Up Before The Chickens

I woke up early, in the dark, and decided to try for some caches that need the cover of darkness.  I drove over to The Trees one in San Carlos, but chickened out.  Then I drove over to the Big T in Spring Valley.  The drive was nice, no one on the freeway at five in the morning, but no joy at the cache.  Again.

Then I drove over to the Chollas Lake area for a cache, which I found, in spite of the darkness and the cache pointing off somewhere else.  Good hint!

After that I drove over to the one by the gun range that I didn't find the other day, and I didn't find it again.  Very frustrating!

Next I drove a couple of blocks to a lonely little cache on Beech St., which took me FOREVER to find, but I finally did.  How many times did I LOOK straight at it before I NOTICED it?  There's a lesson there, folks.

Not too far away was The End Of The Street which was a very quick find because of a good hint, and I looked at it.  The hint.  'Cause I was brain-weary from the last two!  When I got back int the vehicle I noticed a not-too-far-away cache with an intriguing title, so I went for it.

I drove over and parked by Archie's former house, which is now the notorious Thad Poppell's place. (NSFW).  Turned out that is not the place to start from, and I learned something new about waypoints on the iPhone app. I then drove to the correct spot, parked, and headed down into the big ditch to be confronted by a choice of  "doors", all of which were VERY dark.  I had my headlamp in my pocket, from earlier caches, so I overcame my claustrophobia and headed in.  The cheap headlamp did NOT do the job, so I went back for the Maglight.  I made it through the tunnel to the cache area, found the cache, and made it safely back to the vehicle.  Here's a pic near the cache ground zero (GZ).

(NSF

Well, after that adventure I manned up and went for one cache I've been avoiding for YEARS, in Lemon Grove, and got it.

And then I went home!

What's for second breakfast?

I Found The Snake Pic From Yesterday!

Hey, here is the picture of the dead snake that I couldn't find yesterday!  Turned out it was on the phone, not the camera.  Silly me!

Today, Saturday, we went out to Campo to find some geocaches.  This is not one, but it IS the southern end of the Pacific Crest Trail.  I signed the logbook, as a visitor.  We walked about a mile and a half along the PCT today.  It would be something to at least hike it through San Diego County, I bet I could do that. Maybe.

Here Matt is taking a picture of a flower, imagine that!  Border fence in the background.

This ant was lugging whatever-that-is across the patio at the El Paso Taco Shop in Campo, where we had a delicious lunch.

We found seven caches today, and didn't find one.  One cache, our primary objective, was placed way back in February of 2001, back in geocaching's infancy. For comparison, the oldest cache in California (And the first in San Diego) was placed in September of 2000.

And now I can take a nap!

xcvxcv

Out Again

I went down to Border Field State Park this morning to find the geocache in the southwestern corner of the continental United States.  Since the vehicle gate is locked during the week I had to walk the mile and a half there, and back again.  Along the way I saw many horses, and people riding them, and a couple of bicyclists.  I saw the Mexican islands out in the Ocean Blue, 

and I saw a lot of birds, like these.

I don't know what kind of bird this was, but it was flying over the beach in Mexico.

After finding the cache I walked back to vehicle, naturally, and saw flowers like these, which I call tomato flowers, for no reason I can think of.

I saw quite a few Border Patrol vehicles, of course, and even a few (officers, not vehicles) on foot out in the bushes.  They ignored me, though.

I stopped by the Big Wing at Mongomery-Waller Park to find a couple of caches, and not find one.

I found a few more, here and there, and didn't find one that I didn't find in 2010, so there you go.

Total today was 11 found, two not found. The daily average for 2014, so far, is  2.5922, so I am on goal.

On another note, I clicked one of those stupid Yahoo links and actually learned something. How to tie my shoes properly!  Try it, I used the technique this morning and didn't have to retry my shoes all day!

And on yet another note, in the course of trying to find information on the 31 runway at Lindbergh field I found out, or finally realized, that Lindbergh did not take off to the east coast from what would be Lindbergh field, but from the field of many names, variously called Dutch Flats, Ryan, Mahoney, and Speer, Airport. Check out the link, I have found that site to be very interesting over the years.  There is a particularly interesting 1939 color map of the bay that show both airfields.  You can see that part of the present-day land has not been filled in yet, the part where Lindbergh Field mostly is now.



Well, I can't think of anything else, stay safe out there!

This That & The Other

Monday I went out looking for a FTF (First To Find) at a new geocache.

While waiting at a stop light I noticed the person next to me was more than a car-length back.  That just seems excessive!

(They are the white car in the little blind spot mirror.)

The new cache was at the Peace Garden located at the First Church Of The Bretheren.  It is a very nicely done garden, I think.

I wish Betty could see this, she was always talking about her worms.

I wish I had thought to check the wheels more closely, but I'm sure they are all cheap wheels. I hope!

Not just vegetables, but flowers, too.

I did not get first to find, but instead, second.  I WAS first to log, though!

After that I went geocaching over by Chollas.  I didn't find that one, but I did lose my keys for a few minutes.  I was terrified!  Then I spotted them on the sidewalk, not far from where the cache supposedly is.

That was Monday.

This is Wednesday.

I went to the base of Mt. Miguel, in the East Lake community, to find a few caches in the June Gloom.  So here we are looking to the north at gloomy Mt. Miguel.

There were a few auto parts and other trash in the area.  There was a big radiator near one cache.  And then there was this motorcycle.  Words fail me. How does this stuff end up out here?

I found most of the caches I looked for, twelve, in fact.  I did not find two, one which I could figure out how to get to, there being many new fences and big signs saying "No Trespassing",  Some of which I only saw coming OUT of an area.  I should offer my services as a Sign Coverage Evaluator! 

Well, I'm falling asleep, so I'll sign off now!

P.S. I forgot to mention...New Shoes!  Merrell Moab Mid Waterproof (J88623), in a size 13, and a pair of Thorlo Hiking Foot Protection (socks!)

Sunday At The Lake

We went up to Lake Hodges for some geocaching.  We walked a couple of miles to get to the various caches.  In all, we found seven caches.  Two of them were puzzle caches that I had solved last night.  They were not TOO hard, I solved 'em, right?

Matt took lots of pictures of flowers.  There were a zillion birds nesting under the bridges, but we could not get a good picture of any of them!

We walked half-way across the Lakes Hodges Pedestrian/Bicycle Bridge, as it is sometimes called, just so we could say we did.  It is quite a remarkable bridge.

Here is the view to the west from midway across the span.  You can see the water out there. Somewhere...

And here is looking the other direction, to the east-ish. There is the freeway, and its bridge.

After the finding of the caches we had lunch at the Westside Cafe in Escondido.

Friday

The nice thing about blogging the day after is that it's gonna be relatively short, 'cause I've already forgotten most of it, at least the details!

I stepped on a piece of glass that pierced my boot, and part of my heel.  It bled a little, but I washed it and put goo on it and bandaged it up.  The glass also cut my finger a little when I was pulling it out.  I'm SURE all Mr. Sun's UV light had sterilized that nasty piece of glass over the months it has been sitting there, right?

And I didn't even find the cache, or rather, the second waypont of the multi-cache, even with a hint from the cache owner.  How very disappointing!

Although finding the FIRST waypoint on Tuesday, after several years, has pleased me no end!

After leaving there I went up on the Mesa, mostly, to various places to look for caches.  See the map below.


This little flower was sitting all by itself in the middle-ish of a wide dirt road.

Panorama of one side of road.

Panorama of the other side of the road.

I found a magic wand in my travels, one of Harry Potter's, I think.

The several places I went on Friday.

That is about it for yesterday!

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday I paid a visit to the S.P.A. at Sharp Memorial.  Here I am before they started sticking needles in me!

Today I went geocaching after an afternoon's informative class about retirement. Someday!   The trolley went by. I took a picture.

I say this hummingbird while looking for one cache.  I thought the bird was looking, too, as he wouldn't go away for quite a while!

The trail back to the vehicle.

Probably wasn't the best idear to be traipsing about after the biopsy yesterday, but there you go.

These Days

On Friday The 13th:  After the end of year party, which was very nice, and held at a very lovely house, I decided to go geocaching.  Since there was no one who imbibed enough to go tree-climbing, I had to forego the pleasure THAT particular cache, my nemesis.

I went out to Santee.  I found the one I was looking for, then I went up this little hill with interesting rocks on it.

Another picture of me and the interesting rocks.  Really much nicer in person!

And at the top of the little hill is slab of concrete, the former site of a building.  I THINK there was a mine here, but I can find the place I read that.  That is Cowles Mt. way back there.

I went over to Gillespie Field and found a cache there, one that has been eluding me.  Now it has an upgraded hint, makes it much easier.  Saw this old plane. It is a Douglas C-53D Skytrooper (DC-3) .

I stuck the phone/camera throught the chainlink fence to get a fence-free picture.

And that was pretty much Friday.

Saturday I did NOTHING all day, then I went geocaching in the late afternoon, forcing myself out of the apartment.  I went to Santee, where I found one cache I haven't found in the last couple of visits, and I found another one from yesterday that I didn't mention.  Then I went to In'n'Out to find a cache, and eat a cheeseburger.

Next I drove over to the brewery area of Santee to find a couple of more caches, and I took this picture of the pretty evening sky.

Then I went home.

For Sunday we had made plant to go hiking, but I felt kinda sick all the previous evening and the early morning.  I didn't have a temperature, but felt crummy.  Nerves?

I went for a little walk and ate something, then I felt a little better.

Matthew came over and we went on our planned outing to the moutains.  There were a whole LOT of horses about, as it was the 2014 Descanso AERC Endurance Ride weekend.  We were sharing the trail, and had to wait about ten minutes because one of the horses was very skittish and would not cross a small water crossing.  Eventually the rider got off and lead horse across.  I should have taken pictures!!

We found eight or so caches.  As we were leaving I took quick picture of the last of the horses.  It's hard to believe how many horses and cars and bales of hay were here earlier!

The ride home was uneventful, as I fell asleep several times.

Monday

It certainly is pleasant to get home and find no blinking answering machine lights with messages to call the doctor, sometimes even MORE than one doctor.

It is certainly unpleasant to decide to take a not totally unusual shortcut through the strip mall parking lot to get home, but then decide to take an usual shorter cut through said parking lot, only to find traffic all clogged because parts of the parking lot are being repaved, so then having to negotiate traffic to get to the original (the not totally unusual one) shortcut, and then to get home and find a workman parked in MY parking place, it is never anyone else's space, so then to do a three-way turn to find a parking place on my street, which is impossible, but there IS one, but I have to go around the medical center to get to it, so I do, then as I'm getting ready to parallel park (and ain't THAT an adventure!) I see the workman pulling out of MY parking place, so I jam on down there to it.

Only fifty or so more LOGO netbooks to check in!

Yesterday I saw a blue car on Proctor Valley Road that was apparently practicing low speed rally driving.  He kept going back and forth about every five minutes or so, probably ten or fifteen times.  But not very fast, no jumps or sliding around corners.

Nothing else I can think of, go for it.

Some Flowers & Such

These yellow flowers appeared unexpectedly out of a pot in the garden.  I think they came from some free wild flower seeds that came via a charity, ones that I planted last year.

A somewhat blurry picture capturing most of the flowers in the yard at once!

Over at the San Carlos branch of the San Diego Public Library someone has been crocheting or knitting or something on the trees, signs, and handrails.  It is quite pretty!

That is all I got right now!

It Was The First Of June

I went for a drive to north-ish City to get me some geocaches that had eluded me lately and not-so-lately.

SPOILER ALERT:  You can see the cache in this photograph.

I was here the other day, TWICE.  A lady was parked nearby the first time, and the second time a guy was working in that big silver box to the right.  Found the cache quickly today.  I like railroad stuff, especially OLD railroad stuff.

SPOILER ALERT:  You can see the cache in this photograph.

 

 I have heard of Park'n'Grab caches, but Drive-Up caches?  That is just ridiculously funny!  I gave it a Favorite point.

I stopped by the lake (actually, there was NO parking so I had to park at the library and walk up) and found a couple of caches I couldn't find last time, back in July 2013.  One of them was kinda hard, still, I had to fish for it.  The other was insanely easy, what was I thinking?  Timing the retrievals and replacements between passers-by was VERY tricky, though.

I saw a U-2 aircraft in the sky while walking around a couple of blocks from Scripps Ranch High! Wow!

What kind of tree is this?

Also, there was a group of radio-control aircraft enthusiasts flying their planes a few feet from a cache (the cache I was walking to in the previous paragraph), but I figured they were watching their planes and not me.


I ate one of these when I got home.  How many carbs does it have, I wonder?

I found eleven caches to, and Did Not Find four.  I have 2,587 caches found, to date, with an average for this year of 2.5329 finds per day. So far.

Thanks for reading!