I had a couple of little projects for Twin Peaks and although I still wasn't feeling well, made arrangements to meet fisnjack at 8:00 in the morning. Our trip up to Poway went smoothly and we stopped to try for a FTF on Zeber's first cache.
After fisnjack found that cache and we both signed the log, we continued to Silverset Park and started our climb, with me carrying a heavy ammo can for the final location to a new cache I placed.
It was a fantastic day, very warm for mid-November,and amazingly clear. We could see all the way to the ocean from the top.
We spent a lot of time scrambling around on some boulders where I hid the ammo can, then continued to the top where I remembered I had wanted to place a Terracache up there . . .
Doh! That's what happens when I am not feeling well. My brain simply doesn't work. Fortunately, fisnjack had a small container all outfitted as a new cache. I placed it in one location, then discovered some pornographic graffiti next to the location, so while fisnjack went to find the other cache, I wandered around looking for another hiding place. I finally found another spot, and fisnjack gave me an Altoids tin he found in the Twin Peaks I cache.
Later in the afternoon, after a DNF at a cache near the bottom of the hill and finding a three more caches on my countdown to cache #3000, I looked for my Palm, the new-to-me Palm M515 SEPTICTANKHANK gave me. I had showed it to fisnjack up on the mountain, remarking about SEPTICTANKHANK's generosity, but now I couldn't find it. I was incredulous that it wasn't in my pack. Fisnjack was kind to drive back to Silverset Park so we could hike up the trail again, something he didn't need to do since his feet were hurting.
We took a different route so he could get two more caches, and then at the top, we looked for the Palm. The problem was I couldn't remember exactly where we were when I showed it to him. Was it at the very top? Was it at my ammo can cache location? Was it down at Twin Peaks II? How strange to remember showing it to him, then looking at the way he had his Palm T/X organized, and then not remembering anything else . . .
I am so careful with my equipment, it is hard to figure out where I would have put it, except for back in my pack.
So . . . it was a fun day, but it ended on a sad note. I have lost very few things in my life because everything I own is difficult to replace on my budget. That is a great motivation for taking good care of the things I own . . .
Perhaps the Palm will reappear somehow, some way. Perhaps another hiker who saw it will see the owner name and phone number in it and return it to me . . .
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UPDATE: November 23, 2007. I met fisnjack this morning to go out to the desert and he greeted me with a big grin. He found the Palm M515 way under the seat in his little truck. The black duct tape on the back side of the case made it invisible under the seat and he only found it because he was reaching under there looking for something else. WHOOPIE!! I am so thankful to have the mystery solved.
The Saturday after I misplaced it, I actually drove all the way to Poway to climb up Twin Peaks
again and resume the search to see if I could jog my memory. When I was up on the peak looking around, there was no place up there that looked like where I would have set the Palm down. The more I looked around, the more mysterious it all became because it would have been so very out of character for me to set something down and walk away from it . . .
So . . . my thanks once again to SEPTICTANKHANK for his generosity, and to fisnjack for finding the wayward Palm.