Arizona Scenery

I’m taking a 2 1/2 week road trip, and it’s the first long vacation I’ve taken since I found Marzipan! For the first leg of my journey, I even have my sister along, which is a treat. I have a selection of geocaches for each day, many of them strategically planned to finish off a few challenges, such as the Jasmer.

Welcome to Arizona I-40
NOT the Pet Area!

The cache here was missing, but the view was incredible.
Pirate Gate

Here’s the Colorado River, in front of some really dramatic mountains.

A quick detour through Ash Fork showed us a snapshot of history, both in the monuments and in the abandoned buildings along the former Route 66 through town. I love the design of this Historical Marker.
Ash Fork

Here’s where the local heroes hang out.

More glorious Arizona to come….

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Some Scattered Caching

I’m still recovering from my multiple trips back and forth to San Francisco, and the exhilarating, yet exhausting, opera performances, but I did get in a few caches on my final leg home.

I stayed in Lafayette, near Walnut Creek, and this quickie hide was around the corner.
KCSearcher's #24 Feb29 Experiment

I needed to pick up a peripheral, so I headed to the local Nirvana on my way out of town.
It's Exactly Where You Think It Is

There’s scenery everywhere, even in mall parking lots.
Lots of Parking Created

Aahhh… the sounds of nature! Here’s a nice mall oasis!
Tracy Outlet (again?)

Next stop… the Grand Canyon and beyond!

Some Retrospective, and a Dark Adventure

I’m in a retrospective mood this week, so I took a look back through my blogs from previous Julys.

Four years ago, I was preparing for my ultimately successful climb to the summit of Mt. Shasta. That still remains as the biggest, hardest physical challenge of my life.
Black Butte hike, a trainer for the big one

Three years ago, I had rescued Marzipan, who makes an ignominious appearance in this blog post.
Marzipan is 3 months old in the video here.

Two years ago, I did a feature on some of my favorite geocaching tools, and a photo of Marzipan, of course, sneaks in.
What to get for your geocacher for Christmas…

Last year, I was dreaming about geocaching on other planets, way before I knew about the space launch I helped support this summer.
Are there Martian geocachers?

This year, I’m recovering from multiple trips back and forth to the Bay Area to perform a huge opera role, and I’m planning a 2-week road trip across the U.S. for some real estate business AND to grab some significant caches to complete some challenges.

I didn’t get any photos, but I did have a great time on a night cache with a group of Bay Area cachers recently: The Night Has Eyes (Night Cache)
The 2-mile round trip hike took us through a scenic park through tall trees with some views of the valleys around us. Rocket Girl got a couple of dark and dusky shots, though – log page

I Can Now Say I’ve Geocached in Space…

… or at least I have a Travel Bug that has been in Low Earth Inner-orbital Flight!

I’m proud to have supported this unique geocache experience through Kickstarter. The idea was to launch an ammo can in to space… and they did!

Here’s the newly “placed” geocache, at the site of the landing:
LEIF MMXII: Geocache From Space!!

Here’s the event that launched the geocache:
LEIF MMXII: Geocache From Space!!

This is the TB:

Here’s the official video of the flight –

Bonus video – HeadHardHat did a longer version with more details of the flight and additional highlights of the whole adventure.

I love the shots that show the curvature of the earth! I may never get up there myself, but thanks to geocaching, I’ve done it with my little green travel bug.