Down To The Sea In Ships

Well, maybe not ships, but the word is maybe a synonym for hauling, and that sort of goes with truck, so there you are.

The plan was to go to the tidal basin, I guess it is, next to old NTC, and do all the caches there.  So I got up and out at 6:30 AM this foggy Sunday and headed west.  I decided I oughta do that one cache on the San Diego River that I didn't get before, in the Power Trail, since it had been replaced recently.  I parked the vehicle and headed over to spot.  Turned on the phone.  Nope, that ain't the spot.  It's near the OTHER bridge, was over there even wester.  So I walked down there.  There was a female urban camper sleeping nearby, but I made the find without waking her up.  I returned to the vehicle and headed off to Olde NTC.

Birds on the wires across the San Diego River.

And when I arrived there as some sort of Halloween Pumpkin Fun Run or something.  The sidewalks were crowded with runners.  So I didn't even stop.  I head over to the bay, so as to walk along it and find some caches there.  But I was not able to find a parking spot, so I decided to head home.

But as I passed Old Town I remembered the White Deer Of Mission Hills cache, so I went up the steep hill to the Inspiration Point part of Presidio Park, parked, ate a banana, and walked up the hill to find the cache. The phone had me fifty feet away, on the other side of a locked gate, but the hint told me where to look.  So that is one of the great things about the geocaching app on the phone, you got the hints.  Another great thing is one can do spur-of-the-moment caches like this!  And another is you can log the find (or not-find) from the phone. Which I did.  Un-great is trying to type on the little screen.  Lots of fat-finger typos!

I fired up the GPS to check the iPhone, they were both the same, so I think the published coordinates were off a little.  Or maybe it was just the vagueries (I just spent a half-hour looking up THAT word!) of the ether.

Several guys showed up to play Frisbee Golf.  I passed through them down to the parking lot, and then on to the Point itself, where I found another cache. I headed back to the vehicle, and took another picture along the way.

Looking down at the 8 from Inspiration Point, or thereabouts.

I should point out that these are all iPhone pictures. 

I left the Presidio taking the back-streets across the valley, to the other side of the 395 and up Mission Center Road to Sevan  Ct., where we enter the dark and forbidding Canyon known as...Sevan Ct. Canyon.

Where I spent an hour, and not for the first time, looking for the first waypoint of a multicache.  Gave up and headed up the canyon to find another cache, which was placed at the top of a sixty-foot scramble up a hillside. Which I complained about, as it was leaving an unattractive trail. And yet I went there.  WELL, after that I headed by down to spend another inordinate amount of time looking for that darn cache, but finally gave up.

The main path in Sevan Ct. canyon.

And headed home.

To do this.

Well, I stopped in at Home Depot to get that Spray Hose Guide I need for the bird bath upgrade. THEN home!  To pick cactus thorns out of my hands?  Did I mention that the elusive multicache is possibly located in a cactus plant?  Or maybe not, who knows?
 

Anniversary Saturday

I put fake sugar in the sugar dispenser. In PACKETS! 'Cause that's the kind of guy I am!

Deety thought there ought to be a picture of the Makita, so here it is.

Oh, look, there's an iPhone!  And it is in matching blue, too!

Yes, I have joined the electronic age!  Matt got me a cell phone.  He didn't share the actual NUMBER with me, so I can't call myself.  The geocaching ap works fine, though!  The picture-taker, too, but I don't know how to transfer the picture to HERE, yet!

We went to Palm Canyon in Anza-Borrego yesterday.  Here I am pointing at a pointy rock formation.

After we got back from the canyon I headed off to the open-air potty, which quite possibly had been constructed by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) back in the 30s. It sure LOOKED old enough!  Took this pic of the sun lighting up the top of the hills.

More pics over at the Picture Pages. You will want to choose the appropriate gallery. Palm Canyon At Anza Borrego State Park would be the one you want.

I found cell coverage to be spotty in the desert. Imagine that!  I may have to bring a ham radio along for complete communications capability (CCC).

When we got back to civilization we had dinner at Phil's BBQ in San Marcos.  I had baby-back ribs, and steam vegetables.  I'm not sure I've had ribs to tender.  Maybe I never had pork ribs before.  They were good, and I'm sure the vegetables counter-acted any carbs in the sauce and the accompanying onion rings.

Is It Friday Yet?

The accursed update to Yahoo! Mail is driving me bonkers.  I find it very unpleasant to use.

What have I been doing since my last post here?  Not much!  Work, reading, and much sleeping.

Here are some pics I took:

I built a turntable for to paint small objects, including gnomes.

I
I also made a lazy Susan for the television antenna.

I learned there is a trick to fastening the mechanism to the pieces of wood.  I had to watch a couple of videos to understand what to do.

I saw this vehicle at the Walmart with the oh-so-cute bicycle on top.  The trip to Walmart was useless, their selection of c-clamps is pathetically inadequate.  Although their selection of Dickies is amazing, and priced a bit less than Sears, which was twenty or so bucks off.  Did I mention I bought two pairs of Dickies at Sears the other day? No?  Well, I did, and a selection of sanding drums (with a mandrel) for the textbook edge-sanding project at work.

I stopped by the grocery today and bought two bags of salad (as Walmart doesn't carry it (the regular Walmart, I forgot about the grocery store one)), bacon bits (gotta have the sodium!), salsa, and cheese, please.

I am almost finished reading The Drowned Cities (by Paolo Bacigalupi), a dystopian YA novel, which was somewhat more disturbing than the first in the "series". I guess I shall have to talk the little sixth graders out of reading it so I won't have to field calls from parents complaining about screaming nightmares.  Although, really, it's not as bad as The Hunger Games in terms of numbers of dead kids per page. Don't get me wrong, though, I love the book!

We had an earthquake drill today, so I had to spend some time under the table with the kids, each one had their own table to huddle under.  I cautioned them to not get their hair stuck in the gum stuck on the bottom, and regaled them with tales of duck and cover drills with air raid siren accompaniment.  I do not think they believed me.]

Walked down to the rec during my lunch break to check on a geocache a couple of people couldn't find.  It's there, and I emailed them so.


I can't think of anything else I have done this week, so I shall close now.

Finally

I spotted a bird in the bird bath.  I took about ten pictures, they all are either blurry or boring. Matt took this one from the window overlooking. 

Birdie spent some time in there, splashing about.  Maybe he will invite some friends over!


We spent some time at Home Depot today.  I bought a Makita jig saw there yesterday. It is blue. We used it to saw up some wood today.  It is very nice!  I feel a new model railroad coming on.

Rain

Yes, it is all raining this afternoon/evening, and it waited until JUST when I was headed off to the dentists, walking, to get my teeth cleaned.  Good thing I had my Columbia Interchange Jacket, with its hood!  The one Cam got me a few years ago, and that I've only worn a few times, as we don't really have weather here.  The jacket with mysterious flaps that I have no idea what they do.  Came in pretty darn handy today!

My shoes are now wet, and the heat isn't on yet, but I'm not cold, so it's all good.

I can't eat or drink til five thirty, 'cause of the gunk on my gums.  What shall I have for dinner?

At The Dump

Went out to Santee, parked down there, came up the hill to the east side of the dump, and found me a geocache.

Then I went home and fell asleep for a couple of hours.

Well, I did do a couple of Sodukos and read a bit from Good Wives, by Louisa May Alcott.

And THAT was all!