This month:

• Zen and the Art of Plane Travel by S of TeamSK
• Looking Sneaky by Elizabeth of CacheChasers
• Our Monthly Crossword Puzzle by Tony Delgado, aka TableSaw
• Two Geeks in a Buick by ddirgo

After spending a week on Maui, and having attempted 14 geocaches (and finding 10), my husband, K, and I were settled in for the five hour flight home. I got out my book, my headphones, and my gum, and settled in for the long summer's nap. I noticed that K had the GPS receiver out and was holding it up to the window of the plane.

Two hours later, I looked up from my book, and K still was gazing at the GPSr. He has long loved gadgets, and I admired his Zen abilities. But, this was a bit much. Wasn't the little item for finding geocaches? How interesting could it be, up in a plane, sitting still? He punched some buttons on the thing, while I got up, walked the length of the plane, sat back down, re-buckled my seat belt so that I would be safe in the event of a water landing, and proceeded to watch "And Along Came Molly" on the marvelous pull down screen at the front of the cabin.

At the end of the movie, I glanced over at K, and he was still fascinated by the GPSr! I decided that perhaps I'd look into what my life's partner found so fascinating, and was immediately drawn in! The mileage was ripping by at a speed of 630 miles per hour, as opposed to our usual average of about 70 mph. That was about a mile every six seconds! We also could see that we were at an altitude of about 34.8 Kft. Kft. That meant thousands of feet up. This varied, along with the speed that we would fly. We listened to the captain's chatter from the cockpit of the plane as he spoke with Air Traffic Control; this was reflected by what was happening to our speed and altitude on the GPSr. This was interesting! When K pushed various buttons, we could see how many satellites the receiver was picking up, usually about four or five, over the middle of the ocean, as opposed to our usual eight or nine in California. The GPSr had a map of our relationship to where we had taken off (K had made the Kahului airport a waypoint), and our relationship to San Francisco Airport (another spot K had thoughtfully waypointed). Too bad we can't move so easily in rush hour traffic.

An hour later, I looked up from the GPSr, realizing that I, too, had become quite Zen myself, on this plane trip. We saw on the GPSr that we were beginning our descent long before the captain announced the fact to the rest of the passengers. Ah, the joy of playing with technology!