Two Odd Objects

My caching activity has been largely pre-empted by work and meetings, but I did have time for a couple of interesting little adventures. I took a drive out to Pasadena to see a new version of an unusual work of art: a fork in the road.
Now That's A "Real" Fork In The Road Too

This appeals to me as a gastronome and as a lover of puns. As a bonus, the cache was expertly concealed as part of the installation.

The cache hide at this telephone pole near my house was standard, yet effective. I almost overlooked it. The most curious thing to me was the curve of the wood within the telephone pole.
V. J.'s Cache

The view of the adjacent alley was surprisingly beautiful. I even caught a plane in it’s approach to the Burbank airport.

Since this is a rather short blog entry, here’s a bonus photo: Marzipan, the Famous Geocaching Cat!

SART

Santa Ana River Trail
Where is the SART?
SART Parking
SART #1
through SART #50

f0t0m0m and I took two cars, left one at the northeast end of the trail in Colton, then drove to Riverside and walked the 6 miles back to the first car.
map

Yes, beauty is where you find it, but sometimes you have to look REALLY hard.

The caches, 50 of them in this section, were mostly down off the bike trail (with the view) and in this gully area by the fences.

The river bed is mostly dry.

This is one of the actually scenic spots.

In the distance to the east, we could still see some snow on the mountains.

Well, it’s a place to sit down, at least, but not so compelling to come for a picnic.

This video shows more of the industrial scenery.

It was a great way to get out and get some exercise in any case!

Lake Balboa Walkabout

I’d been staring at this cache for a while, wondering how to access it:
Dragonfly in K9Sport's Kalifornia TB Hotel

The overhead maps are inconclusive, since there has been construction in the area, and things are different than they look. I could see that the cache is near the busway, but there are fences along that, and no way to walk down it. I finally decided to just go over there and walk around until I could find how to get it. I met up with Spoondoggie and Doc Sylvia (her first geocaching experience!),

… and we wandered down Balboa Boulevard from the park and ride. Sure enough, I spotted a dirt roadway I’d never noticed before, even though I’d driven and walked around the area dozens of times. We walked beside the L. A. River (cemented in) back by a sod farm and out to where the bus way curves south from Victory to Oxnard, and were led directly to the cache!

After conquering that, we headed back out and across the street to pick up a few stragglers in Balboa Park.
The Cee-ment Stream

Trolls? Ah… there’s a cache under there!
Greggy's 61st Birthday

Lake Balboa

A Swan!

Winter Trees, with Contrail

Bus in the Sunset

Hey, beauty is where you find it.

Mt. McCoy and the Reagan Library

This area in Simi Valley is one of my favorites, for its consistently spectacular views and peaceful surroundings. It was too crowded over the holiday weekend to enjoy a tour of the Reagan Library, but I’m looking forward to getting back to see the new displays. I took advantage of the street parking over there instead to walk across the hills to Mt. McCoy to grab a couple of caches that have been tempting me for a long time.

Politics and Religious Icon Cache
Peace Be With You Too 2

Library entrance

Flags in the wind

View of the library – Air Force One is behind the giant windows

Heading over to Mt. McCoy

New grass is already growing -

Ubiquitous lichen

The cross at the summit is an historic landmark -

Looking east over Simi Valley

Back at the Library, the view looking west over Moorpark and out toward Oxnard

Dunsmore Canyon

Winter’s wind and rain yield to warm days with sparkling clear skies, making December and January the perfect months for hiking in Southern California. I took advantage of this with f0t0m0m this week as we set out to explore a new park for both of us. We did a loop, more or less, up Dunsmore Canyon, which is part of the Deukmejian Wilderness Park, located north of Glendale in the mountains above La Crescenta. It was only a 3-mile jaunt, but turned out to be enjoyably complex with ascents, descents, a side canyon, broad vistas, and bubbling seasonal creeks.

We started with the obligatory cache at the parking lot:
Deukmejian Park Vista Cache

This mysterious building has no signage that we could find, so we thought it was part of the water management in the area. Wrong! It’s an old barn, and its history is on this website: Le Mesnager Barn
It still features a small vineyard and an outdoor amphitheater.

This starting point is already high enough to see quite a distance.

It wasn’t long before the whole LA basin was spread out before us. We headed down a lesser-used side trail for this cache:
Old horse hitching post

The deep blue sky is a dramatic backdrop for this recovering victim of the 2009 Station fire. Yes, there is a cache there.
Still Standing, By Gum!

Looking up Dunsmore Canyon: more sky and mountains

Sarah's Cooks Canyon Cache

This is the end of the trail at the top of Dunsmore Canyon, and the cache up there was placed back in 2001. Dunsmore Canyon Trail

Wishing you a happy, prosperous, cacheful 2012!