muslim/Arab culture. It is also a big tourist attraction and free to enter. We got there early before it got busy. We had to take our shoes off before going inside, and also all women had to wear the traditional black Muslim abaya and also cover their heads. So Alanna was decked out in black and I just had to dress conservatively. Men have it so much easier here.

The mosque sports the largest rug and largest chandelier in the world. So we toured around for awhile, took some pics and videos and then left content to have seen such a sight.

We took another day trip to Dubai last week. We went to a new mall. It had a big Toys-R-Us in it and we were looking for a backpack to carry Logan around while in London. We didn’t find one of course and resorted to Ebay. I hope it gets here in time! The mall was great though. We stepped off an elevator and lo’ and behold, there was an OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE. I love Outback. I mean, LOVE. Who doesn’t though? Anyway, they don’t have any in the UAE. Or at least they didn’t until January when the one In this mall opened. I just didn’t know about it. We ate dinner there, completely alone. Not a single customer around. Someone walked in near the end, but for the most part, no one. Food tastes different here. McDonalds is a little different, Papa Johns is not exactly the same, etc. I am happy to report though that Outback tasted like Outback! The Aussie Cheese Fries were amazing and the Prime Rib was to die for. Now don’t get me wrong. The entire family spent the next few days with stomach problems, but for me it was well worth it. After leaving the mall, I did some quick Geocaching, finding one and DNFing another. Darkness was coming quickly so we headed back to Al Ain.

Speaking of Geocaching, which I seem to do a lot… I went to an “event” last Friday. Events are get togethers where other cachers meet up for coffee, stories, etc. Pretty geeky I know, but fun. Well, Geocaching has been around for 10 years now and the folks in my area scheduled a 10 Year Geocaching Event last week. I’ve only a met a few of the area’s cachers, so I thought it would be fun to meet some more. We headed out Friday morning to Abu Dhabi. I grabbed a few caches along the way, one beside a strange… round… building. Who knows what is was, but that’s the UAE crazy design for ya. The event was held at a nice coffee shop. Alanna

was happy because they had a breakfast burrito. It’s the little things that make her happy. About 15 people showed up. We sat around and chatted, ate some decent food, and swapped geocoins and travel bugs. Those little things are trackable items that can be placed in caches for people to find. You find one, log it online, and then move it on to another cache. The trackable’s owner can follow it all over the world. Pretty cool. Or geeky. Anyway, we swapped trackables around. I left with three and have already placed them in caches around Al Ain. We broke up the event after two hours and the family headed home. They were a nice group of people. We swapped numbers, emails, Facebook info, and hopefully we’ll meet up with some of them now and then. All in all a fun but geeky time was had.

Logan is soooooooo close to walking. He can stand up alone now for half a minute at a time. He can walk around the house “assisted” by his parents – meaning, we hold his hands while he stumbles step by step. I’ve let go of him a lot, but he’s yet to take that first step on his own. He’s close though! Its so much fun to be a part of all his little milestones. I’m so thankful NOT to be working all the time. I would have hated myself if I missed all this.

What else? Alanna and I saw Iron Man 2 this week. We dropped Logan off at the babysitter and went to a 5pm movie. Iron Man 2 came out a week earlier here than in the States. Don’t ask me why, but it was cool to see it before everyone else. So yeah, 5pm movie. NO ONE but us in the theater. Well, no one until right before the movie started. At the last minute, a man came in and sat in our row. Yeah. Like there wasn’t another open spot he could have sat in. No no, he chose to sit in our row while the rest of the theater was empty. Weird. To top it off, he had his choice where to sit before he came in. They do things a little different here. You don’t just go in and sit down at the movies. Like going to see a play or concert, you select which seats you want while you buy the tickets outside. Then you are ushered in to YOUR seats. Crazy country! Iron Man 2 was a good sequel though. There were lots of Captain America references which I laughed at and which Alanna looked at me funny for. Although I am more of a DC fan, Marvel has done a great job with this series.

OK, gotta end it here. Logan WAS napping. Not anymore.

Keeping Busy

Last weekend kept us very busy. On Friday morning, I hiked/climbed up a mountain to a secret bat cave and hanging gardens. Friday evening we had a bonfire out in the desert with friends. Saturday I went to Abu Dhabi to watch the brazilian jiu jitsu world cup and snag a few geocaches. Here is a detailed review…

Friday Morning

I got up bright and early around 7am and was out the door by the bottom of the hour. Alanna was nice enough to stay in bed and watch Logan. I met up with two caching neighbor friends – Darrel and Mimi. We headed out and crossed the border into Oman. The drive out took about 15 minutes. We turned off on a gravel road which continued for another 4kms before we were forced to pull over and park. There was a large mountain in front of us, and near the top of it we spotted our destination – The Bat Cave. No, not the one on the outskirts of Gotham. This one had a Geocache inside. We could tell it was going to be a long hike so we set off immediately. The hike/climb was pretty intense. We scrambled over rocks, sticker bushes and loose sand. A few times we literally

had to climb up hand over hand as there was no other way to get where we were going. We made frequent stops to drink water and finally an hour half later, we reached the cave. The views were amazing – inside and out. There was bat quano all over the inside floor of the cave, but the bats themselves seemed to have abandoned the place. We took a good while trying to find the geocache, but it was a fruitless search. Seems to cache was missing from the obvious hole it was placed in. Oh well, the cave itself was well worth the effort.

After a break, we skirted the side of the mountain and climbed down to the hanging gardens. This was another neat spot. There was plants and trees growing out of the side of the mountain, literally “hanging” upside down against the rocks. You could see where water runs down during rainy times to feed to plants. Another hidden gem of Oman. So much more to see there than in the UAE. If you like nature, that is.

We got lost a few times on the hike down, which took another hour and a half. We literally had to dodge falling rocks and help each other down over cliffs. At

one point, we all had to sit down and slide slowly on our butts because the slope was too steep and slippery. We all made it down safely though, just a few scrapes here and there. I really enjoyed the climb. We drove back home and I took a well deserved shower and nap

Friday Night

After getting reenergized, we prepared for out desert bonfire. Alanna I had organized it with a group of friends after we found a nice spot in the desert that was 10 minutes from where we live. We all met outside at 5:45pm to head over. One small problem though – giant sand storm. The wind was blowing the sand all over the place and visibility was terrible. We decided to at least head out to the desert though in hopes that the storm would die down sooner or later. So our little caravan snaked its way along a sandy road

between sand dunes until I decided on a nice spot just off the road. We climbed over a big dune and found a nice little valley behind it. We all sort of waited out the sand storm, covering our faces as best we could. The big dune helped to block the wind and by dark the storm was pretty much done. I worked out a quick fire (newspaper, lighter fluid and really dry wood make that rather easy) and soon enough we were all relaxing and having a good time. Some folks brought food and drinks, full meals to cook as well. It was a fun evening all in all. Some of the folks stayed overnight to camp, but being weary from out last camping adventure, Alanna, Logan and I were very happy to sleep in our comfy beds.

Saturday

Leaving Alanna and Logan behind again, I took off Saturday and headed up to Abu Dhabi to watch the 2010 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu World Cup. We got there around 5:00pm and stopped off in a very American bowling alley near the sight to eat, then headed over to the outdoor tennis stadium where the fights were being held. The place was pretty packed – Emiratis on one side, everyone else on the other. Oh and of course the women got a special place all by themselves to sit if they wanted. The fights weren’t all that impressive. I guess I was hoping for more UFC type MMA fighting, but this was only

straight BJJ. There wasn’t even a single tap out. Everyone won by points. There was however this giant woman – she had to be 6’4”, 250lbs and practically all muscles. She literally dominated the poor woman that she was fighting. I think I saw an adams apple. Someone needs to do some testing on that one. Oh, and Sheikh Mohammed was there was well. And by Sheikh Mohammed I mean

HH General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces as well as virtually next in line to President of the United Arab Emirates. Yeah, a big wig. 2nd in command of the country. He didn’t even have bodyguards. Well none that I could see anyway. He is a huge BJJ fan and loves MMA.

I left the event a little early so I could perhaps grab two geocaches on the way home. Just outside the stadium was a part where I found a tiny cache under a park bench. Not more than two blocks away was another tiny cache on the back of a sign in a parking lot. So two quick caches and I was back on my way home.

The Grand Mosque was close by as well. Its probably the coolest looking building here in the UAE. I really want to take a look at it, so the family is going to head up Saturday morning and take a tour. We’re also gonna go bowling at that American-style alley. And we’ll get in some geocaches of course.

Counting down – July 8^th – London! July 12^th – North Carolina!

A true desert experience

Hello, boys and girls. I hope all is well with all of you who read this. Except for Duke fans. I hope you all have nasty colds.

I’ve been keeping busy since last we spoke. Well, you didn’t speak. You just silently read my blog without commenting. For shame. Anyway, on to the show. Err… blog. Like, I said – busy busy busy. Because of my little infection, I missed two weeks of Drama lessons and my kids were sorely lacking in their Theatrical development. Once I got to feeling better, I treated them to two special weekend workshops – Mask Making and Makeup. We even let other kids who weren’t in my classes come to the workshops for free, which tripled my class sizes for the lessons. Anything that is offered free people just flock to, don’t they? The workshops went really well. Nothing against the good ole’ UAE, but they are lacking in Mask and Makeup supplies. I had to make do with what I could find, but adding the “you can buy this stuff at your local store” ideas to the lessons made the kids excited about trying things on their own. And, of course, all the older kids just had to have some gross cut, gash, bruise, black eye, etc etc etc. Though I am in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM any type of good makeup artist, I do a pretty good job with gross projects. Spring break (for the drama kids) is next week, then we’ll start the final semester of the year. We’re gearing up to go a play in mid June!

Alanna and I have been wanting to go camping since we arrived in the Middle East. We both have quite a bit of camping history in our lives, though we just didn’t find the time to camp in the States in the last couple years. Everyone here kept talking about how cool “desert camping” was, so we finally decided to give it a try. I asked around on some Expat forums where a good spot was, and got tons of ideas. We finally chose a spot about an hour away towards Abu Dhabi, that just happened to have quite a few Geocaches around it. Camping supplies are cheap here too. We got a 3 person tent and two sleeping bags for the equivalent of $40. Firewood though, as you might imagine, is in short supply in the desert. We did find one Souk that sold it in bundles though. So we haggled with the nice man and got 4.

We planned to camp just one night, to give it a good college try, so after Alanna got home from school on Thursday, we packed up the car with supplies and headed West. The spot that was suggested to us was easy enough to find. We got their a couple hours before sunset to give ourselves time to set up and then get a fire going. We drove down a sand road with dunes all around us until the road came to a dead end. We parked the car there out of the way and got out to look for a good spot to pitch our tent. I grabbed two arm full loads of supplies, Alanna grabbed Logan, and we headed off into the dunes. We didn’t want to go too far because, A) we’re lazy and B) we didn’t want to leave the car all alone and too far away from us. So after travelling over a couple of dunes, we found a nice small hollow (Logan) and decided to make it our home for the night. I quickly set up the tent and two chairs. The plan was to have Alanna watch Logan and I would handle all the manual labor. Well, after 4 or 5 trips to and from the car later, I was tired. Walking over sand dunes with bundles of firewood is not easy. Eventually though, I had loaded all the stuff in the tent and we were sitting in… ok… I was sitting in the chairs. Alanna has a thing about bugs though. The flies were bothering her, so she took Logan into the tent (which was MUCH hotter than sitting outside because of the nice breeze) and played with him for awhile. I relaxed and waited for the sun to start slipping down behind the dunes. Once it did, I quickly worked up a lovely fire. One part former Boy Scout, one part dry, easy to light firewood, and soon enough we had a blazing fire just as the sun set. Alanna and Logan joined me beside the fire once it got going. It was quite cozy. The temperature dropped to a nice 70F after the sun went down, so the fire felt great. Not too hot, not too cold. Around 8pm, I made dinner. I chose to go with the classic Hobo Meal for dinner. I’ve known the recipe since I was a wee lad. You basically take your choice of meat, add some veggies and what not, all chopped up and then place them on some heavy aluminum foil. Then you place another bit of foil on top of everything, wrap it up, and throw it on the hot coals of the fire for 20 minutes. Once its done, tug it out of the fire, let it cool off for a few minutes, then cut it open like a baked potato and fork it out for a great meal. I’d even marinated the meat all day to give it some extra taste. My recipe was hamburger meat, chopped carrots, potatoes, onions and corn. It was DELICIOUS.

We all sat around the fire for a few more hours before finally heading into the tent. The night went downhill from there. It wasn’t horrible though, just not the wonderful sleeping experience I was wishing for. I blame the 10 month old baby. I should probably blame his parents for dragging him out to sleep in a tent in the middle of the desert. But since Logan can’t defend himself, he’s easier to blame. The combination of Logan not sleeping at all and the ground not letting either Alanna or I get comfy made for a loooong night. We were very happy to see the sunrise. We peaked our heads out of the tent around 6:30am and there was… fog. It is weird to see a blanket of fog in the desert. We had ourselves a cereal bar and OJ breakfast, then I packed up everything and we made our way back to the car, which was thankfully still there and in one piece.

The rest of the morning we spent Geocaching around the outskirts of Abu Dhabi. We found 4 out of the 5 caches we searched for. The one we didn’t find, beside a giant (think 50 feet tall) birdcage complete with an eagle inside, was probably muggled – someone had removed the object that the cache was attached to. We did make our way up a man made mountain though. Don’t ask, I have no idea why they made a mountain here. But there was a geocache near the top so we grabbed it. We found a few more caches that day – one at a busy camel racetrack, one at the abandoned endurance village, and another out in the middle of nowhere. We finished up the morning and were back in Al Ain about 11am.

Note to self – Camping with a baby is a no go. Drop the little rugrat off with his grandparents next time.

Some new pics… enjoy!

GEDC1493 — They make their own mountains here

The World Is Snot Enough

Sneezing, sniffling, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever – that’s what the Staton Family has been dealing with lately. All three of us have been sick and we’ve done nothing but pass it back and forth between each other. And, of course, with Logan being sick that means he doesn’t sleep well. Which means Mom and Dad don’t sleep well (or sometimes at all) either. Finding the usual medications here in the desert is a little difficult too! You can’t just run down to Walgreens and pick up some Nyquil. If you want anything stronger than a common pain reliever, you have to go to the pharmacy. Luckly, many of the types of medicines you need prescriptions for in the states you can easily get OTC here. That has been helpful with my current prostate infection. Thankfully it’s on the downswing and I’m feeling better. You can’t get the name brand medicines you’re used to in the States here in the desert though. No Tylenol, Nyquil, even the good ole’ Pepto is not found on the UAE’s shelves. So we just have to explain to the pharmacist what our symptoms are and he’ll recommend something for us. Which usually isn’t strong enough to do the trick. Oh well. We’re all feeling a little better this week though so maybe we’re out of the woods. Not that there are woods here. Well, there is an oasis. And it has lots of trees. Just not the same though.

I met up with a fellow Expat from NC through the Geocaching website. He’s planted quite a few caches here in Al Ain, and offered to take me out in his 4×4 to grab some caches we couldn’t get to in the dinky rental car. So we went out last weekend and made a half day of it. We hopped the border and “cached” for awhile in Oman. He even showed me a few wadis that had areas where you could swim. We saw some guys in their undies swimming there. Not a pretty site. All in all, we found 8 caches, which is 4 more than I’ve ever found in one day! My current total is 31.

My baby boy is amazing. Logan is 9 months old now. He has 4 teeth now – two on the top and two on the bottom. He’s eating big people food now and then as well! He wants to walk so badly. He’s in the cruising stage now. He pulls himself up on the couch, table, anything and then sort of walks along, using his hands for support. It won’t be long before he’s running all over the place…. and falling all over the place. At the moment, he’s pushing a chair around the living room. Weight training I guess. He also likes to bang on our laptops a little too much, so yesterday we bought him his own computer keyboard. It was a cheap $10 model and he enjoys banging on it. I’m just getting him prepared for his future life as a rich computer genius… who is a star athlete, and all the women love him. Did I mention he pooped all over the floor last week? The women won’t like that. We didn’t catch it in time. He got it on the carpet, his legs, his hands, his mother and his mother’s cell phone. Luckily, I was out of his poo trajectory. We rushed him off to the bathroom and cleaned up the little mess maker. Just thought I’d throw in a poo story. No stay-at-home-dad blog is complete without it.

I have a lot of cache

You might be asking yourself, “What is going on with Rob Staton lately?” If so, then please read on for an update. If not, well why are you on my blog? Bounce.

Alanna had to go back to work last week and I had to… play with Logan. He’s so mobile now though so he keeps me busy. I’ve also been putting as many hat/hat “like” things on his head and taking pictures of him. Why? Well because no matter what the kid is wearing, he is the cutest kid in all the land. Even if he has a pot, plastic wrapper, knit cap, chocolate box or some other random object his Daddy finds to put on his head.

My new obsession that is Geocaching continues to grow by leaps and bounds. I had recently heard about it before I left the States last August, so I’m pretty new at it. But its sooooo much fun. Geeky, but healthy outdoors fun too! So far I have found 22 caches (magic number 23 tomorrow I hope) and I’ve even planted one, which 3 people have already found. It’s just a neat, FREE hobby that gets me outdoors and lets me find places in the area I would have known about.

Today, along with my lovely lady and Logan, I hopped the border and went “caching” in Oman. Nothing too far out – about a 20 minute drive from the border. Out of 6 caches I wanted to search for, we found 4. Two were easy to find, and the other two were…. adventures. Let’s deal with the adventurous ones, shall we?

Adventure 1 – This cache was hidden somewhere at the top of a mountain area. Around the bottom of the mountain was an oasis, an abandoned fort and an OLD graveyard. The clues for the cache said it was easy to find if you went the right way. I didn’t go the right way. First of all, we have a normal 2X4 wheel drive car. Many of the caches are MUCH easier to find here in the desert/mountains if you have a 4X4 vehicle, while some caches you can ONLY find with one. Like I said, I went the wrong way. The wrong way was me climbing up and down, up and down over rocky cliffs. 30 minutes later… I finally found the dang cache. I was so completely worn out that I had to just sit there for a few minutes just so I wouldn’t throw up. I did have a great view of the oasis, fort and graveyard though! Alanna didn’t even yell at me when I got back to the car. I think she could tell I was worn out.

Adventure 2 – This cache seemed pretty easy. You just drive your car down this gravel road and look for a poort. A poort… is a natural split between a mountain where a river probably ran through thousands of years ago. So we spotted the poort and located the cache, but… the… gravel.. was… like sand… and… I got the car stuck. Again. Second time since I’ve been here I’ve done that. And we were in the middle of nowhere again. And our cell phones didn’t work. At least we had water though. After saying I was sorry 10 times to Alanna, I hiked a few kilometers out to the nearest road. After a 20 minute wait, a local guy with a truck came along and a frantically flagged him down. I sort of explained to him the problem (He didn’t speak English and I can’t say much more than Hello in Arabic), making sure he understood I had a wife and baby stuck in the middle of nowhere. I hopped in his truck and we drove back to our car. Well… he didn’t have any kind of rope to pull the car out with. He did however, have the driving skills of Richard Petty. He climbed in my car and did some kind of magical Omani forward/reverse driving thing, and with a little help from me pushing, he got the car unstuck. I paid him some money for his trouble and we were on our way. That was our last cache of the day! I can’t wait to get back to the States to do some homeland caching. There are a bagillion caches in the Concord area!