Geocaching Among the Fauna

Sycamore Canyon

OLdweeb and I headed out there on Friday for an 8-mile RT hike that yielded 11 finds for me.
A cache for Mrs Richmond’s Class
Sibling Rivalry
Crack Up
Time Out Log
She was Wrong!
“Bent”
Two Foxes Burnout
Mugu Zoo
Hideout
Got H2O?

There were lots of animals out there with us:

Lizard

Squirrel

Tadpoles

Here’s a closer look at the tadpoles:

Snake

(NO, it’s not a rattlesnake.)

The next day, we went to see animals of a different kind. We attended the SoCal Spring Fling Event!
SoCal Spring Fling

There were a few caches in the area to find, but the best hide was this one:
Don’t Throw That Away – I really don’t want to give it away….

I’m spending the next few days in/around Medford, OR and Yreka, CA, but it’s raining and snowing up there, so I hope to at least find one or two. Until my next blog entry…. happy caching!

An Ultimate Geocaching Weekend

On Saturday, I hiked 7 miles through spectacular scenery in the Santa Monica mountains through creekbeds, hip-high grasslands, and over a 1600-foot summit with views of the ocean. Our merry band of 10 found over 20 caches, including 2 earthcaches.

On Sunday, I rode around with the Ventura Kids and f0t0m0m to over 100 caches, including two events. One was on the Huntington Beach Pier, a flash mob with everyone wearing tie-dye.

It doesn’t get much better than all that.

I did take one photo on the hike before my camera stopped working:

The plants in the foreground have a very “Dr. Seuss” look to them, with thickish tall stalks and puffy foliage under bunches of tall flowers. In the background, you see some rock outcroppings, many of which have visible layers of fossils, and on in to La Jolla Canyon.

GeoCraig was along, and he really takes much better photos than I do. CLICK HERE to see them all, but here are a few of them:

Friends

Fossil

Field

Flowers

Again, CLICK HERE to see them all!

EagleRockRob also took a whole bunch of nice photos – CLICK HERE to view them.

Also on the hike were OLdweeb, RobbDogg, Capdude, Capsbug, DonJag (our fearless leader), Deeznutz, and his wife.

The day with the VKs was not one for photographing really, as it was mostly in urbans settings and most of the caches were pretty standard, except for two. Both of these involved some skilled construction techniques, and we are now all fans of Mesquer!

Got a Dime, Make a Call
It Is What It Is

Then the VKs showed their amazing teamwork skill here:
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
As we approached a long, chest-high, dense hedge along the edge of a park, f0t0m0m and I hung back, anticipating several minutes at least of due diligence. Steve and Sandy strolled along the edge with Steve counting down the feet: “15, 10, 5, 3… zero!” at which point Sandy reached in the bushes and drew out the cache!! I wish it happened like that more often….

Yes, it does take a long time to long over 90 finds, and when I’m out with them, it takes longer… Steve has tendency to make, um, smart remarks in his logs, so I have to check what he writes to make sure I don’t have to defend myself. LOL.
Case in point (check out his log):
CJ’s

My week was rounded out with a few caches in Santa Monica, after some singing work down there:
Cumberland
LOT B “KINDA”
YAHOO A PARK
S.B. RIGHT OF SM
The Gnome Liberation Front Safe House – on the owner’s front porch!

In closing, I present a photo of too many people wearing really colorful clothing:

Until next week… happy caching!

Four-wheeling through festive flora

Yesterday I grabbed two caches in the Manhattan Beach area,
Hb park cache
HFB

on Sunday went to an event with an unusual theme,
Tie Dye Party !!!

and as well as finding assorted caches around the event, did a dozen in an hour at the Puente Hills Mall (I’m just linking to the first one),
The Great Puente Hills Mall run #1

but the highlight of the week was a 4×4 run with f0t0m0m out in Yucca Valley and Desert Hot Springs. We attended and event and found a few fun ones nearby,
No Frills Non-Event Event
Photo Finish – commemorating the Wheeler Dealers 2000th find, we all signed the hood of an abandoned car!
H2O Required – yep, one of those bring-your-big-water-bottles grab-it-quick caches

then headed for the desert for over 60 more caches. The finds themselves were standard, but we were there for the scenery!

View of Yucca Valley

Desert Flora

A hawk in her nest!

Caching by moonlight?

We were being watched!

May the flowers be with you! Happy caching!

Geocaching with aliens (?) and in a very deep hole….

….among other places this week.

I spent Thursday cruising around Orange County with f0t0m0m for a day of 45 finds. We saw a marvelous, large monument to Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez,
Martin Luther Chavez

another monument and park for the Olympics,
Remember the Olympics

drove close enough to one that I could grab the cache from the driver’s seat (love it!).
SkirtLifter

enjoyed a devilish and creative 3-stop multi cache by one of the masters of urban camouflage, Scurvy Dog,
“ScurvyDog’s got too much time on his hands”

and saw a whole bunch of bunnies living on the grounds of a local college campus.
T70’s LBCC-LAC Nano

Two days later, I flew to El Paso, TX, then drove to Artesia, NM, to sing a concert. Note to others who make that looooong drive: there are NO real bathrooms between El Paso and the Guadalupe National Park, which is a good hour and a half! There are NO real bushes either! For those who have driven I-5 between Bakersfield and Redding, I must say that this stretch of highway makes that stretch of I-5 look interesting! It’s about as long and boring as they come, yes, indeedy, with 100 miles of scrubby brush, flat and gray, with no radio stations for most of that, AND there are no geocaches in that stretch! Yowza!

However, to make up for that, there are some magnificent scenic parks in southeastern New Mexico, and I visited two of them.

There is only one virtual cache – Virtual New Mexico #5 – (no earthcaches yet!) at Carlsbad Caverns, but I spent over 3 hours there exploring the giant, intricately decorated caves and the unique Chiuahuan desert above.

Going in:

Going down:

Turning back (not!):

Rattlesnake Canyon:

Soaptree yucca, the state flower of New Mexico:

Walking cane cactus, in full bloom:

After lunch, I drove all the way up to Roswell to find the aliens.

Oops! Did I park my rental car in the wrong place?

Aliens across the street:

THE museum (it’s hard to see in this photo, but the street lights all have alien eyes!):

Old airport tower:

Finally, around sunset, I took a drive through the marvelous Bottomless Lakes State Park which offers a whole different kind of desert and geologic scenery.
Looking Glass

There were also a handful of quality caches in Artesia, where I performed and stayed. These were my two favorites:

State Champions – lovely job on the camo AND find #15,400 for me

Cache Right by Flashlight – a well-crafted night cache (that I had to buy a flashlight to complete) which takes one on a tour of the quiet, classic parks in town

I guess I can never tire of driving trips, for upon my return, I took another long drive with f0t0m0m around the local desert mining towns of Boron (borax!) and Randsburg (gold!). The outstanding cache of the 28 I found that day was the Earthcache at the borax mine:
Kramer Borate Deposit Earthcache – many displays on the history, mining, and usage of borax, and a fabulous view of the mine itself!

Runners up were the cache near a Vietnamese Mediation Garden,
Gods Of Stone

the town of Boron itself,
Quick Trip Off 58

and the town of Randsburg, featuring a soda fountain installed in 1902 in the general store. They are still serving delicious malts and BBQ beef sandwiches!
Mining Randsburg

Until next week – happy caching!

Geocaching all over the place

This week, I found caches in Orange County, Palm Springs, San Diego, and locally in Griffith Park, from a 5-mile hike to a 60-cache run of urbans. The variety in this sport/obsession/hobby is one of its most compelling aspects for me.

The 60-cache day was in Buena Park with f0t0m0m and OLdweeb. Most of them were quite standard, but that’s what makes a good numbers day. We did find a cache in the front yard of a local who came out to greet us, and he REALLY looks like Santa Claus. We’d place bets on it that he really is.
Portable Garden
We also visited a large Vietnam War Memorial. I’m thankful every day for the men and women who serve our country and for those who sacrificed every thing so we can work and play (!) in peace.
Vietnam War Memorial
One of a series that happens to be one of my favorites was on the list. This series has perfectly matched micros to various colors of water mains in public parking lots.
Green Alert #8
f0t0m0m’s skill as a “fisherman” was put to good use in the corner of a park.
Fishing In The Park
We even made a quick trip to Ferenginar on the way home!
Gateway to Ferenginar

I did get two photos of a gorgeous blooming tree. It was in the parking lot for a cache on an old bell.
Ring My Bell

The next day, I followed an infamous purple jeep around in my white Prius.
Cache Machine

1/2 of the VKs, f0t0m0m, and I cached around the Lakewood area, then attended a lunch event. Out favorites of the day were a marvelously unique news stand hide,
Lil Duckling
a LARGE cache attached to a telephone pole,
“IT”
an ammo can hanging in down a street drain,
hang of the bang
and a cache at a really cool viney-looking branch of a tree winding among the vines on a wall.
Snake Branch

After the event, I headed down toward San Diego to have dinner with a few friends. On the way, I picked up four:
2 White Posts
BOOKS, LETTERS & PACKAGES – I returned to find the 3rd waypoint of a multi I had DNFd before
Cryptic Cat
Alley Cat

On Sunday, I joined a merry band of geocachers to find a new series of caches in the Griffith Park area. I had to leave before finding the final cache, so I returned on Wednesday for that one.
TT&BB’s FINAL Griffith Park Cache PUZZLE

Some great photos of our adventure are posted here by foon:
Click here for the photos

Monday I went to Palm Springs with three other cachers who are also a video crew. We interviewed the Wheeler Dealers, learned about camouflage techniques, and visited some of their most entertaining hides.
Dinah-mighty
In Vogue
We DARE them!
SnowBirds, Welcome Back!
We’ll be releasing the video at the end of May, and we hope it generates enough interest (and sales) to be the first of a series on the Master of Geocaching.

I wrapped up my week in Griffith Park, with these two after the one mentioned above, followed by a very tricky urban micro in Glendale.
Out of the Way Picnic Day – hidden picnic tables at the top of a hill!
Old Zoo View
This Just In

Whew! Until next week, happy caching!