New Toy

I got the iPhone4, and was delighted to discover the iMovie app. Five bucks lets me do some fun and creative stuff. Here are three of my first directorial efforts, all shot and edited on my iPhone4! (The music to dialog balance is automatic, so I need to get in the habit of speaking louder, I guess.)

Valentine’s Chinese New Year Geocaching

Since these two holidays fell on the same day this year, what better way to celebrate than with a geocaching event? Foomanjoo hosted a fun lunch at a top-notch authentic restaurant, Hunan Chili King, in the heart of San Gabriel.

Love Hurts (Burn Baby Burn)

There were several tables of hungry cachers:

and it was difficult to decide what to eat from the extensive menu:

We managed to pick a variety of great things, and they threw in a large serving of peel-and-eat shrimp as part of the holiday celebration. Gong hee fat choi! (Cantonese) Gong xi fa cai! (Mandarin)

After we polished off the tasty comestibles, I headed out for a handful of caches with Spoondoggie and OLdweeb.
09/09/09
Wet Ones
Come, Mister tally man, tally me banana (This is at a tiki-themed restaurant that’s been there for years, and looks very intriguing.)
Through the Eye of A Needle!
I LOVE Pizza-San Gabriel
Nana & Poppie’s Cache
Northwoods

One of the hides was appropriate for the day:

Spoondoggie had never been to the mission there, Mission San Gabriel Archangel, so we stopped by on the way back to OLdweeb’s car:

Mission Bells

Mission Door

Mission History

Mission Cemetery

Mission Cistern (yes, there used to be a cache a few feet from where I took the photo)

Mission Garden

It was a quintessentially lovely day,

and we enjoyed seeing all the snow in the surrounding mountains as we reveled in the sunshine.

The Glory of Geocaching in Glorious Scenery

According to Clay Jenkinson, we as geocachers are part of what makes humanity strange and fascinating, and are to be admired as such. Check out his recent column in the Bismarck Tribune where I and all of you receive this honorable mention:
The Article

We’re right in there with the miracle of heart transplants, great music, and the world’s largest collection of Elvis decanters. LOL. But he’s right: our species really IS remarkable.

Yes, yes, I know I’m #3 and not #2, as he wrote, but someday I probably will be, so it’s close enough. I have a plan for that, you know. I’m going to outlive everyone. Seriously! I have a goal to be a healthy 103. Ha HA! That oughta do it…

Meanwhile, here’s what I’ve been doing just to try to stay ahead of the fast-approaching Team Snook, who have been rising through the stats at break-neck speed.

I grabbed 50 caches with f0t0m0m and Spoondoggie all around the Solvang area amongst the myriad wineries. We drove for miles through the vineyards and agriculture.

The best caches of the day were a nicely crafted fake pine cone, a bolt in a guard rail, a sneaky magnetic in a tree, and one in a part of a guard rail that we had to rotate to access.

The best FIND of the day, though was this guy!

f0t0m0m saw this sign elsewhere, but they needed one here, as I almost drove over the beauty!

I spent the last few days up in the Eastern Sierras, as I had a performance in Bishop with Beethoven’s Wig. I was surprised to find a large group of petroglyphs at this cache:

NOAH’S ARK

I was also surprised to get the FTF at this cache:

Streamside

I hope more people get out there, as it’s idyllically lovely.

This is the view from
Owens Bridge Cache

and I found this awesome chalk cliff as I was driving to

The Fisherman’s Cache

Get out and find more caches, all you strange and fascinating examples of humanity! Let me know what marvelous things you discover!