Blog Template Musings about Geocaching: 2008-08-03

Musings about Geocaching

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Second week in a row for the Silver Strand

Once again, I got to go caching with "lostguy", and this time Auld Pro was able to join us. We met up at our "usual" place in Spring Valley. I was a little bit late since I turned off the alarm and fell right back to sleep for another 45 minutes . . .

"lostguy" offered a GPS battery cover and bike mount to Auld Pro, but the cover wouldn't work on his Legend HCx. It would work on my Legend C, so I put it on the GPSr and installed the bike mount on the bike. I hope I thanked "lostguy" enough for that. It worked much better than the alternate method I used the other day while on the ride with fisnjack.

After a few more preparations, including inflating the bike tires to their proper pressure, we headed for Imperial Beach and the Silver Strand bike path. Auld Pro had not been in the area for a year, so he had to find most of the caches I found last week. He got the first one easily, after some pointed hints from "lostguy". At the second cache, we weren't going to give any hints, so "lostguy" and I got to laugh at Auld Pro as he struggled to locate Jahoadi's "Doing Team Duckit's Work?"

When we made it to Coronado, we walked our bikes to "Long Skinny Fingers" where Auld Pro used a "tool" to extract the elusive cache container . . . and a second, replacement container. After signing both logs and returning the containers to their hiding place, Auld Pro left the "tool" behind in case a future cacher needs it.

Following the same route "lostguy" and I took last Sunday, the three of us rode down the bike path, under the Coronado bridge, and on to a cache called "Rock'n Rocks." Auld Pro had odd coordinates for that cache and we discovered he has been inadvertently moving the waypoints on the map screen of his GPSr. "lostguy's" teasing about "Operator Error" was just short of relentless after that . . .

When we started pedaling down one of the streets, I marveled at the unusual trees that grew in the median. They were in the Eucalyptus family and had smooth, flesh-colored trunks and branches. The gnarled branches made me think of old, arthritic arms and fingers.

After a DNF and a lifeline call from Jahoadi that helped us find another tricky cache, we were finished with the Geocaches, so we headed for the first waypoint of a Virtual Terracache placed by Travelita. The waypoint led us to a sign right on Coronado Beach, near the berms of sand that spell out C O R O N A D O B E A C H which can be seen from Google Earth.

On the way back down the bike path, "lostguy" slowed his speed for a little while and took a side trip so I could get a picture of the long-eared, black-tailed jack rabbits we saw last week. It was nice of him to go out of his way just so I could take pictures of these guys.


After that, on the way back to the vehicle, "lostguy" and Auld Pro left me in the dust, so I took that opportunity to stop and take a few pictures of the bird life. This egret was not far from Jahoadi's cleverly-cammoed "Doing Team Duckit's Work?" cache.



And not too much further down the bike path I saw this island of pelicans.



I really had a great day and appreciated "lostguy" doing all the extra driving again. I got to take more pictures today which still need to be edited and resized for uploading. I'll post them after I finish that task.

posted by Miragee at 6:52:00 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Another bike ride along "my" Barber trail

fisnjack showed up at my house very early. His new Palm e2 wasn't working and he mistakenly thought I might know how to fix it. He had driven all the way from Imperial Beach to do my Barber Road caches, but now wasn't sure he wanted to look for them.

So . . . I volunteered to join him, if he gave me time to drink my coffee and finish my breakfast.

The clouds were beautiful today so I got some different pictures of the same locations.











In this next picture, you can see fisnjack heading through the burned vegetation, on his way to the cache. For this trip, I decided to stay on the trail to see if I could come home with less charcoal on my clothing . . .



This is a more wide angle view of "Slickrock, Boulders, and Lawson Peak."



At "Gracias, FlagMan", I got a few more pictures, and then at "The way it was before the fire", I took another picture of the peeling Manzanita. In just two weeks, it has changed a lot.


The road takes a decidedly downhill route just beyond here and that is why I haven't explored much beyond this point.



I took a bunch more pictures while fisnjack continued on to the final caches, including my "Okham's Razor" cache.





It was a hot day, but there was a good breeze most of the time. I felt great and was sad fisnjack didn't want to hike up to the new Terracache. The heat and humidity had taken their toll on him and his cute little dog Teddie.



Near the end of the ride, I turned around to see this spectacular sky above the boulder-strewn peak. I think it will become the new wallpaper on my computer.



After we got back to the vehicles, we took a short trip down to a new cache placed by Rockbobster. From there, I was so close to my friend's house, I went down there to visit with her.

It has been a busy week, so getting the blog written and updated has been a "back burner" task. In fact, for several days, it wasn't even on the stove . . .


posted by Miragee at 8:32:00 PM | 1 comments

Monday, August 04, 2008

A fun bike ride with 3cd's along Barber Road

It's funny how the little cache, "Barber, No Haircut" sat, unfound, for more than two years, even though it is fewer than three and a half miles, as the crow flies, from my house, and now I found myself riding my bicycle on the trail again. This time I was with 3cd's while he looked for my different containers.

This was today's view from "WOW".



3cd's was trying to get through the burned vegetation without getting black . . . He didn't succeed.



Here he is tucked into the little cavelet signing the log for my fourth cache along the trail.


It was a clearer day today. This is the view to the north from the big expanse of slickrock.



This one smooth rock out in the middle of the scorched landscape is an oddity.


At the Terracache location, I scrambled through the burned vegetation to climb up one of the boulders that offered this view to the east. I said to 3cd's, who was about sixty feet away at the cache, "If I could throw like Kalill Green, I would toss my camera to you so you could take my picture."

Alas, I didn't want to break the camera, so I didn't get a picture of myself on that perch.

Everytime I have been on the trail so far, it has been a different time of day. This is what the split rock looks like in the mid-morning.



3cd's wasn't feeling well, so we passed by the trail that goes up to a new Terracache, deciding to go for it another day after doing a bit of "Google Earth" exploration to make sure of the route.

I had a great time. My bike worked adequately, except for the squealing brakes. The noise from them startled some Border Patrolmen who were not expecting to see some "legal" residents on that remote trail.

After our adventure was over, it was great to be only five minutes from my home, a cool, refreshing shower, and lunch . . .


posted by Miragee at 4:09:00 PM | 0 comments

Sunday, August 03, 2008

A very fun day on the Silver Strand with "lostguy"

Auld Pro wasn't available to go caching this week, but the affable and funny "lostguy" was and I couldn't pass up an opportunity to go caching with him. He suggested biking the Silver Strand. I had not been down that way since DocDitto was in town in 2006 and there were lots of new caches since then, many placed by Jahoadi, of Jahoadi and John.

It was cloudy and overcast when we started out and we sort of DNFd the first cache we looked for, but not really. The closest we could get was 50 feet away and neither of us wanted to walk through the muck to get to the old railroad trestle. So, it was down the bikeway towards "Uphill Both Ways Against the Wind," a cache recently replaced by Jahoadi. I was FTS the new clean log.

We continued north up the bike trail finding well-spaced caches along the way, most of which highlighted panels or other installations that provided viewpoints and information about the salt water marshes and bayside habitat. At one location, I noticed these beads of water resting on some spider webs.



As we rode to one cache, we traveled on a "boardwalk." Weird as it sounds, the closely spaced bumpity-bump made my nose itch . . . My mountain bike doesn't have any suspension, so I feel every little bump. About the time we got to that cache, the early-morning clouds were finally burning off and giving way to a blue sky.

Finally we got to the beautiful community of Coronado. I only took a few pictures . . . "lostguy" keeps up a brisk pace . . . At one time, I asked him, "How am I going to remember what I did if I don't have any pictures?"

At one cache location I took this picture of the colorful flowers, pier posts and extremely thick ropes.


From that location, we had to navigate through some construction before getting on a nice bike path that borders the golf course. Prior to that however, "lostguy" put on his "Good Samaritan" hat and helped some people who were trying to inflate a tire on a brand new shiny bicycle.

That bike path took us past incredible homes and finally under the amazing Coronado bridge. I took some pictures of the interesting high clouds in the sky, something we see rarely in the summer in San Diego.

From the bridge, we pedaled along the bike path on our way to "A Pierfect Spot," a nano hidden under the lamppost cover right where everyone waits to get on the ferry, or just stops to enjoy the view . . .

"lostguy" wasn't deterred. After I read the Past Logs in my Palm where I got a little more information, he found the cache, where I looked before, but without giving it the close inspection necessary.

We continued through Coronado. I enjoyed the ritzy atmosphere, feeling somewhat amazed these people let people like me pedal through their neighborhood. After finding a cleverly-cammoed cache near a nice "Burgers and Beer"-type place, we headed for the bikeway and the long pedal back to Imperial Beach. "lostguy" is younger than I am, and in better shape, so I really had to push to keep up to get the benefits of drafting behind him.

When we got back to his truck, we checked the Trip Meters on our GPS units and they were close to agreement, reporting almost 25 miles. Wheeeeuuu . . . I haven't ridden a bicycle that far since 1983. How amazing is that?

It was a very fun day, I found 23 caches, and only had one DNF, on "Long Skinny Fingers." I'm very grateful to "lostguy", my "Stalker", for doing including me in his day of caching and for doing all the driving. I'm looking forward to our next caching adventure.


posted by Miragee at 11:37:00 PM | 0 comments

 

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