Hi to the group

Well, it only took me about a week to figure out what to do– actually I had a Gmail account but could not remember the password. Once I got past that the rest was easy. So where do I start? I guess at the beginning. I was a hiker and mountain climber and have had a love for the outdoors forever and came across a mention of geocaching in an online newsletter I was subscribed to. I looked it up online and saw there was a cache just a couple of miles from home. I had an old Garmin GPS III and loaded the coords in it and went for the hunt. It took me a while to figure out what I was doing but I did find it. ( It was later discovered by me that this was the First placed cache in NH.) That was June 23, 2002. I also found one other cache in the same park that evening. I WAS HOOKED. Let me now mention that I am married to a muggle!!- She tolerates my addiction for caching and travel but does not share the exact same passion. We have 4 children and 5 grandchildren some of whom enjoy caching on a limited basis. So basically I started caching as a loner. Soon I learned about events and met other cachers on the trail and discovered that there was a huge social aspect to this activity. I still cache mainly alone but love to hook up with my friends at the larger events and go out on multi day cache runs.
I met one local cacher early on– Bushwhack Bob– who was also a mountain climber and highpointer so we shared these activities. He was the one who got me into the GeoWoodstock events starting in Jacksonville, Fl and we have been to the last 4 rooming together. It was his fault ( along with Koneko) that it became ALL about the numbers. I used to just plug along but now have to keep looking at the stats. If the truth be told, I am a first born and that is an automatic passion for lists and numbers. I have JUST HAD to finish some lists that became an obsession for me. So I have found a cache in ALL 50 states, all the provinces of Canada ,Except for Nunavut where you can’t drive there ( I will fix that next summer when I FLY there). I have found the oldest cache hidden in all the 50 states except Virginia ( I will do that one in Oct-Nov) and have found caches in 8 other countries. I have visited over 60 countries but that was before I started geocaching.
My wife and I live in Hudson,NH and I have a business in the next door city of Nashua. We have a second home in York Beach, Maine where we spend most of our summer. We go to Florida for about 4-6 weeks each winter to visit her mother and my brother and to get out of the snow and cold. and geocache!!! We also try to get one international trip each year and I get to do one US-Canada road trip as well.
I am the baby of this group having just met the age requirement but would be happy to host and meet anyone traveling near us.. It is an honor for me to be asked to join this group and I thank Nashville Joe and AbbysGrammy for the invite. I am looking forward to meeting all the other people in this group.