Three Days In March

Tuesday, March 29th

I went hiking up a trail in East County. I've never photographed every cache I've found on a hike, much less posted those pics, but here you go:

Looks like an ordinary piece of bark, don't it?

Well, lookee there!

I found it on TOP of the rock.  I put it back UNDER the rock, and let the cache owner know.  The shoe parts seem to be just trash that ended up here, I don't know.

This one took a LONG time to find, the GPSr kept pointing in another direction.

The classic "suspicious pile of rocks".

View from way up high. The vehicle is parked middle-left.

Zoomed in a bit.  I think I'm supposed to have a Wilderness Permit to park here, I hope the rangers don't come by!

I cut short the hike because it was windy, possibly going to rain, and my hands were cold.  I had not brought my outer jacket, silly me, nor my hat, trusting my umbrella to to the job.  Too windy!

As seen on Facebook.  Folding the umbrella back at the vehicle.

Wednesday, March 30th

After the event I went out to various places around Plaza Bonita.  THIS lizard was actually near a cache AT Plaza Bonita.

I bought a coffee at Starbucks and here is the change I got.  Which president is that again?

This was at a cache I've looked for two times before (once with Matt, I think), and spent nearly three quarters of an hour searching for this time. I got stabbed by a rusted "keyring" here, good thing I've had my tetanus shot!  It didn't seem to bleed, and I cleaned it out real good.

Here's another one.  I think Matt and I both looked for this one.  It's not in here.  Eventually I found it nearby. A rather clever hide, I though. I spent about a half an hour here.

March 31st

Oh, that's today!  A different view of USD!

Well, it LOOKED in focus in the viewfinder!

As seen on Facebook, I found this in a cache and had to pose.  Nice hair, eh?

From the same cache, a crown!  Do I not look regal?

At the last cache of the day I sat down and promptly skewered the side of my hand on an errant cactus thorn.  I would swear it went in a 1/4 inch!  Cleaned it real good too, but it didn't bleed any no matter how much I tried to make it, I think my hand is real fat at that point.

I stopped by the library to pick up some tax forms since the free online site won't accept some of my answers, but it turns out they are closed for Cesar Chavez Day.  As I was informed by a lady sitting on the sidewalk leaning up against the library door/window while on her phone.  Who knew?

Thanks for reading!

Out On A Limb

Sunday morning I met up with one of my geocaching friends to get a cache I knew he was also interested in.  He was going to do the climbing, while I had one hand on the camera and another on the cell phone to call 911 if needed.   He made the climb like a champion, although we kept losing sight of the cache, it was SO far up in the tree!

Here he was trying to spot it, so to decide which limb to go out on.

He is within arm's reach!

A slightly different angle, making the grab.

Zoomed in, putting it back, I think, after replacing the SOAKED log with a piece of paper.

On the walk back to the street (about 3/4 of a mile) Matt called about going out to the Canyon, I told him I'd be back home in an hour or so, and I was.

Here are some pictures from our visit:

The key wind chime, which I find is fascinating. I ought to make one, I certainly have enough keys!

Matt brought a kringle.

This big ol' cactus had fallen over so N. and G. set it back upright.  I could have supervised, but I was inside eating that SMALL piece of the kringle!

We had a good time seeing most of the family, and having some good food.  M. gave me some food to take home, and I ate a lot of it today!

Tuesday 4:10

I was going to submit this to /r/mildlyinteresting but it was just too mildly.

Turn out the "6:41" machine was set to a different time zone.


Back in the 70s I bought me one of these knives.

A few months ago I noticed a LOT of corrosion on the sheath, and THEN I noticed a pit in the blade!

Corroded snap. and this is AFTER I cleaned it up.  The belt holder-oner was corroded, too.

Yesterday I was reading about these knives and found out that one is NOT supposed to store them in the sheath.  The acidic leather will cause pits in the knife.  Great.  I saw where one fellow was selling a knife just like mine, but in with no pits, for six hundred dollars.  I suspect mine is worth quite a bit less than that, now. I wish I could remember how much I paid for it, it couldn't have been that much, I was just a lowly airman.

The eye doctor went well today, nothing new to report.

I got a letter from Ford the other week saying my vehicle is being recalled for airbags.  Please call the dealer.  So last night I dug out the letter and found there were TWO letters in there.  What gooses they, I thought, so like Ford.  So I called today and found out there are TWO recalls, as the man said, one for the driver's side, and one for the passenger's side.  Hence the TWO letters.  I neglected to notice the word driver on one letter, and passenger on the other.  Not unlike those rock piles I keep not noticing while geocaching, I guess.  Anyway, the upshot is that they don't have the parts in for the driver's side, yet, but they do for the passenger's side.  So I'm scheduled to get the passenger side down next week, and maybe the driver's side parts will be in by then.  I hope so, I don't much want to die being punctured by the airbag shrapnel, as the letter warned.  As I said to the service writer, I hope it's at least quick if it happens!

That is about all I got today.  Happy Wednesday tomorrow!

Sunday At The Lake

But first...  Matt helped me hook up the camera to the computer so I could transfer the pictures over, since Windows 10 declines to recognize my memory cards as being inserted into the card reader.

This looks like the cache up there in that forty-foot tree. Near the top.  Who can I talk into going after it for me? 

OK, for today, a bunch of photographic shenanigans at Lake Jennings. For the second time in two days I was unable to notice a geopile right at my feet.  Spent twenty minutes looking for this one before I noticed the pile of rocks right there in plain sight.

Same pile, with umbrella for scale.

Walking along the flume trail, I see emergency vehicles speeding along El Monte Road.  That image sure looks like a painting.  Notice the flume trail in the upper right.  I learned today that the flume trail continues along the eastern shore of El Capitan Reservoir..

End of the flume trail, with some mysterious pipes going down the hill to the El Monte Valley below.

I don't know why I took this picture, but I better include it just case it turns out to be important.

As for this one, sure is blurry, I wonder what it was supposed to be?

I was trying to set the timer, instead took a selfie...

Finally got the timer going, but there is just too much sun.  So much for showing off my new hiking umbrella.  Which worked real good, except the tip is not strong enough for poking at rocks.

Well, that is about it, any questions?

Saturday In Gulches Of Tierra Santa

I posted this on Facebook, so you have already seen it!

How many jars of nutmeg does one need?  And what shall I do with it all?

Today's geocaching adventure takes place in (some of) the canyon/gulches of Tierra Santa. Here is a view of the caches in the area and the paths I took to get to them.  You will notice I parked in two places, hence the un-joiningness. Parking can be difficult in the TS. They do not find is always necessary to put any parking spaces near canyon trailheads.

The first three pictures are in the area on the right, at the cache on right.

Looking down the valley. The steepness of the hillside is not quite apparent. I am on a narrow ridge, it would be very difficult to go anyway but back up the ridge behind me.

This is a very steep hill back up the narrow ridge.  It is two hundred feet back up to the trail at the top.

This panorama is taken at the top, after I've made my way that two hundred feet back up.  Nifty view on an overcast day!

The trail back down is forward and sort of to the left-ish.

For best results, print out image in colour, cut it out, and wrap it in a circle around your head, taping the ends together.

You will notice that the going up the hill in the distance on the far right is the same road seen below in this picture I posted on January 10th. In the pic below, the ridge on the left is where I took the panorama above.

Next, I move the truck to a new parking spot and visit the two caches in the shorter canyon.

The first one was this very cute little birdhouse.

I had a LOT of trouble with this next one. A LOT of trouble.  How about you?

Really, I spent over thirty minutes looking for it.  Unbelievable!


I was getting a lot of sass from a hummingbird, and after finding the cache I looked a bit and saw the reason for the bird's distress.

I could have, but didn't, move the truck closer to the next canyon, I just walked. It wasn't all that far.  This was an attack from the south on the caches here, as the trails are closed for habitat renewal at the north end. Something I learned last time I was here.  At the north end...

It's about a mile from start to end (one way distance).  In that mile there is one trash can. I have no idea how they empty it, there is only a narrow trail about a foot or two wide.  Here I have noted the coordinates for you, and made a link to Google Maps for your convenience.

Link to Google Maps showing location of trash can.


When I took the lid off this cache these spiders popped out.  I said a bad word...

I climbed out of the canyon to get this cache, then went back down again to head back to the vehicle.  If there was a "cutest cache of the day" award this one would surely get it!

That is about it for the day, I can't think of anything else!

Thursday, Such As It Was

Today my lower back started hurting a bit around mid-morning, for no particular reason.  It hurt all day, but is a bit less since I got home.  It is nowhere near incapacitating, though.  I did work (such as I do) all the day, and washed the clothes and put together the antenna.  Saved a "hard" Sudoku while reposed in the "little room", a term that this article implies I should not use.

Here's is the antenna, a 2 meter (band) 4 element (number of, uh, elements) quad (shape).  I made it out of PVC pipe according to an article in a book about T-hunting, the art of hidden for hidden radio transmitters.   I need to get the book out, I don't think the feedline is supposed to just hang down like that.  Also, it needs a base to hold it up.  Can I make one out of PVC pipe?

I am too pooped after wrestling with this thing for an hour to test it. Did I mention I had to  put it together?  It was disassembled for storage.

Yesterday I finally found a cache I've looked for before.  I was fortunate in that some of the paint had come off to reveal a tiny shiny patch.  Can you see it?

That is all I got for today,   Happy Friday!