Musings about Geocaching: 2008-04-27

Friday, May 02, 2008

A little hike in the Salt Creek Valley

After a couple of weeks of going to the Otay Reservoir area, dillweed and I had almost cleared it of caches . . . almost. So, today, I drove down Otay Lakes Road again and met her near the gate we drove through Monday, but which was locked today. We walked down the steep road and took a wrong turn at the bottom. I thought I was following the arrow on my GPSr, but when we got across the creek, we realized we needed to be on the other side.

So, we backtracked and finally, after another false start, found the road that finally let to the small cache, and another one a little further down that road.

After finding the last one in that direction, we turned around and I did a "Go To" for the Power Pole cache. That one required a climb, so we headed for #10. This time we found the bypass, so we didn't have to wade through the water as we did Monday . . .

There was a huge, orange dragonfly taking in this same view. My camera didn't focus on it very well, so this is the best picture I could get.

After finding that cache, I did a "Go To" for one of dillweed's caches, but we missed the road, so I did another "Go To" for the Power Pole cache.

We missed the road to that one . . . again. I don't think I've even done a "Go To" to one cache so many different times without succeeding in getting there . . .

After we got back to the vehicles, we found an easy cache in a nice park that looks over the Otay Reservoir. Then, we found another cache placed by Jahoadi and John before interrupting our caching day by going to REI for their big sale. Although that is my favorite store, and I am usually tempted to get something beyond my financial limits, this time I didn't spend any money.

I had a great day and look forward to the next "caching adventure."

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Got my exercise, and some gas money

With gas prices very close to $4.00 a gallon, I cannot afford to drive my car very often. So, in order to get some exercise today, I turned on the GPSr, reset it to '0', and walked along my road, filling grocery bags with cans and bottles to take to the Recycling center.

I filled one bag, then continued walking until the GPSr got to the two-mile mark. I don't know why it didn't record a total of four miles by the time I got back . . .

On the way back, I filled up another bag, so I earned about $.50 per mile for my little walk today . . . or enough for half a gallon of gas, which is just how much gas it takes to get to a gas station in my car which gets about 30 mpg . . .

Is that what they mean when they say "Can't win for losin'?"

Monday, April 28, 2008

Another great day at Otay Lake

Although it was another hot day for the month of April, I made plans to meet dillweed early in the morning to clear out the new caches placed along the west side of Otay Lake. We started near the main entrance since there were a couple of caches near there that she needed to find, ones I found the day of the Event. This gave us a long distance to walk before our turnaround point more than three miles to the north.

High cirrus clouds accented the sky this morning.

The first cache on my GPSr was one placed by Duncan! in an opening left by the others when they put out their caches prior to the Event. We looked and looked for this cache before calling it a DNF, but deciding to look for it on the way back.

This huge Eucalyptus tree was located near GZ.

Dillweed was walking in front of me when she stopped suddenly and veered off the trail. "Snake." she said.

Sure enough, there, resting across the trail was a medium-sized rattle snake. I got one picture of it before it became aware of our presence.

When it sensed us, it started rattling and coiling for defense.

As usual, rattlesnakes will retreat as soon as possible, given the opportunity.

After that little bit of excitement, we continued our walk along the lakeshore, finding several more caches, all of which were easy to find, which are my favorite kind of caches . . .

On the way back, we stopped to look for Duncan!'s cache again and this time we noticed there was a Hint. Doh! I don't know why I didn't notice that before when I was reading the Past Logs on my Palm . . . Even with the hint, it still took a bit to find it because it was very well hidden by leaves.

After we made the hot walk back to the vehicles, we took off down a rough road to find new caches placed by ChuckB. We were in a hurry to find these because dillweed had some time contraints, so I didn't take any more pictures, although I should have taken a picture of us wading through the water of Salt Creek.

It was a really fun day and I found 27 caches in a little more than five hours of caching, while walking about seven miles on a 90+ degree day . . .