It's not JUST about what I had for breakfast...

Thursday, August 19, 2010

There And There

A couple of days ago (August 17th, it was, ayevenar!)(I thought that was pirate talk when I was but a child)) I decided to head up to the Fortuna Saddle again and try to pick up those three powerline road caches.

I headed over to MTRP quite early, but it turns out they don't open the gate until EIGHT! So I had to park in the parking lot again, instead of the dam parking area. So that makes the walk a bit farther.

I headed out the Oak Canyon trail to the powerline roads, then choose the western-most one to go up. I'm glad I had both hiking staffs today, it was a VERY steep road, in parts. I found the cache there, so that was good.

There were not any clouds today, and it started getting very warm.

I summited the saddle, as it were, and headed down the other power line road. I had high hopes that the cache I could find on the big Fortuna Expedition would be located today, as someone else found THAT day. But, though I overturned every rock (I am sure) and mangled every bush (found a mouse foot) and examined every girder most carefully, I did not find the cache. Here is a picture of the area of my shame.

2010JAugust17 Fortuna Tower

Yes, I edited the tower number. I don't know why.

I headed down the road (the steep and rocky road, there's a song title!) to the next cache, and found that one no problemo.

So then I walked back to the truck. And that was that.

Today, August 19th, I decided to do the Dictionary. Dictionary Hill, that is.

When you FINALLY get to the top there is a rather nice 360 degree view of San Diego. Here is the view to the south of Sweetwater reservoir.

2010JAugust19 Dictionary Hill 002

I found these funny glasses'n'nose in one of the geocaches up here.

2010JAugust19 Dictionary Hill 001

An improvement, do you thinK?

Once one has ascended the hill, one must descend the other side. I found a couple more caches over on this, the other side, and almost didn't notice these fine ham radio antennas!

2010JAugust19 Dictionary Hill 003

Now I had to descend down into a valley for a couple of caches, then ascend back up for more. It was certainly a lot of ascending and descending! And it was very warm! I was sweating like a pig, and could hardly see through my sweat-filled eyes. It was just awful! At least I was finding caches. And not seeing snakes! Except for one rather rubbery one with a bison attached to its middle.

I just bought NEW SHOES yesterday, twelve bucks at Walmart. I'm afraid all this hiking around is doing my poor new sneakers no good!

I did not find the last cache of the day, even though I spent AT LEAST 45 minutes looking. I was so miserable with the sweaty eyes that I finally GAVE UP and headed back to the truck. Unfortuately, there was no trail going DOWNHILL without going UPHILL, and I wasn't going UPHILL anymore, so I had to pretty much bushwhack my down down. Which did the sneakers no end of good.

Gmaps Pedometer claims I only walked 2.3621 miles today. Isn't there some kind of heat multiplier? I burned 303.6940419107505 calories, too! I'm not sure of the elevation gained and lost, though. You go look at it and figure it out!

Lastly, I was driving along when I noticed something in the rear-view mirror...

2010JAugust19 spider 009

And no, it got away! It's still IN THERE!!!

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