New Friend

Headed out to Cowles Mt. to look for two geocaches this morning. I could see a lot of fog crowning the peak as I approached. I parked behind an old guy who was suiting up for the hike. I said to him, "They ought to put in a parking lot", and that led to a conversation about hiking the mountain. I noticed he had a GPSr. I said I was there for geocaching. He didn't know what that was, so I gave him an informational card. We happened to be standing quite near to a cache, and I showed it to him. He was pretty interested. He uses his GPSr for keeping track of his hikes: speed, elapsed time, distance, that sort of thing.

Looking northwest from the Barker Road access point. Foggy up there!



We headed up the access road, yakking about The Mountain and stuff. He had two hiking sticks. I have just the one I made out of a broom handle. We made to the top of the first rise, where the Big Rock Trail branches off. He took a layer off, and I got out my GPSr. I estimated it was around 1,200 feet to the geocache. We ambled a long, and all of a sudden we were past it a few feet. Backed up a little, a bit to the north. Ah, those rocks look suspicious! And there it was. We both signed the log, and he introduced himself, and so did I. He said his name was Tom, and I said my was Squeakycyclist. We parted, he heading up the mountain a bit, and I to go down Big Rock Trail a bit.

Mount Helix rising out of the fog.



Fog is pretty much clear from the mountain, but down in the lowlands it is still there. Runners and dog walkers abound.



Hung a north and headed down Big Rock Trail. I spotted a hummingbird near the cache I was looking, keeping an eye on Santee. Some hikers claimed it was the same hummingbird they saw at the top of the hill. One of them said they banded it, but I have my doubts about that!



Lens flare on Big Rock Trail.



A mini-forest of manzanita!



My favorite picture of the day.



Back up at the top of Big Rock Trail, I headed back down the access road. The sign warns us to yield to fast moving emergency vehicles. I guess slow moving emergency vehicles must fend for themselves. Also, bicyclists must go no faster than 10 mph, and they must yield to hikers and horses. You can bring horses up here? Cool!



I did not notice this on the way up, too busy yakking, but just around the corner is this cleaved rock. I would like to have seen that go thump!



Getting safely to the bottom, I headed over to the library to search for THAT cache, which I did not find, again. So the count for the day is: two caches found, one not found (again!) + one friend made, and introduced to geocaching.

Out Caching

Dropped off the replacement log at When Cardinals Collide, then went looking for caches in Hye Canyon.

The trail up the canyon is rather overgrown, but still quite passable.



Spent AT LEAST a half an hour searching for the first cache in a multi-cache, to no avail. Picked up some cactus stickers, though!

I headed up the canyon to search for another cache.

Saw a brick in a tree. How did THAT get there?



I continued up the canyon, found THAT cache, at least! It was full of water, so I emptied it out but left the lid ajar so the contents could dry. Hope someone replaces it before the next rain!

I returned back down the trail, saw these trees that struck me as purty.



I looked for that first cache again, then left.

I emailed the cache owner for a hint. I don't want to have to pull any more cactus spikes out of my behind!

Sunny Saturday

Well, mostly.

I did not ride the bike today as the street were too damp for me. But I did see lots of other folks out there.

I went to the grocery store today. Back by the eggs they had a display of misc. junk they wanted to get rid of, on sale. I picked up a plastic hot dog in a bun. I felt a little embarrassed to be seen with it. I looked at the older-than-me African-American lady standing next to me. She was holding a plastic hot dog in a bun, too! We looked at each other, and she burst out laughing. We quickly put the plastic hot dogs in buns back, and went our separate ways.

After doing many chores around the homestead, I decided to reward myself my going geocaching. I found the one that the boy and I missed on the Big Climb up Mt. Kwaay Paay. Then I drove over to the Old Grove trail and picked up the little booger I missed there. After finally finding success there, I drove over to Dailard park to find a new one, "Menschen essen Kakteen ", new to me, anyway. I didn't get "stuck" there, so I headed over to the library. I found they had closed fifteen minutes before. Ok, says I, let us look for the geocache here. I looked and looked, but all I found was a broken georock (not unlike this one.). I don't know if that counts or not. I decided to take a picture of it for the cache owner, so I scramble back up the rocks to get the camera. As I was about to start down the hill some guy pulled into the parking lot below and starting working on his car! I took a picture of a tree to throw him off the trail,



then I said "What the hey" and went back down the hill, took the picture of the broken rock, and talked parking lot car repair with the guy for a while. He didn't even ask what the heck I was doing.



So then I went over to the OTHER library and checked out a book.

Rain Day V

Yes, we do get a little "weather" in San Diego. Today it rained a bit, hailed a bit, the sun came out a bit, then it rained a bit more.



Tomorrow it will rain a bit more, then we are promised a sunny afternoon.

Rain Day IV

The San Diego River is 11.02 feet, that's around 9 feet over normal. Just a hair under "flood" level. That is around ten feet under the great 1916 flood level. But, hope springs eternal...

The tailless cat watches the rain, and hopes, too...




FIVE SIGNS YOUR KEYBOARD MIGHT NEED CLEANING

1. You press the A key and the Z key moves too.

2. Critters come out from under the keys when you press them.

3. Your fingers stick to the keys.

4. The keys go SHHHH-CLUNK! when you press on them.

5. Brown slime oozes out the keyboard.

It is pretty sad when the keyboard needs to be degreased, too.

Rain Day III

It finally started raining again, around 2:30.

Good thing, too. This morning someone accidentally pushed the manual fire alarm button at work, so we all had to go stand on the soccer fields for a bit.

At least the power is back on and none of my computers are the worse for wear.

I did a fabulous job of trouble shooting a power strip yesterday. See if YOU can spot the problem:



I am so glad I don't have to bike to work in this rainy weather!

Rainy Day I

Not much to report, except it is pretty rainy in Southern California.

The wind, she was whipping around the buildings at work, making the door open and slam, and the roof vents flipping open and shut. Here's a little movie...



I am sure glad I drove today!

If you are interested in the condition of the San Diego River, check out the National Weather Service's Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service. Nifty graph and all. It's hamburger all over the highway in Mission Valley!

Day Three

Manned up and DROVE, on the freeway, all the way to REI and exchanged my defective GPSr for a new one.

Or rather, the last one in the store, which was the display unit.

Hey, it works!

Finished John Lescroats's The Second Chair, so I am three for three vis-à-vis books read per day.

I'm driving tomorrow, I have a HUGE box of books to return to the library!

Day Two

I did the numbers, and it turns out I have read, more or less, 201 books in 2009. That's only 164 books less than one a day! Must be some kind of record, for something.

So far, for 2010, I have read a book every day! Wow!

Today left the house in a snit and escaped to the world of geocaching. I went over to Lake Murray to nail the three caches I have left on my list.

Saw this seemingly old pipe with nifty rivets.



I spent an hour looking for a cache very near the dam, just over the fence. Nice view spot. The GPS receiver decided on start-up today that it was going to only power up for a minute, so I had to restart it every time I needed to check my position. Sweet. I guess I'll have to return it. But, I persevered and found all the caches! I am so proud!

That's all for today, folks!