Less Than Lots Of Stuff

Tomorrow is Friday, a whole week has gone by!

Last long weekend we went for a trip!  Here are my pics! Some of them are big files. Some are not.

We stopped by the Desert Giants near Blythe.  I had read about them in a Hardy Boys book in elementary school.  Now I've seen two of them!

Walking around just after dawn one morning I noticed this motel offers Color TV!

We took a break in a park in Bullhead City. You can see a hotel or casino across the river in Nevada.  And a bird sitting on the handrail.  There were lots of birds.  And lots of bird poop!

Here are a bunch of pictures of the incredibly cute Charlie, who is also very brave and very very energetic!

I forget what that stuffed animal was, but Charlie will jump for it!

I also forget what this is, except for the Charlie part.

My mother taking pictures of her rats.

And petting Charlie.

Rats again...

Said rats.

Early in the morn I talked my driver into a little dirt road adventure so I could avenge my Did Not Find at a geocache.  He noticed this sign on the way back out.  If you see anyone stealing their dirt be sure to call.  You could get a reward!

We drove down to Havasu City and London Bridge.  With the guide not working all we could do was walk across London Bridge.

There's part of the bridge.  A geocache is either on the ground below, where I am, or up there on the bridge.  Did I mention the tremendous wind blowing up there?

On the way back home on Monday we saw this signpost.  Actually, I didn't see it, I was spaced out, Matt saw it and turned around so we could get a picture. Is that mailbox up there for airmail? Eh? EH?

Today being February 18th I went to Singing Hills for a few minutes.

Tonight I had an idea for taking selfies with the Geocaching Reacher.  I need to buy an PVC pipe elbow, but the concept clearly is possible.  The only picture I got so far was of the ceiling, though, and I shan't share it!

Well, that is all I can remember, and it is WAY past time for bed!  Ta ta!

Two TOTTs Tuesday

I seem to have run across several geocaches in the last year that required either a VERY long TOTT (Tool Of The Trade) or some tree-climbing skills  I don't have the skills, so I found me a YouTube video that showed how to make a VERY long tool.  It is made out of PVC and it collapses into the five foot piece as shown in the, uh, inset image.  A variety of ends can be attached, none of which I have constructed yet.

I read about these and picked one up at the craft store in Lemon Grove.  It is a slotted quilling tool, used for quilling, oddly enough.

Now this is what I can use it for, rolling up tiny logging strips that fit into tiny nano-sized geocaches.

I may drill the end to take a keyring type-of-thing so I don't lose it.

Thanks for reading!

Monday the 08th of February

I forgot to mention yesterday that I as I was entering a canyon there was a couple coming out, and I asked how it was down there. They replied that it is Spring Time in San Diego (rather warm it was). I said something about what is up with that, and the man replied "Do you think it's going to be a late winter this year?"

I giggled  maybe a little too much, and headed on down into the festering swamp-canyon.


I read on the 'net about using a slotted quilling tool to roll up nano-size log strips.  So I bought one at a craft store in Lemon Grove.  Now I can roll up those logs nice and tight, AND I can take up quilling in my non-geocaching spare time.

I got the report from the nurse of one of my doctors that nothing has changed significantly in the past year or six months or however long it has been.  So that is that.

I discovered yesterday that the turntable I thought was central to an exciting life-event was not actually there at that point in time, and that there were TWO other ones nearby, and said life-event probably certainly took place at one of them.  And since I have publicly told the whole story I shall have to publicly recant the whole story, or at least the location part of it.

That is truly all I have for today, I must go eat some salad!

Yesterday & Today

I found myself down by the Villa Montezuma (1887) historic mansion near downtown San Diego yesterday.  Here is a corner of the house/building next door that looked old and interesting.

Here is the iron fence, what is left of it, surrounding the property on two sides. The concrete/rock base extends to the property next door, I was told by one of the next door tenants that is because the next door area used to be the garden for the Villa.

A closeup of the iron fence, severely rusted.
sfdsf

I saw this very very dusty car in Old Town, and posted a picture of it on Facebook.

On Sunday I had promised to check on a cache of mine, so I headed on down to the Big Bay area to do so.  It was missing, so I replaced it, then I went looking for some caches to find.

I found this one, and I just had to laugh. Probably only a geocacher would notice that oddity.

At another cache I had wait for some "muggles" to leave.  I had to wait QUITE a while!  I amused myself by taking some pictures.  This one was supposed to be of a sailboat with a jetski zooming past.  It sure did, right out of the picture!

Fortunately a few second later two more came by.

Just a big "yacht" going by.  Lot's of super yachts over by the convention center, very interesting to look at. And much larger than this one.

If you have never seen the banana boats loading, well this is a pretty poor picture of one.  You can see the container it is loading or unloading, I don't know which.  Please click on the images to see the BIG versions!

Walking back to the vehicle I saw this sign on the tracks.

Lastly we have three shots of what I supposed is a device to weigh railroad cars.

The tracks seem to be disconnected to it.

Well, one side seems connected, one side does not.  I wonder if it is still functional.

That is all I have for today! Have a good week!

P.S. I just spent two hours finding out that the turntable I thought I had possibly ridden on, or at least seen the Shay locomotive turned on, was not even in that location in the 60s.  There was another turntable to the northeast a bit, and yet another to the southwest a bit. This one may have been one of those and moved here, but at any rate it wasn't in this location in the 60s.  So I suspect the one to the southwest, which I mentioned is long gone, was probably the one I saw the Shay turned on.  Zikes! The Truth will confound me!

Saturday In Lopez Canyon

This is from last week.  Did I post is then?  If so, why was it still in the folder?  Looks to be in Lopez Canyon, so at least it's the same place I went to today.

I went out this morning to get some more of those caches in and around Lopez Canyon.  I found all of them EXCEPT the farthest one up the valley.  As soon as I posted my DNF (Did Not Find) log the cache owner archived it. So I'll never find out where it was...

One of the caches had a very lifelike lizard on it...

Too bad the photo is so crummy.  Sometimes the phone camera doesn't focus, probably 'cause I'm holding it too close to the subject.

A panorama showing way too much foreground, but also I-5, a bit of Sorrento Valley, and the Penasquitos Canyon area.Taken from a hill

Not too far away are the remains of the Lopez homestead, that this valley is named for.

I thought I was seeing the return of the USS Akron, but it turned out to be a blimp over some golf tournament or something. The Goodyear "blimp" people say they are at the Farmers, but the airship below does not seem to have the Goodyear colors on it.

It is a mystery.

I found nineteen geocaches today, and boy, are my feet tired!

Thanks for reading!

Sunday Out and About

Found this totally soaked cache. No wonder, what with the broken lid!  The new log sheet from a previous finder, replaced because the previous one was wet, is also ruined.

This one was easy to find.  And the previous three searchers didn't spot it.  This is about twenty feet and a little hillside from where it's SUPPOSED to be, though.

Sorry, I didn't make a thumbnail for this one

Lopez Canyon.  Rocks, it's all rocks!

Is this poison oak, in one of its many varieties?  I couldn't decide it WAS, but I couldn't decide it was NOT.

Can you spot the cache?  I spent an hour here...

Closer...

Aahhh, there it is!

As I was heading back to the sidetrail that would take me up to the road where I parked I met a couple who asked me if the falls were close by.  I told them they were in the wrong canyon.  They should have taken a left at the trail junction and gone UNDER the bridge.  They were quite dismayed.  It just occurred to me, did they not notice there is no running water in this canyon?

I found fifteen caches today.  Mostly driving from cache to cache, with a bit of walking, then one longer descent into the canyon and back out again.  Got the ol' ticker pounding a bit!

Thanks for reading!

Out And About On Saturday

It is raining right now, but it was a pretty nice day when I was clomping about the Upper Otay Lake area this morning.  Mostly hazy/overcast, some sun, one giant burst of wind that made me step back from the tree I was examining, just in case it decided to shed itself of some branches.

I decided it was just about the same distance to drive via Jamul as to go down the 125, so I did that, catching Proctor Valley Road there.  I four caches along the way, three of which I had DNFed (Did Not Find) in 2014.  As it turned out I did not notice the first catch on the list so I went back to get it on the return home.  Driving along the PVR (I just made that up) is a lot of fun, especially if you drive fast enough to slide around as the washboard surface tosses you up into the air a bit...

Here is a picture of one of the caches.  I spent a LOT of time looking for it, and even looked here twice before I spotted it. Can YOU see it?  A pen for size comparison.

On to Upper Otay Lake!  I parked and walked in outside as the Lake is closed to vehicles today. I circled the lake clockwise.  There are lots of signs warning people to stay away from the dam and spillway area.

Here one view of the dam, from the west side.  There are so many plants you can't see the water level!

I found these glasses in one cache, but I didn't bring anything to trade for them, so back they go.

 Yet again I had nothing to trade for something that was nifty in a cache!

I think this panorama picture turned out really nice.  I took it on a sort of peninsula.  I walked out to the south end, then had to walk all the way back as there was no real way to get to the trail that heads south.

Walked on a bit farther down "Wueste Road", which is actually a narrow trail, at least along here.  A nice view of the Upper dam and lake, and beyond you can see the Lower Otay lake.

Here is the dam from the east side.  It makes a nice surface for budding artists to practice on.

After finishing up at the lake I drove around to the other end where there was a walking trail along the rim of the valley, right below all the new "gated" houses (Mansions, really, what with the individual gates) being built.  Very nice views of the lake below.

I found one cache on the walking trail, and didn't find two.  Then I drove back along the PVR to get that cached I missed at the beginning of the day, found it, and headed home.

I found nineteen caches today, and DNFed  two.  I walked pretty darn close to five miles.  I reached my goal for last year of having found 4,000 caches in my "career".  I'm figuring that I might even hit 5,000 finds early in 2017, and I might reward myself with one of them fancy commemorative medallions they sell at the geocaching stores.

Thanks for reading!

Gotta Get To Bed, So HERE!

On the way to work this morning I just HAD to take some pics.  I actually rolled down the window for this first one.

This must be along Fletcher Parkway. I did not roll down the windshield for this one!

This was a little bit further along Fletcher Parkway.  I decided to turn left and make my way to Lake Murray.

So here is Baltimore Drive at Lake Murray.  Not the Blvd., the lake!

It didn't take too long for the fog to burn off. There wasn't very much fog on Cowles Moutain anyway. I took this pic around 8 AM or so.

Someone mentioned they wanted to borrow a few barcode scanners because they only had old ones with PS2 connectors.  I replied with this pic, saying my old wand works just fine (Like I ever use it since I have a laser barcode reader! Wrist injury!)  And they replied back that I would get cooties from that old thing.

I made an appointment for the CT-Scan today, for a couple of weeks from now.

Bought another squeegee as I keep leaving them at gas stations.

Thanks for reading!

Saturday the 16th

Since I solved a puzzle cache (at work!) I called M. and we went for it and others on Saturday in and about Lopez Canyon. a place that was new to me.

It's a typical "sewer" canyon, that is there is a sewer line running through it, like many do.  A lot of water has been running through it, too, you can see the sides of the canyon that have collapsed, giant plants with enormous roots balls exposed.  The bottom of the canyon is almost all rocks maybe six inches in diameter, very tiring to walk on, real ankles twisters.

On exiting the canyon I went for this one way up high, with a great view.  M. declined to make the somewhat perilous climb and stayed below to guard my backpack.  I kinda wanted to lower a center of gravity a bit here...

Here is a pic of M. down there taking a pic of me up here!

I think we found around twelve caches total on this little walk.  One was full of mold, one had amazing things in it, one was a "doggie" cache, one was the mystery cache, and there was this one way up thar, so quite a number of memorial caches here.

Sunday I did absolutely nothing.

Monday I went to the dentist and the doctor.

Wednesday I went to the other doctor.  Nothing to report, everything seems OK at this point.

Thanks for reading!