My First TV Interview!

A couple of weeks ago, I made my LIVE television debut as the subject of a story on Studio 11 LA, a local news magazine show. I was interviewed by one of their featured reporters, Emmy-award-winning Ed Laskos .
(photo by BWidget)

I’ve been waiting to get a link or a professional quality copy of the video from the folks on the production staff there, and I’ll post it if I get it, but I didn’t want to let too much time go by before writing here about it, so I set up my video camera set up in front of my TV so you could at least see the clip somehow.

I was honored to have some of my peeps (Albackore, Team Perks, and BWidget) with me, and although they didn’t get on camera (the segment was already completely researched and scripted when we arrived), we did all get to meet Barbara Eden, who appeared in a segment earlier in the show!

After the on-air adventure, I dragged them a few blocks away to find at least ONE geocache to commemorate the occasion…. but the first two attempts were, um, not successful.

The third try was, thankfully, a charm!
On Top, or Just Beyond?

One out of three ain’t bad, right?

Empty Circle

Empty Circle 5.0 Challenge

I was inspired by GeoCraig’s post on his completion of this challenge to take a look. A couple of years ago, I had an 8 mile radius cleared out and only 20 caches left in my 10 mile radius! Now… er… I have over 100 unfound in my 5 mile circle…

I live smack dab in the center of the San Fernando Valley, which is both an advantage and disadvantage compared to where GeoCraig is centered. The advantage is that I won’t encounter any extreme terrain. The disadvantage is that there’s a much higher probability that new caches will pop up while I’m in the process of getting them all found, so I’m chasing more of a moving target.

Game on!

I started out with my fun, yet admittedly feeble, effort today, by taking a drive down to the Balboa Park area for SEVEN finds. That means I’m down to 111 (until Albackore or OLdweeb or the Ventura Kids or f0t0m0m or Team Perks or some such decide to hide a massive spew of urbans to taunt me).

For the first four, I actually got out of the car and walked around the Hjelte Sports Center, which is mostly baseball fields and a handy restroom.
Twilight – Edward
Twilight – Team Edward or Team Jacob?
Twilight – Jacob
Twilight – Bella

Looking from one cache to the next:

The food they grow in the neighboring field is sold at the farmer’s market over on Hayvenhurst:

I’ve never seen a gate with a ladder:

This is the flood control dam for the Los Angeles River. I recall seeing parts of the Valley under water as I watched CNN International when I was living in Vienna around 1991.

Looking back at my car from the other side of the park:

The last three were quick park and grabs along Woodley Avenue on the edge of the Balboa Park Bird Sanctuary and near the golf course.
Jeff rocks! That he does – kudos again on his epic SFV Scavenger Event!
OH NO…Not another LP skirt This hide was really funny. I took a photo, but don’t want to spoil it.
Dog-Fish Chapstick

The wildlife area:

Actual wildlife:

The golf course:

This was an unusually good day for me, as I had zero DNFs and needed zero lifelines. Onward!

Scavenging for Local History

Mega kudos to Albackore, Team Perks, and BWidget for putting together an outstanding all-day event involving caches, puzzles, and finding classic and historical sites around the San Fernando Valley!

Yesteryear Still Here!

All of the new caches placed were homages to all of the toys from the 50s and 60s, many of which I played with:
Spirograph
Easy Bake Oven
G.I. Joe

The design of the challenge was elegant, all contained in a few pieces of paper, and it was fairly easy to strategize a route and a plan.

I was on Team Marzipan with f0t0m0m and the Ventura Kids. Here are some of the photos we got at the landmarks:

We also went for the double points for the caches in the Balboa Park Wildlife Area –

It was a wonderful day to be out there, even though we did get rained on a bit.

We ended up the day at a local Chinese restaurant, The Great Wall.

I’m looking forward to more of these (hint hint).

BONUS: Here’s another great write up of the day by the CacheKidz!
Check it out!

Finally: The Southern California DeLorme Challenge Final

Death Valley is a destination unto itself, but the primary impetus for my initial journey was to complete the massive “California DeLorme Challenge (Southern & Central),” a 109-cache epic requiring a find on each page of the lower half of California.

California DeLorme Challenge (Southern & Central)

f0t0m0m had found all of the caches, but he was gracious enough to revisit these last pages so we could assail the Final cache as a team. This turned out to be a very good idea, as it’s up a 4×4 road out in the wilds of the Nevada/California desert.

It was windy and cold, yet the 360º view was worth it.

We spent most of the rest of the day working on a series of caches on states and state capitals. The terrain was more rugged that we’d anticipated, so we ended up leaving a fair amount to come back for.

As tiring as it was to negotiate the hills, rocks, and spiny plants, we did find the three unique caches that most appealed to me: those dedicated to the “State of Jefferson,” which is where I grew up!
State of Jefferson
Yreka, JE
Redding, JE

There have been a number of states that didn’t make it for one reason or another, but the State of Jefferson has a long history of trying to become one! See the cache pages for more on this.

Bonus photo! We saw a pair of healthy coyotes near the road in Death Valley, and I got a great shot of one of them: