Around and Around

I drove down to Reynard Way this afternoon to try for the last two caches I need on the south half of the San Diego 360 Degree geocaching Challenge.  I got the first OK, but then I drove around to a couple of other ones and TOTALLY did not get them.

The arrows show the direction of travel. The green path changes to red to more clearly show the overlapping parts. The two blue dots with numbers show the two caches I found. Click the image to show the larger original!!

 And then I drove around some, a bit lost, then I ended up BACK on Reynard Way, in a roundabout sort-of-way (Who knew that Goldfinch turns into Reynard??), to find the second cache. A very nice cache, by the way, for which I TOTALLY had to use the hint.  Lots of pretty flowers.  Lots of rocks, too!

I drove El Cajon Blvd. all the way back, pretty much, to avoid the freeway during rush hour.

The high temp was 90 in La Mesa, the low humidity was 8%, and the wind high/gusts were 10 MPH.

Let me know if I forgot anything!

Up In The Mountains

I got up and went geocaching this morning before six A.M.  I went to San Carlos (the San Diego one, not the city in NorCal!), El Cajon, and Lemon Grove.  I had one Did Not Find, one plain ol' find, one First To Find, and three chickened-out-of-lookings.

Matt came over in the late morning and hauled me up to Cuyamaca State Park.  We walked along the East side trail and found ten caches.  I got to feed a horse a piece of carrot to dissuade him from eating my GPS receiver, which is now covered in horse slobber.

We saw turkeys, too.  I thought they were condors until I got home and looked at the images on the computer.

We got two more caches at turn-outs along the 79 highway.  Then we turned into what is labeled as Oakzanita on the map, but is right behind Camp Cuyamaca, for all you kids who went to camp there. Matt found the cache first, as I was totally turned around and was nearly set to bushwhack my way to a cache that was actually on a trail.

We went to Julian for a late lunch at Miner's Diner.  I forget what the name of what I had was, but it was vegetables and cheeses on grilled bread. Very tasty, and surely healthy?

We returned to the 8 by way of the Sunrise Highway so we could get one last cache that we had not found the last time when we were up there, and it had bee replaced, so it was there now.  Of course, Matt spotted it first!  I totally missed seeing it even though it was only a couple of inches from my ear!

That's it for today.  Yesterday I looked out the bedroom window and saw a cat in the tree.  He had trouble getting back down to the fence.  It was rather amusing to watch.

Have a good week!

This and This and That

Thursday night I drank a beer.  It was pretty strong.  I think I shall stick to those IPAs or something.

Friday after work I went down to Harbor Island.  Pelicans were diving into the bay.  This is the best of several pics I took. This bird is JUST ABOUT to make a dramatic splash head-first into the bay!

It was rather windy and even a few drops of water were falling out of the sky. Of course someone would want to ride these today.  Why not, one is already wet, right?

A bench mark.  Some people have the hobby of finding and noting these.  I just can't imagine...

Here we have the Quince Street bridge.  There is a Little Free Library right behind me. But it's not on the official web site for Little Free Libraries, so maybe it is NOT an official Little Free Library.  What do I know?

Today, Saturday, I did nothing but read a couple of books and watch old TV shows on television. I washed the dishes, too.  I did not go outside today, but instead castigated myself for not doing so, to no profit.

I DID enjoy the wind and the rain last night!

I am expecting tomorrow I shall be more active. That is how these things seem to go.

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Saturday, Part Deux

I went out this afternoon to find some of those caches I need to complete the San Diego 360 Degree Geocaching Challenge.  First I visited  that swampy planet that Yoda lived on while in exile.. this area looks pretty dry, but there were several water crossing to get here, from whence I came.

Almost back at the vehicle I  spent QUITE a bit of time looking for the one on this bridge. At least a half-hour.  I'm glad there were not very many people around! I was even under the bridge at one point, and when a runner ran over we were BOTH surprised and scared for a second.  Anyway, SPOILER ALERT, don't look at the picture if you haven't found it yet!

This would have been a very artful picture of some bones, probably opossum, next to the trolley tracks. In Mission Valley. But the phone camera focused on the fence.  That white blob is the skull.

Speaking of dead things, here's what is left of a Hello Kitty earphone that I caught sight of hanging in a bush near where I not finding a cache.

I found six  geocaches, and didn't find five.  I only found one of the ones I needed for the Challenge.  One of finds avenged a DNF from last year.

I am full of hope I will break 2,500 finds this month, and even fuller of hope that I will reach 3,000 finds by the end of the year.

My new favorite song is "Hey now", performed by London Grammar, the Arty remix.  Compare the two!

I can think of nothing else to post here.

At The Costco

Today I have joined the exalted ranks of Costco members!

Or maybe I mean exulted.

I got tires today, it only took an hour. They are Bridgestone Dueler H/L Alenza 235/70R16 106H. Whatever that means.

I wandered around the place while I waited. I ate an frozen Belgian Waffle sample.  I saw three, count 'em, THREE, people I  knew from work.  I sat next to a  old man who was smoking a cigarette.  Or rather, he sat next to me, after asking if it was OK if he smoked.

I learned today that Costco doesn't take credit cards, at least, not MY credit card!

I checked on my cache there. It looks like the landscapers chopped the camo a bit, but it's good enough.

I wish someone would remove the temptation of that Ninja motorcycle on display at the entrance!

And finally, I wonder how many people have been run over in the parking lot?

This'n'That

I keep seeing this bike at the entrance to the stripmallish-place in which my grocery store is located. Is that fork really bent, or is it my glasses?

(File size 272KB, for your zooming-in pleasure.)

Students coming to the library often express their startledness when noticing the girl in the window.

(File Size 25KB)

I got a big thank-you card for National Library Week (April 13-19, 2014).  Or maybe it was National Library Workers Day (April 15, 2014). Or even National Librarian's Day (April 16, 2014). It's pretty confusing!

The card was signed inside by many of the students, with some very nice sentiments expressed.  Thanks!

(File Size 366KB, for a detailed look!)

Some of the school libraries have been expressing concern about getting some funds to pay for barcodes for the new Common Core textbook adoptions.  We are in good shape, I estimated we have over 16,000 barcodes left from the retrospective conversion we did, uh, maybe ten years ago.  Who was in charge of counting how many we would need back then?  Uh, again, probably me!

R & R

I was taken to brunch today!  It was the second brunch I have ever been to, and also the second time I've had champagne before noon.  No strawberries in it, this time, though!

A fellow in a helicopter kept flying past.  This was maybe his tenth pass.  I don't know why the image is blurry, but I like the effect.

As we were leaving I looked for a nearby geocache.  I didn't find it, so I took a picture.

Next we drove down to Dick Blick in Little Italy to get some Japanese papers, but the assistant said they didn't have the particular kind I had chosen in their store.  I think I shall order a booklet of samples from a store in Santa Monica that specializes in Japanese papers.

After that we drove down to National City and looked for a cache, and found it, along the Sweetwater River.  We had to walk about a mile or so along the very noisy freeway. That part was rather disagreeable.  M. was suffering severe caffeine withdrawal systems so we popped over to Starbuck's.  I didn't need any myself, but I enjoyed people and dog watching.  There was a very cute Dalmatian puppy in the truck next to us.

Where should we go next?  Iron Mountain, said I!  Not to hike it, oh no, just to reconnoiter the area.  Big parking lot, but crowded.  Bathrooms, but no water.  Yikes!  Looks like a strenuous hike up that mountain.  Can't be harder than Mt. Miguel, can it?  I just did that one last year!

Finally we went home. I fell asleep in the chair and M. fell asleep on the couch.
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The Week Past

I found myself in Poway this morning, passing the Walter Anderson nursery I was, on the way to a geocache.  I was so happy with the outcome of the search (I didn't have to climb a big hill, it turned out) that I stopped in at the nursery and bought another Yellow Monkey Flower, AND a pair of Felco #11 pruning shears.

Before that I was walking around mostly Stonebridge Parkway (just where IS that Stonebridge, anyway?) looking for geocaches that I need to fill in some of the spaces on the San Diego 360 Degree Challenge.

But, I saw flowers!

Focus?  What ARE you talking about?

And especially these.  I don't know what they are, but the Stonebridge landscapers have planted a LOT of them!

So I learned from one cache that the pre-1949ish Highway 395 passed through here.  And this is part of it.

Someone thoughtfully arranged these rocks, so it must be true!

Several people are having birthdays this time of the month.  Marcia, Thomas Jefferson, and I.  I can't speak for Tom or Marcia (Well, I know Marcia is getting at least one on Monday), but I got several cards, mostly in the mail.

One from PA
One from my mother
One from Marcia
One from Carlsbad
And one from work.
Oh, and a couple of e-cards, too!

I got some Hello Kitty pencils from PA!
I got some Hello Kitty stickers from Carlsbad!
I got two cupcakes, a card, and an inflated monkey head balloon at work.
Also, I got an orchid, a LIVE orchid, in a pot, from Mrs. N. at work, but I'm not sure if it was birthday related.

I learned how to used the photocopier at work as a scanner, which emails a pdf file to me.  Basically, the procedure is to get someone who knows what they are doing to do it for me.

I made pancakes when I got home from geocaching this late morning, a sort of brunch kind-of-thing.  Way too many pancakes!  I also threw the clothes in the wash.

That is all for today, I'm going to take a nap.

Oh, I am reading The Puppet Masters, by Robert Heinlein, yet again.  Flying cars and surgically implanted phones, but the video equipment is tube-based.  I love it.

Spring Break Is Almost Sprung

Yesterday I went out to Dictionary Hill and found a few caches.  Here's a view of Mt. Miguel, and flowers, from Dictionary Hill.

On the way home I noticed this smashed RV. Not sure what happened, but one of the white posts to the left is kinda bent.

Saw this nifty Honda CRV today (Sunday).  I have no idea what that thing hanging down over the rear window is.

I hauled the bike to do my geocaching today.  I found fourteen caches.  The bike fell over at point, breaking the lens on my white blinkie light.  Oh no!

I was talking to a lady who observed the bike falling over, she expressed her awe that I was riding on street tires.  Well, it's not exactly technical trails out where I was!

My daily cache average for 2014 is up to 2.5938 caches/day. I'm ahead of my goal!

I rode 9.37 miles today.

Friday Again, Mt. Soledad Again

I walked UP Cardeno Drive, in the Mt. Soledad area, this morning, to find a series of geocaches.  I found a goodly number of them, and some others, but I didn't notice that the series continues back DOWN the Mt. on La Jolla Scenic Drive, so I missed all those!  Here is a view from Cardeno Drive, looking east.

While DNFing a cache I saw these big red things.  After much thought and investigation I have decided it may be a manzanita plant of some kind.

After finishing up with Cardeno Drive I was inspired to try a cache I had noticed that would take the place of that stupid palm tree one on Crown Point I can't find for the 360 degree challenge.  This one was on Santa Clara Point, if you know where that is.  I didn't.  Anyway, after making the surprising easy find I ate my lunch.  PB & J (Blueberry) and a banana.

That went off so well I drove over to the river to look for an un-smiley cache that was cluttering up my sea of yellow.  I observed that his power-thingie blends in so well with its green camouflage.

I didn't find the cache, at first, but I DID find an old cache that was archived four years ago, in good shape still.  I signed the log because, you  know, a find is a find!

I did find the cache I was looking for about twenty feet away.  It was very cool and involved a bicycle part, several of which I have laying about in the garage.  I gave the cache a "favorite" point.

I noticed there was one more cache that all that far away, maybe 800 feet, so I decided to knock that one off, too.  On the way there I found this sitting on the grass.

And the cache was very cool, too.  I gave that one a favorite point too!

That is about all.  I found fourteen caches today, and my daily average for 2014 is currently at 2.4574 caches per day.

Dehesa Road

This morning there some tree guys brutally trimming a palm tree right down to the ground. Would that it would happen to that awful pest in my backyard.  Perhaps I'll mention it to the manager, since I now have her business card, which she made a point of giving me after telling me I've been mailing my rent checks to the wrong suite number for some time now...

Speaking of forgetting, I think I forgot to use the thumbnails on yesterday's post.  I shall have to fix that, for those people on dial-up!

I drove out to the back country for a few caches on Dehesa Road.  I parked at Sloane Canyon Road and walked to the east for two caches, about 1,500 feet or so.  Then walked back again.  I took a picture of these flowers across the street from Dehesa Elementary School.  Their fire alarm bell was ringing, but I couldn't see any action.

The bell kept ringing continuously as I continued to the west, looking for geocaches.  Went I got about 2,000 feet down the road I heard a fire truck coming.  After I found all the caches that way that I was going to find, I headed back and saw the fire truck at the school.  I saw the children were waiting quietly, unlike certain middle school students I could mention, in the playground.  It must have been hot, I myself was wearing a big hat in the sun, they had nothing.

I drove on down the road a piece to another group of caches, some I found, some I didn't.  Then I drove down to Singing Hills cemetery and parked there, heading out for another cache, which I didn't find.  I figured that since I already paid for a more permanent  "parking spot" there (actually, two), they kinda owe me a temporary one sometimes. I visited Camellia's spot, too, and looked at the turtles for a while.

And after that I headed to Spring Valley for a VERY easy puzzle cache I had solved, but before that I stopped off at the shopping center in Rancho San Diego to look at a cache I haven't found several times before, and this time I found it.

THEN on to Spring Valley, where I found the puzzle cache, and then I went home.

I found eight caches today, which brings my total to 2,419 since we started geocaching in 2002.  My average cache-finding rate for 2014, to date, is 2.3085 caches per day.

Ain't that interesting!

On Some Nameless Ridge In The Eastlake Area

A very pleasant day (well, a couple of hours) out hiking.  It rained this morning, but it was sunny and windy this afternoon. VERY windy up on the nameless ridge!

Here is a panorama from the second cache I found.

File size 1MB

I have a LOT of trouble getting the panorama mode to start the "scan", I don't know why.  I got five "false start" pictures before this one!

I had acquired a Mickey Mouse baseball in my travels, I was going to drop it in an earlier cache today, but I'm glad I waited for this one.  It goes perfectly with the hat in there!

As mentioned it was REALLY windy up there!

'Cause there aren't enough pictures of me frowning. If my head wasn't it the way there might be a good view of the ocean or something.

Interesting barbed-wire fence strands bonded together with BIG wire and split bolt connectors. And I had to spend an HOUR looking that up, but Google failed me and I remembered it on  my own. And I JUST REMEMBERED, while typing this, that we called them Kearneys, for the company that made them!

File size 325KB

Pretty view of Pt. Loma on the way back.

File size 332KB

Airplane flying over the tower of power.

So I found seven geocaches today.  Every one I looked for!  And I hauled out some trash, too.

Rainy Morn

Compared to Sunday, this week is going gangbusters!

After the rain this morning, and in spite of a forecast of more in the afternoon, I braved the freeway and went down to Mission Bay (area) for some geocaching.  For to knock down the number I have still to do for the 360 degree challenge.

First, though, I went up not all that far from Marston Middle School for a cache the skatepark.

Now I know where all the ramps from the old Mission Valley skate park went to!  I found the cache pretty quickly, then as I was leaving I talked to an older gentleman who had set up his own horseshoe stake and was getting a little exercise tossing the shoes.

Next I headed down to Mission Bay proper.  I found one in a pipe sticking out of the ground. Actually there were two caches in there, I know not why.  I just signed BOTH logs, just to be sure!

Next I went over to Crown Point Park, where they are setting up for some big to-do, namely, what I'm betting is the San Diego Crew Classic. Looks to be a big deal. Anyway, did not find the cache I was looking for (AGAIN!), but I found another little cutie that took a bit of figuring to retrieve the container.

After that I drove over to the Mission Bay Athletic Area to park.  I walked to a cache by the Rose Inlet that I needed, but because of VERY barky dogs and imprecise coordinates (and, frnakly, a lack of effort) I did not find it.  Back by the vehicle there was another cache that looked fun, so I managed to find that one. I also spotted a baseball up in a tree.

I drove over to De Anza Cove where I did not find one in a tree, but I spotted one on a sign which I knocked down with my walking stick.  Putting it back up was tricky, but I succeeded.

The next three caches were associated with Fiesta Island.  The first one was up high, and again I knocked it down with my stick.  After signing the log I had to think a bit on how to get it back up.  Finally, I used the leather handle on the stick to hold the cache while I stuck it back up.  All without being noticed by all the cars, bicyclists, and runners going past, I'm sure.

Cache #2 was named Edvard Munch, I don't know why.  It had a little skull inside.  Maybe I was supposed to scream?  It was an easy find.

Cache #3 was a lot more tricky.  The phone app was all over the place. First one side of the street, then the other. Nope, not under the garbage can! Back to the other side of the street. Nope, I looked there before. Must be in there. Can't see, fumble with phone camera and flash, manage to turn on Rasa's Govindam, which sounded very odd here. While fooling with the phone I spot the cache. In the fourth place I looked. All right!

The last cache of the day was at the Morena Trolley station.  I had been there before and not found it, and it had been replaced.  So when I got there I headed to spot it was in, right near a parked police car.  Just as I got there I fired up the phone app and found the cache had been relocated.  Back the other direction.  I'm sure the policeman thought I was a little nuts. I signed the log, fired up the vehicle to leave.  You will note that the policeman was parked right at the exit the parking lot.  The parking lot is a one-way deal.  So I'm waiting to pull out when a SUV slows to turn in. So I got going, 'cause I'm in his way, THEN he notices the Do Not Enter signs AND the police car. And decides to go straight.  And then makes a grotesque illegal U-turn further down the road so that he can in the correct entrance.

That was a lot more humorous in the happening.

Believe it or don't, I took the freeway all the way home.

I found ten caches today, and it didn't rain anything but sunshine all afternoon.