Blog Template Musings about Geocaching: 2007-10-07

Musings about Geocaching

Thursday, October 11, 2007

A hike just for the sake of hiking

At my house it was overcast and I worried the day, on which a hike with a new friend was planned, would be cloudy. But, it wasn't. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, with a few clouds in the sky, just enough to add interest to the photographs I took.

After breakfast at the La Posta Cafe, we drove to the trailhead at the intersection of Kitchen Creek Road and the Pacific Crest Trail. From there, we walked south towards the falls, a trail I have hiked a couple of other times. During our hike on the trail, and our meanderings up the hill to find the a cache, we covered almost four miles.



I took a picture of some lichens on a rock and told my companion how many years ago, I heard a man from the Natural History museum explained how an algae and fungus went up opposite sides of a rock and took a "likin'" to each other and that is how the symbiotic relationship started eons ago . . .



Further down the trail the vista of the La Posta Valley and Lake Morena opened up.





As we hiked closer to the the falls area, which are dry now since there has not been any rain for months, I heard voices. I knew fisnjack planned a hike out this way, but didn't think we would see him since he usually starts so early in the morning. Soon I saw two people, and a dog, and knew it was fisnjack, dillweed, and little Teddie. A while later, after we followed the trail down to the creek bed, we caught up with them and talked for a while. Fisnjack was working on Travelita's Kitchen Creek Multi-cache and collecting the "Kitchen Creek Monteverde" cache for my "San Diego 'Historic' Cache Adventure" cache.

My companion and I made it up to the "Kitchen Creek Monteverde" cache and he signed the logbook. That was his first cache find! I dropped off one of the TBs I picked up in the desert on Monday and took a picture of the cute little Jeep before closing it up in the ammo can.



I somewhat reluctantly headed back to the vehicle. It was such a beautiful day, I wanted to continue hiking. I took one last picture of the dry creek bed with the distant view before we left the area.



On my way back home, I stopped to look for a couple of caches and couldn't find either one of them. Ine of the caches was called "Initialed Refuse" and once I got to the location, I knew why they cache owner got the name.



At that location, I got a better picture of Bell Bluff and another one of Bell Bluff and Viejas Mountain.





I really had a great time today and look forward to more hikes now that the temperatures are much more conducive to getting out and hitting the trails.


posted by Miragee at 5:37:00 PM | 0 comments

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

A new "Found it" map after our trip to the desert




posted by Miragee at 3:39:00 PM | 0 comments

Great article and Forum threads about online logs

Several weeks ago, a Forum thread was started about writing the online logs for the caches a person finds.

From the begining, I have written longer logs than many others I see on caches, but my logs have never been as creative or fun as other cachers. Lately, I've been trying to follow the guidelines set out by this article and by some of the posts in this thread.

My true goal is to someday write a log like the one the late Yrium wrote for one of FATTBOY's caches:
Once again Fattboy has issued a challenge that I could not say no to. He’s calling me out, I know it. In his cache write-up for his END OF THE LINE cache he mentions at the end “PLEASE BE DISCREET”. What kind of crack is that? Is he saying I can’t be discreet? Does he go around talking to his buddies saying stuff like “Oh yeah, most people would know better but there’s this yrium guy running around, falling down hills, splitting his pants, Huffing and puffing and blowharding all around the place… So I have to say in my cache description to be discreet.”

“I can too be Discreet, Fattboy, you just watch me” I though to myself as I layed rubber exiting my driveway. Gromit was bouncing around in his seat like a ping-pong ball at a Chinese grudge match down at the local ping-pong emporium. I lead-footed it all the way to the end of Poway Road, tires screeching at every turn, people flipping me the bird for reasons unknown to me all along the way. When I got to the general cache area I parked the card by jumping it over the curb and skidding to a stop in the moist mud. “COME ON GROMIT!” I yelled over my shoulder as I got out of the car, “OH, AND DON’T DO ANYTHING STRANGE… WE’RE BEING DISCREET!”

So we discreetly walked up and into the muddy field next to where we had parked and I studied the GPS a bit. Hmmmmm… Seems we’re on the wrong side of the street, I guess we’ll have to cross. Looking behind me I notice Gromit has wandered further and further away on his quest for sniff worthy substances. The field is pretty clear and what with the recent rain I don’t think he was getting too many aroma molecules up his nostrils. “Gromit, come on little buddy, we got to cross the road!” I said discreetly. :) Gromit’s usually right quick to heel. He loves showing off his good manners he learned in obedience school, but this time he kinda looked at me and then using his shaggy head he gestured to the hills Eastward. “Lets go be wolves” he seemed to mime “come on FOODGUY, we can chase rabbits”. He took a few more steps away from me and then paused a moment as he looked over his shoulder “Plump juicy rabbits… I can smell um”.

“Gromit, you come here!” I scolded him. “I can’t be running around the wet burned hills with you looking for rabbits, bushy-tailed, jack-rabbit, Welsh or any other nationality you might be fantasizing about. We’ve got to get across the street and discreetly look for Fattboy’s cache”. As I looked at the wonderdog I could tell he still wasn’t convinced. “Okay-Okay, if you come with me now we’ll pretend we’re wolves later… Promise”.

With that he finally came back my way and we crept up to the edge of the road and waited for an opening in the traffic so we could cross. Minutes went by… That’s one busy road. Zip zip zip the cars passed in front of us. Gromit kept looking at me as he defers all street-crossing decisions to me. “Not now… Not Now… No… Wait… Wait… Hold it… Wait… NOW !!! Run for it!” I extolled triumphantly “Now’s the time”.

So we hotfooted it across the street. As we did I noticed that at first what seemed to be a far off car no longer appeared that way as it was coming on fast. “Yowza, Run Gromit Run!”. I said as I changed my pace from a fast tempo lumber to a panic paced sprint that any metabolically enhanced track and field guy would be envious of. False alarm, we made it with plenty of time to spare, we probably could have sauntered across hopping on one leg, or in Gromit’s case two legs. But we wouldn’t have done it that way… what with us being discreet and all.

Good hide Fattboy, We looked at all the obvious places then wandered around figuring you’d given us bad coords or something. Looked some more in places 20 to 30 feet away from where my GPS was telling me to look and not finding it. I know I said to myself, the great speed at which I crossed the street has gotten my GPS confused… I’ll have to wait till it settles down… After it settled down, IE pointed back to where it originally led me to I finally got smart and found the cache. As I said, Good hide.

Took a look at the logbook and saw that Halstaff had been there just before us. I guess he isn’t slowed down by wistfully wolf-wishing canines. Well the jokes on him. If he’d been a little more slow and surreptitious like moi, he could have gotten a copy of the latest Geocacher trading cards I left behind. Its #3 in the Udesignit line featuring Halstaff himself. Radical Geezer was the last to find the Udesignit travel bug and he did the image and text for the card. I have to compliment him, the cards came out nice. I also left the Udesignit travelbug in the cache so if anyone wants to pick the next subject for a card they need to make their way discreetly to this cache.

Oh and Fattboy, I’m still waiting for some high-definition pictures of you. If you have any Polaroid’s of you poised upon a teeter-totter that would be exceptionally cool.

Thanks for the cache we loved it… “What’s that Gromit? You say its time to be wolves?” Okay, “Ooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu… OOOOuuuuuuAAAAuuuuuuuAAAuu” I howled as we walked back to the car. Fattboy didn’t say nothing about being discreet after we found the cache.

--- yrium ---


It is interesting to see the more recent logs for that same, clever, well-cammoed cache. They say . . . "Cache and dash. TNLNSL."




posted by Miragee at 11:24:00 AM | 0 comments

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Released a TB a day after rescuing it from the desert

This poor little fishy was stranded in a difficult-to-get-to cache, in a hot, below-sea-level location. It felt good to be able to release it so soon after retrieving it, and get a picture of it near some water.



I wouldn't normally be down that way, but I went into San Diego to help out a friend who needed to pick up someone at the airport.

The cache I put the TB in has been found by most of the locals, so I hope the little fishy doesn't have to wait too long before continuing on its journeys.


posted by Miragee at 6:05:00 PM | 0 comments

Monday, October 08, 2007

An incredible day of caching in the desert

We left before dawn and got back long after dark, but this week's trip to the desert was different from last week's visit because we spent most of the time on paved roads, instead of 4WD roads, and we covered many, many more miles. My thanks to fisnjack for being the "Energizer Bunny" and wanting to cover all that territory and find many of the caches along the way, including some he had already found.

Early in the morning we found a cache called "The Middle of Nowhere" by T.R. Violin. It was such an intersting area . . . who knew the middle of nowhere could be so amazing? . . . and I took quite a few pictures.







We continued from that area, which was south of I-8 north towards the Salton Sea. Since it was so beautiful, with no wind, mild temperatures, and clear, clear views, I took lots and lots of pictures. This is just one of the photographs I took of the Salton Sea as seen from a high point along the S-22.



One cache was hidden on top of this thing.


The views from the top were incredible.





Later on we found a "buried" cache . . . However, the cache owner didn't bury it, mother nature did as rain "melts" the mud hills. When I was checking the cache logbook, fisnjack took this picture of me, and the container in the ground near my right hand.



By the time we finished caching, after dark, I found 24 caches. At this rate, I think I'll keep up the pace I set in the first two years of caching . . . a pace nearly three times what I aspired to when I first started caching in 2005.


posted by Miragee at 11:29:00 PM | 0 comments

 

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