Those of you who follow me on Facebook may have seen a few posts and check-ins over the weekend from Atlanta. That’s true, I am in sunny Georgia for the week.
Early this year, my life-long buddy Jeff moved to Atlanta. This week I have a meeting in Atlanta, so I took advantage of the situation by taking vacation last Friday and driving out to Atlanta and hanging out with Jeff and his family for the weekend.
Fifteen years ago (WOW), Jeff did the same for me. After Susan and I moved to Spokane, Washington for work, Jeff and his girlfriend Heather flew out to Spokane and met in person for the first time. Susan and I lived in Spokane for a year and a half before moving back to Oklahoma. This time, it was my turn to travel out of state and come visit Jeff. It just dawned on me that Jeff’s son Talon is in 7th grade — that’s the same grade Jeff and I were in when we first met.
It was also ironic that Jeff and I ended up at a Chicago restaurant in Atlanta. In 9th grade, Jeff went on vacation with our family to Chicago. I was there when Jeff ate his first Chicago Italian Beef Sandwich, and as of this moment, I was there when he ate his last one.
Back in high school, we didn’t look alike at all. Now, people ask if we’re brothers.
Sunday I introduced Jeff and his family to geocaching, and we ended up looking for six different caches within just a few miles of Jeff’s house. We found four of the six, and each of those four were hidden in different containers: a plastic Rubbermaid container, a waterproof cylinder, a fake sprinkler head, and a tiny, really hard to find envelope. There were two that stumped us — one that has a long history of stumping people, and a second one that was apparently hidden on a gas pump at a busy gas station. We searched for that one until the manager came out and asked what we were up to. When it was obvious he didn’t know what geocaching was and disapproved of us hanging around, we split.
I had a great time this weekend hanging out with Jeff and his family, and we’re already talking about a follow-up trip in next spring.
This morning Jeff went back to work, Jeff’s kids went back to school, and I did a bit of sight-seeing around town before heading downtown to my hotel. Tomorrow it’s back to work for me too.