Where’s EMC?

What a spectacular view! Was I there to see it?

Uh oh… is that what’s left of my mighty Prius?

There seems to be some confusion:

Was I out in the Landers desert? Or was I in Fontana with a different group of rabble rousers?

California Wildlife: Mountain Lion
HENDECAGON SHAPE

Am I invisible in this T-shirt after all?

Like Harvey, do I really exist?

(p.s. it’s nice to be missed!)

Credits:
two top photos are by Max Power
video by the VKs

Cachin’ in the Rain

Gene, Debbie, and Donald barely scratched the surface of the fun you can have when it’s wet outside.

When the Primm Valley Resort sent several of us offers for free nights, no strings, we booked our nights. Just because it turned out to be raining cats and dogs was no reason not to go. As it turned out, the big day of caching in the desert was sprinkly, but it never got too bad, so we stuck with plan A, and found over 140 caches along a couple of power trails.

Early in the day, OLdweeb found his 8,000th cache. That’s a big number!

f0t0m0m, OLdweeb, Ventura Kid

Most of the scenery was similar to this:

… and no one was around, even though the dirt road was under some kind of construction, and we skirted big ditches, equipment, and supplies to get to some of the caches:

The caches were named mostly for places, both familiar:
Sacramento, CA

and unfamiliar:
Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas

The rain served to illuminate some of the colors:

All in all, it was fun opportunity to get out and play!

Merry Playful Christmas to you all!

Big Number, Big Birds

The Ventura Kids found their 23,000th cache last weekend at this cache – 126 on 126:#111: View of the highway, and I was there to document the momentous occasion:

15 seconds later:

There’s never a dull moment when caching with these guys. Why is f0t0m0m laughing? Did Sandy just drop the cache down the pole? OOOPSie….

Yes, we replaced it, of course! As a fellow klutz, I like the design of this cache, as it can’t fall down in a pole:

Just today, I had a great time driving around the area surrounding the scenic highway 126. f0t0m0m and I got all the way to the Sespe Condor Sanctuary.
Dough Flat Redux

These birds are BIG:

I was hoping to show you a real one, but all we saw was scenery. Oh, darn. Enjoy!

Lake Piru

Starting the Year with a Celebration

I went out and about in the Ventura area with the Ventura Kids last weekend as they were to find cache #20,000! f0t0m0m went, too, which made the VKs the “slackers” of the group… ha! They are still the fastest cachers in the West. We snagged over 80 that day, even continuing as the first of the week’s string of rain storms started soon after lunch.

The weather started turning just as we found their #19,999:

…. and the tree was dripping water on us as Steve grabbed #20,000:

It was appropriately titled – i’m just nuts

There were quite a few good creative hides, mostly by a newer cacher, Unafraid Leroy. We even got to meet him at one of his caches. I just love the unexpected encounters with cachers. There’s this instant kind of bond already in place, and it’s fun to hear about how others are enjoying the game!

A few caches later we approached this old furnace installed in the side of a building:

Jim made the blind grab, and there it was!

… and it was cache find #21,000 for me!

Sometimes we find the Easy Way to the caches:

Sometimes we find a more challenging path:

Sometimes we are in hot pursuit… or they in hot pursuit of us?

In any case, we always have time to celebrate, even if it’s with a bottle of really old – and tasteless – wine, courtesy OLdweeb. (Yes, the color here is true!)

Next week…. caching in outer space! (sort of)

Happy New Year!

First of all I want to thank all of you who read my blog! I’ve been posting my geocaching adventures each Thursday for two years now, and have watched my subscription numbers gradually get bigger. Writing about my experiences makes it even more fun to go out and find caches. I really appreciate all of the comments, too – please keep ’em coming, and feel free to make suggestions.

I wrapped up my year of geocaching with two runs in the Pasadena area. On Christmas day, I headed out with OLdweeb, tozainamboku, and BenH57 for 40 urbans and a gourmet Chinese dinner. OLdweeb covers it very nicely in his blog , and got much better pictures than I did that day. Do click the link and check out his post!

OLdweeb’s blog post

A couple of days ago, I headed back out to the same area to do a hike through the adjacent arroyo with f0t0m0m and the Ventura Kids.

A splash of color:

An archery range:

Um, NO, Steve, the cache is NOT in there!! Fail!

By the way, I got a heads up that our record of 413 caches in 24 hours has already been broken – in Denmark and Sweden no less! Here’s the comment posted on my blog about it –

Author : Team Mojito
Comment:
Yesterday (28. december 2009) the danish geocachers Picht and Elmbaek found a record breaking 480 caches in 20 hours. 251 in Denmark and the rest in Sweden. 2 hours transport between the found places included in the 20 hours.

… and here is one of the logs from that day:

Fundet sammen med Picht. Vi tog til Nordsjællands Powertrail for at tage en bid af denne. Men da vi efter 7 timer havde fundet samtlige 250 cacher besluttede vi at fortsætte dagen i Halmstad.
Fundet som nummer 384 af dagens 480 cacher!
Tak MercedesBenz for cachen. 
Elmbaek. #8035

These are the same guys, Team DK08, that set the record in Sacramento a couple of years ago, back when that was a mere 315! I’ve asked them to write a little about their crazy day, and will post that when I get it!
Meanwhile, you can check out the two power trails they did. This is one of the caches in Denmark – PT#250 – Nordsjællands powertrail and this is one of them in Sweden – Halmstad PowerTrail “HPT B75”

Of course the city of Pasadena is all about New Year’s Day and the parade. It takes a couple of weeks for all the setting up:

This is the famous corner of Orange Grove and Colorado Boulevards that all floats and bands must negotiate:

This is normally a lovely tree-lined, wide-lawned scenic thoroughfare, now transformed into a jungle of chain link and bleachers:

I’ve been to the parade in person a few times, but this year I’ll enjoy it from the comfort of my living room as most Americans do… then I’ll head out for a short hike to start the year off in the wonderful local scenery. I took this photo in the hills on the north end of the San Fernando Valley this week as I hiked up to A Day At The Speedyway
:

May your new year take you to marvelous places!