Well, I only found 13 caches this week, but what a week!
Now I’ve found caches in 115º heat (in Vacaville, CA) AND in ankle-deep snow at -24º with a wind chill of -50º in Edmonton, Canada!
Yowza. Check it out!
Hourly Weather in Edmonton on Jan. 28, 2008
I was out with Kokoscoot, a local cacher, between 11am and noon!
Now I need to get to Death Valley and Mount Whitney for different highs and lows…..
This week took me to Farmington, NM,, and to Edmonton, AB, Canada for singing work, first with Beethoven’s Wig, then with Sixth Wave. On Thursday morning, at 8:20am, I was dressed in a full ball gown, makeup, glittery jewelry, and ready to go, when I got the call that snow had closed the school and the show was cancelled! What now? I changed into warm clothes and went caching, of course!
The weather cleared up over the course of the morning, and the first two were conveniently on either side of the hotel. One was attached to a phone pole and the other was a light pole, so they were easy to grab in the few inches of snow. The third was a mile walk away, but by that time, the sun was out, and I could see a nice view of the surrounding bluffs. This cache was an ammo can in a tree in the owner’s front yard, so I swapped out some TBs, and had a nice, long stroll back.
Water Works
Boardwalk
furn gully
Friday was all about performing, and the day after that was all about getting out to Camp Nakamun, 50 miles NW of Edmonton. The photos on their website look nothing like it was, as it was buried in a foot of snow and the lake was completely frozen over with a hockey rink on it. Sixth Wave was there to work with three local jazz choirs and perform with them in nearby St. Albert. Our cabins were about .1 from the main lodge where we ate and rehearsed together, so we got to enjoy the REAL winter weather just going back and forth. One of the choir directors and hosts is an avid cacher (aka Kokoscoot) with over 2,000 finds, and he has a cache hidden near the entrance. He wasn’t sure that even he could find it buried somewhere in the trees, so I had to pass on that one…. aargh!
On Sunday, in St. Albert, though, there was a library cache in the same building at the theater where we performed! Score!
The next day was the big event: 6 finds and 1 DNF in the above-mentioned ridiculous temperatures. Even Kokoscoot has never been out when it’s that cold, and it gets that way a couple times a year up there, but when you get TWO obsessed cachers together, the obstacles become the fun! I’ll let you read my logs for more details on the finds. The last two were about 450′ and 970′ respectively from parking down a path with ankle-deep snow. This is kind of a long way to run with numb toes. The sun came out while we were out there, and the sojourn back along the frozen river was through really lovely scenery.
CAR2006 – Downtown Edmonton
Where is Paul?
I AM… a micro
Think Outside the Box
One Last Goodbye! [Take 2] – DNF!
Happy Birthday To You……..2 Here’s where I saw the chickadee.
Harry Potter & the Hunt for the Cache- Hufflepuff
After we got back to the car, I had Kokoscoot take a photo of me at the trail head, but I must have had brain freeze, because I deleted it instead of saving it! (sigh)
This was an unforgettable experience, indeed, and one that I never would have even considered were I not an obsessed geocacher. Kokoscoot is spending a year in Namibia, Africa, where he goes often to conduct choirs, and I hope to visit him there for caching adventures of an entirely different kind.
My week was wrapped up with three newer local caches, one of which afforded a grand vista of the San Fernando Valley and our own snow-covered mountains to the north. These, however, I found without even putting a jacket on.
Warehouse Wonderland
THRIVE
Oh, Say can you see….too
Thanks to the genius of Codeslapper, one of my favorite hides is back up:
Revenge!!
Ah, I fear that the coming week’s caching will be much more mundane… but who knows? There is an event planned by Westward Ho, and that will certainly not be mundane.
Happy caching until next week!
(The photos on this post were taken from various internet sites.)
Geocaching with EMC of Northridge, CA 