Went For A Hike Today

For various reasons we need not go into here, I decided I better go for a geocaching hike today to maintain my aura of awesomeness. So I hiked up and over Kwaay Paay peak to find a couple of caches I was missing. There are actually three caches I needed, but since I am not a "pro" member anymore, I didn't have the coordinates for the third one.  More about that later...

I drove over to the trailhead, passing the HORDES of people going up and down Cowles Mountain. Shot this pic while waiting for the stoplight. See the little ants on the trail?  There is NO place to park along here.



I parked at the trailhead on Father Junipero Serra Trail, road, and headed up. It's pretty steep in parts, and flat in others. Mostly steep.  Lots of rocks and ruts.  I finally made it to the peak in about forty minutes. I ate a granola bar and drank some water. I located a trail heading back down the other side that wasn't marked "Do Not Enter", and made my way down. I went down a couple of false trails (more later), but eventually found the correct one.

The first cache I looked for was Splashette, named after a geocacher.  I looked for about thirty minutes and didn't didn't find it. That was disappointing, but I headed on to the next one.

The next cache was named Middle Earth. It takes its name from a nearby rock climbing route. I spotted it easily, to my relief. It had a bit of water in it, so most of the stuff was damp. I dried it as best I could.



Looking DOWN into the canyon.



The view is pretty impressive. If it wasn't so hazy, you could see all the way to Pt. Loma!



OK, so that is not really looking towards the ocean. More to the south.

After finishing up I looked around a bit for the cache I didn't have the coordinates for, and to see if I could figure out the trail down, in case I ever wanted to come back up. I THINK I figured out the trail, but I didn't find the cache. I didn't really expect to. If I just had that pro membership...

I decided to play with the GPSr "trackback" feature, and headed back up the hill to Splashette. I looked around for another half-hour, and was just about to call it quits when my poking stick struck something. Something odd.  It was the cache!



Well, NOW I was happy!  It was not till I got home that I found out that Splashette is the pro-level cache. So I can't log my find!  It was the OTHER cache, the one I didn't have the coordinates for, that was a regular cache that I could have written them down, uh, for. I mixed them up when I was looking at the map.  Why did I have a pro-level cache already loaded in the GPSr?  Because I used to be one of the exalted!  And I will again. I swear it!  And why was the other cache not in there. Well, duh, I don't know.

Using the trackback feature on the GPSr kept me from getting off the track a couple times. It was interesting to see that it tracked my false trails from the way down, too.



I really have to stop biting my nails!

I have not seen any other people on the trail, except for a couple of rock climbers way off in the distance.

I made it back to the peak, and headed back down again.  Here is a section of the trail I thought was real cozy.




Across the canyon are some outstanding rock formations. The rock climbers would like to be able to do them, but the park guys won't let them.  There's a geocache up there near the top, I've looked for it a couple of times but no joy, yet. I heard you may need a rope to get to it, and I don't have a rope, nor the experience to safely work with one.



And here is another steep section.



View of the 52 and the dam area.



I decided to name this rock "The Big Rock" 'cause its big and it sticks out in the trail.



A few feet down the trail I found another rock, which I shall call "The Even Bigger Rock", as it is bigger and also stick out into the trail.




Right about here I sighted my first human being, a woman coming up with two walking sticks. I told her she was the first person I had seen today, and she said it was like having your own private place.

Here we got the 52 and Mast. You can see the trail head where I parked. Down there by that green arrow!




I met a guy and his well-behaved dog, and later on a man and his small child, who had a very nice walking stick.  I picked up some trash along the way, but didn't have a bag for larger stuff like water bottles, so I had to leave them Next time!

Some baby dropped his Nuk.  There is one unhappy kid out there!



The whole hike took about three and a half hours, and probably covered 2.5 miles. It is claimed the elevation gain is 865 feet. Doesn't sound like much!  And yet I am beat!

Well, I don't THINK I left anything out, so that ought to just about do it!

Off My Butt

Yes, I got off my butt and went geocaching today.

I had to chauffeur C. to church, so since I had to fire up the vehicle anyway, I decided I should go find me some caches.  I've had my eye on one in a little canyon off of Fairmont.  I've been there before, on the bicycle, but didn't find it. It has been logged as "found" since then, so I decided to make the trek. I figured out I could park in one of the guests spots at the apartments across Fairmont, so I did, then made the dash across the four lanes of road. Not too much traffic on a Sunday morning, thank goodness. I hiked up the canyon to the spot, but yet again didn't find anything. Crud!

I decided to head out to Casa De Oro for another couple of caches I didn't find the first time.  I drove up the 8. Traffic was nearly at a standstill near the Lake Murray intersection, so I made the clever decision to bypass it by taking the off ramp.  Oh, no, that's where the accident was that was slowing traffic!  There was an ambulance there, tending to someone, but the police had not even arrived yet.  Of course I was in the wrong lane, but someone kindly let me in.

I headed down the frontage road.  I was behind another car that was stopped at the trolley station crossing, where the gate was down.  We waited about ten minutes, the gate did not go up.  The car ahead of me finally eased their way under the gate.  I motioned to a couple of pedestrians to raise the gate for me, and they did!  I don't know what all the cars behind did, though.

I continued over to the on ramp near Guava. Fortunately I yielded at the yield, as a rice-rocket came zooming up the ramp at probably seventy mph!  I myself wound it up to five grand to merge onto the freeway, and then made my way to Bancroft to look for them caches.

I found the first cache, hidden just as I suspected it would be, and had looked for the last time.  This time I spotted it. One down!

I drove over to the other one.  Fewer muggles around today, so I made the find quickly. I had to wait out a guy filling his propane tank before I could put it back, though.

I drove back to see how the trolley gate was doing.  It was now working, so I drove back on the 8. This time there was an accident on the Fletcher Parkway off ramp!  A car was piggy-back on another. There were two Highway Patrol cruisers, and a lot of glass on the road.  The car was smoking from the engine compartment, probably radiator fluid.

I, of course, did not bring my camera on this trip, so no pictures.  So much for getting on the news!

Wednesday Again

Drove to work again today.  It was a little chilly in the morning, but warmed up during the day. I even turned on the ceiling fans in the library. THEN, it turned chilly again.  It turned DARK! I think it's going to rain!

Don't you just hate people that park their old junk cars on their lawn?



Saw that the other day while walking home from work. Hey, my legs are STILL sore from that little excursion!

Tuesday--Continued

Our Ordereder-Of-Supplies was kind enough to take my request for some cotton swabs "just like the nurse has".  Swabs are extremely useful when gluing books back together. The ones I managed to steal from the nurse's office when she wasn't there are pretty much encrusted with glue, and are not too pleasant to hold in one's mouth.  So what I want were six-inch unsterilized wood swabs. I priced some at the drug store, but they were a buck fifty for TWO.  On the net they are around ten bucks for a hundred. So I asked the OOS to check her catalogs.  Also, I don't have any money.

So this is what I got:



Eight-inch OB-GYN sterile swabs with plastic sticks. GIANT, they are! See the wood ones poking out the side, for comparison.  I'm sure they will work just fine, but they are so HUGE!  Weel, as she said, there wasn't much of a description in the catalog!

Here's an old van I saw whilst heading to the pharmacy after work.  I think it is a Ford.  For some reason I always thought these were nifty.




I've seen this van before, and I thought it belonged to someone I knew. But today I found out it did not.

That is all.

Torpid Tuesday

So much for my unstated goal of walking thirty-five miles to work this week. 

I woke up this morning at six. Turned out I had reset my alarm to 5:30 PM. And not for the first time!

I need a second alarm clock, one for regular getting-ups, and one for special alarms.

Anyway, I got gas, returned a library book, and drove to work. And I got to listen to the DFC.

Saw quite a few bicyclists this morning, too!

Walking To Work Monday

I was in a mood this morning, or rather yesterday, or even most of last week, so I decided to walk to work today. It was around seven miles round-trip, and took about and hour and a quarter each way.

A city that outdistances man's walking powers is a trap for man.
Arnold J. Toynbee 

I wore my watch, the one with the compass.  You will recall, I am sure, the travails of putting a new battery in it.  (Time passes) Or maybe not, as I now see I didn't blog about it! Well, to sum it up, I have two of these watches, one with a compass. The non-compass one is really easy to change the battery, the compass one is REALLY REALLY hard!



On the way home I found this hobby blade handle. Compare the quality with my Excel and X-ACTO blade holders.



That X-ACTO holder on the bottom is one of a set I inherited from my dear grandfather.

Here is a closerup. Compare the knurling on the grips. And what's that blue stuff? Plastic!



Well, that is about it for today!

Used

I was looking around Google image search under my user name and found an odd picture, so I click on it to see why it was associated with my user name. I found that someone had used one of my images (with credit given!!) in a collage of office supplies they had created. Take a look!  My picture is the thumb tacks. I found them in a drawer at work.

Crummy Wednesday

Rant? You wanna hear me RANT???

The other day I took the floppy drive out of the IBM at work and stuck it into my computer, the one with the dead floppy drive.  I was trying to copy an olde Quicken from floppy to flash drive. Don't get me started on THAT!

Of course, in sliding the floppy drive out I found it doesn't QUITE clear the CPU fan. So I had to remove the fan.

No clearance!

Now with a bit a spare room to slide!

A silly little quarter of an inch, if that.

I put the IBM back together at work.  It, of course, did not work.  Dead as a doornail!!

I messed with it and messed with it and messed with. Several hours into the messing I happened to push on the battery a little, and the fan started up.  OK, says I, I must have jarred the motherboard battery.  Now we're good!

Oh, no, we are NOT good.  It wasn't booting up.  I pushed on the battery more, and sometimes it would fan up, as it were, and sometimes not. I plugged and unplugged it several times, and eventually it actually started to boot up.  I even got to the login!  Would not accept my password, though. I pulled out the network cable that I had just borrowed from an old printer I don't use.  Blue crud all over the pins!

Yikes!  I cleaned the network socket with water and baking soda (power off, of course!), dried it, and fired it up with a NEW cable.  It now accepted the login and I was flying!

Or maybe not.  When I shut down, it wouldn't restart. Or when it did, it did the F1/F2 thing.  So, I took a look at the startup configuration.  It looked ok, I hit save, and now it SEEMS to be running ok.  We shall see, tomorrow!

We had a LOT of people in using the computer lab. Of course the lab printer started acting up, and it appears it needs a new fuser.  I can't switch ALL the printers to the library printer, it would take FOREVER! So I just switched the flat-screen Macs, they are pretty easy to switch.

Tons of kids had problems using the computers, that sucks up a lot of time.  One student was using Safari and it kept quitting every time he tried to Google something.  I tried to take a look at it, but he was being so obnoxious I finally told him to go find himself another computer, and I left it for another day.

A parent came in wondering why their child had no textbooks. My bad, I ASSUMED they were using ESL textbooks, which I don't handle.  Turns out they need regular textbooks.

Another parent came in inquiring about a report that their child had been hit by another child in the library.  Well, I didn't see it, but it was apparently on my watch, so I feel bad about that.

There were a LOT of noisy and ill-behaved students running around. It's very hard to concentrate on technical problems with so much disruption. So much different than yesterday, a day that was extremely pleasant.

Well, we shall have to see how tomorrow goes!

Power Tuesday

We All Scream For Ice Cream!

On Friday we drove over to Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor for lunch.

I'm eating!

I love ice cream!

While there we tried to figure out the small print on some Mexican money. That's Diego Rivera, it is a self-portrait.

We also went geocaching (surprise) and found three caches in the mall.




After stuffing ourselves and walking off the stuffiness we drove back to San Diego.  Did I mention Farrell's is in Mission Viejo?  I felt so cosmopolitan skipping off to Orange County for luncheon!

We stopped at Califia Beach so that L. could dip her feet in the Pacific Ocean.  I watched the surfers, and the train went by.

Trains a'coming!!

We drove down the freeway a bit and stop at the Las Flores view point to see the pretty setting sun.

And then we headed home!

NOW It's Precipitating!

It has severely darkened over and is sprinkling as I speak.  It's almost like having weather!

Friday The Thunderstorm

I woke up at 6:20 this morning, which is an hour later than usual. Someone forgot to set the alarum clock.  Funny, I remember hearing the upstairs neighbor's alarm going off. Which usually rings AFTER mine does.

It was pretty much perfectly partly overcast this morning. The Winnebagos are heading east for the weekend.  I don't see no thunderstorms on the horizon, but they are still predicting 90% chance of rain.  It must be our destiny...

This morning is Breakfast Club, so I've been grazing a bit.  Back in the library one of the students brought in these evil things (see below), so I flaunted all the rules and ate one, right there at the circulation desk.  You should have seen the smile on my kisser

Slightly 'shopped...

So, I'm not sure if the picture is actually there, I think work is blocking it.

Speaking of work, I better get back to it!

Thursday Tomorrow?

Wow, it's Wednesday already!  I hear we are setting clocks forward this weekend. Or backward? Fall back? Either way, I'll have Sunday to figure it out.

Had to ferry the wife to the doctor's office this morning.  While waiting I took a picture of the headliner in the truck, as it is coming loose and I just want to document it.  One would think it would last more than five years.  Come on, it's a TRUCK!  Ruggedly built and all that!

I would have engineered some sort of plastic piece to secure it if I had designed it. Just saying, Ford!

Here is my wife coming out of the doctor's office through the rather pleasant mini-jungle-with-giant-stone-ball-fountain, with wooden bench.

I went grocery shopping again after work.  The giant vehicle next to mine had three dogs waiting for their mistress, one of whom was very barky.

 

On the way home I came upon an electric vehicle making a VERY SLOW u-turn on the on-ramp to the 8.  I guess he was losing power and didn't want to get stuck on the freeway. Or maybe he was just an idiot.

Just another instance of stupid driving I saw today. I'm glad I'm perfect!

Oh, and made a detour before shopping to my local Radio Shack.  What can you buy there besides cell phones? Why, fuses, if you must know! I needed a 1.6 amp fuse for a VCR at work. We shall see if that fixes the problem, or if there was something more serious that caused the fuse to blow. 

I also spent two hours at work on YOUR tax-payer's dime to exchange all my loose change from home for dollars. Now we will have plenty of pennies for the next book faire!

Later!

Manic Wednesday

Lots of craziness going on today!

Got this fish at a Destiny training today!

How cool is that, eh?

Saw skateboarder nearly get creamed today as he ran off the sidewalk into the street on a red light.

A few minutes later, only a block away, I was checking out a chick in hot pants (Hot pants? What year IS this??) who decided she could cross on the No Walk signal as I was turning right. Almost fendered her, did I!

We keep the lights on low in the computer room here at Manic Central, and my keyboard is down in the shadows.  There are no nubbins on the "J" and "F" keys, so I keep placing my fingers on the wrong keys and typing ALL SORTS of gibberish.  I need a keyboard with lighted keys! Do they make such a thing?  Or maybe an under-desk light!

I discovered that one can, if one inserts it at JUST the right angle, slide an SMC memory card UNDER and INTO the bottom of the card reader case, necessitating the removal of said case from the computer and shaking it all about to get the card out.

That is about all I can think of.  Cheers!

Thanks to the generosity of Matt I now have a pretty darn fast computer with lots of memory and disk space.  Google Maps no longer takes five (or more) minutes to load a satellite view! Wow!

Here's a picture of Gimli (Son of Gloin), the dog I mentioned the other day over in the bicycle blog. The dog that chewed everything!

Gimli, circa 1976

Cam got him when we lived in the apartments next to the church. She got him at a pet store that used to be near Food Basket on University. She saw him in the window, and just had to have him. A classic impulse purchase!  Of course, living in a two-room apartment didn't work very well, so we moved to a house-behind-a-house in El Cajon, where this picture was taken.  I was trying to grow rhubarb and berry plants in those wire  protectors, by the way. I had hopes of some free rhubarb pie. Didn't work out.

Back in 1970 or so I got a dog named "Asia" from a couple I knew.  When I went off to war my poor mother ended up taking care of her.  Asia was a Shetland Sheepdog, and every so smart.  She was also a very prolific mother.  Her is a picture of one of my many brother with her and her puppies.

Asia with puppies, and one of my brothers, too!

Lastly, we have the White Phantom, a Buick convertible my father let me drive. I can't remember the year or model, 1962 or 63, maybe.  It had a sensor that would automatically dim the high beams, and a very good heater. Eventually reverse went out and I gave it to my brother, effectively abandoning it. As did he.

Hey, it's the same brother! I wonder how old he was when I "gave" him the car... fifteen?  The years, they all run together!

I went geocaching at Lake Murray today, making the find on a puzzle geocache in a very odd container.

I am reading A Tale Of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens.  It is dragging on very slowly. Dickens uses twenty words when one will do, in my opinion. He is certainly no Robert Parker! I quite lose track of what is going on at times, and who various characters are.  I was quite certain, for many pages, that Monsieur Marquis was not the same person on the Monsignor.  I'm going to look online for an outline... Oh, now I see that I was confused about that! Monseigneur was both the person who gave a party (the chocolate episode) and a title of Monsieur Marquis. I think.

Well, that's about it for today!

Monday Is Shot

I had to haul the cat to the vet for his shot today, so I needed another cat carrier, as he peed in his cardboard one the last time.  I saw one at my regular Albertson's, so I naturally went to another Albertson's before work, 'cause it was closer.  Nope, no cat carriers there.  I decided to get a cardboard one at Petco in the afternnon, as I was short on funds.  Nope, couldn't find them.  So I finally went to my regular Albertson's and YAY, they had some. I picked one out and took it up to the Express Lane. The cashier did a price check. Yay, it was less than the amount on my gift card, so I bought it. She even washed the dust off of it!

Here's the cat in his new carrier:

I found this antique book of matches yesterday in a drawer. How much do you think I could get on E-Bay for them?

That's about it for today!

Wednesday

Got the tooth covered with a porcelain crown yesterday.  Still need a crown replaced, but insurance doesn't cover it. Not gonna happen soon!

Also found out one of my caches is missing.  I took a look, and I can't find it either, so I replaced it with yet another one on the way to jury dooty!

Jury Dooty...

I did not get picked for a trial, and I nearly finished the book I was reading!  I got a nice present from the County Sheriff for my services, a citation for not having proper registration, in this case, not have my tags displayed!  My bad, I forgotted to put them on!  Well, there's $32.50 down the drain!  I wonder if they would have noticed the missing sticker if I had backed in when I parked...

EDIT:  I put the sticker on when I got home.

Rot13 encrypted comments on the courthouse bathrooms:
V birepnzr zl srne bs choyvp gbvyrgf naq unq n avpr objry zbirzrag va gur pbhegubhfr gbvyrg. Gurl unir n irel avpr g.c. qvfcrafre. Fbzrbar yrsg n pbcl bs Cbchyne Zrpunavpf juvpu znqr sbe fbzr vasbezngvir ernqvat. Vg'f n yvggyr gbb dhvrg va gurer, gubhtu, gurl arrq n abvfl sna be n juvgr abvfr trarengbe. Nf sne nf pyrnayvarff, V engr vg na "8" bhg bs gra. Abg onq sbe n choyvp snpvyvgl! Gur syhfure qvq na rkpryyrag wbo, gbb!

The East County Courthouse must have the worst exit I've ever seen, since El Cajon decided it would be a good idea to make downtown a single lane in each direction.  A good plan is to sneak out the back way from the parking structure, which I didn't do, or park over by Rubio's, which I also didn't do.

I'm reading "The Road". I'm not sure why someone decided this would make a good movie. I'm not sure why it got a Pulitzer prize. I'm not always sure who is speaking. I'm unclear on why the author doesn't use quotation marks. I'm certainly not sure why the author doesn't use an apostrophe all the time. Maybe it will be revealed at the end, but I've only twenty pages to go, so...

It sure is hot today!  I hear it at the century mark today in El Cajon!  Glad I have air conditioning!!

EDIT:  In La Mesa right now (3:55 P.M.) it is 97 °F, but the humidity is 22% so it feels like only 95 °F.  It's a DRY heat!  In Granite Hills (essentially El Cajon) it is 102.4 °F right now, but it feels like only 97 °F, which must be a relief to them.

A New Week

The weather has changed once again from cool to warm.  Warm and SUNNY!  Yuk!

I went geocaching yesterday in the canyon off of Federal Blvd.  I wore my new shorts.  Bad move! Bushwacking in shorts is not recommended!  My legs are all scratched up!

And hairy!

I found two of the caches, but one, the bushwackiest, eluded me. Oh, well, the last log said they couldn't find it either, so I don't feel bad. Except my legs!

My shoes, especially the shoe strings, and my socks, were chock FULL of little stickers and seed-things.  When I got home I sat on the garage step to pull them out. The tail-less cat wandered by and into the garage. I set the shoes down to fetch the cat out of the garage, when I came back to the shoes most of the debris had mysteriously VANISHED!

I find my pro membership at Geocaching.com has expired. Now I just a regular guy!

Last week at work I bumped my measuring cup/coffee cup into a door jam.  It cracked rather spectacularly! I had to toss it, so now I am reduced to using the many regular cups people have bought me over the years.

While getting ready for work  I spent twenty minutes looking for my work keys. I found them in the pocket of the pants I had on. How sad is that?

Here's a pic of our miniature textbook storage room.

Most of those boxes on the floor are workbooks that we don't use. I am trying to send them back to the warehouse.  See our giant stapler over there on the right?  In the foreground, just off the picture, I'm building a pallet of boxes to send back. It takes up most of the rest of the room.

Tomorrow is the dentist, then jury dooty on Wednesday. I'm a bit tire of civic responsibility, but at least I get paid for it!

George et George

I find, to my chagrin, that I have confused George Sand with George Eliot.

I should twitter this!

Fiesta Island Redux

Since I had the day off today (THANK YOU, oh power outage!) I decided to head down to Fiesta Island and find all the rest of the geocaches there.

Best laid plans...

I didn't find two of them, but I did set a new personal best of nineteen caches in a day (a far cry from what might be the record of 917 in a day by TeamAlamo).

I met several dogs today.  This one came up to me to say hi while I was trying to be incognito.

He was pretty friendly, I just captured him in mid-smile.  I was pretending to take pictures of the bay!

Yup, it's a bay.  I guess that is Mt. Soledad in the background.

One of the caches we looked for last week required a ladder, which we did not have.  We DID spot the cache, though.  When I checked the geocaching.com today I found that cache had been disabled and archived as some muggle hurt himself climbing the pole to "see what was up there".  People, leave the geocaches to the professionals!

I was sitting on the ground signing the log at a cache in the doggy area when a large friendly and VERY WET dog with curly hair came over to inspect what I was up to.

I also talked to a fellow with a Basenji, a breed I admire very much.

Most of the caches were pretty easy to find, and I even avenged a Did Not Find from a year ago, which was very satisfying.

This cache I spotted from around sixty feet away.  Can you spot it? 

HINT: It's yellow. I telephotoed (that may not be a verb, maybe zoomed would be the better word) in a bit on this, so I'm farther away then it looks.


My nose is sore, maybe it's sunburned.

Power Restrored

Woke up this morning around 4:15 in total darkness.

Reached over and switched on the lamp.

It lit!  The power is back on!

Grabbed my reading book, The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle, and started reading! It was a long night without lights...

No work today, the schools are all closed because of the power outage. Maybe I'll go geocaching!

Friday Summary

Rode the bike two days this week, but today I had a massive Charley-horse in the early AM and felt I would be unable to pedal, so I drove.

Finally found a geocache I've looked for several times, but I DID need a massive hint. The massive hint was -- It IS a rock. Here's a picture, can YOU spot it?

And this is just SMALL view of the assortment of rocks available to check!

Saw a motorcyclist this afternoon who DIDN'T cut to the front of the line of cars at a stop light. How about that?

That's about all I've got, have a good weekend. Take Monday off!

Saturday On Pyle's Peak

Hiked up and over Pyle's Peak to pick up the seven geocaches I still had to get that were north of the peak. Found all seven, although two of them were very tricky.

Panorama I made of Pyle's Peak and Cowles Mountain.



Picture of ME at a flag pole in the middle of erehwon.



Gmaps Pedometer claims a round trip distance of 3.6 miles, with I-don't-know-how-much elevation gain, but it must certainly be MILES! Felt like it! By looking at a topographic map I'm guessing around 1,700 feet of "up", and the same "down", spread over those 3.6 miles.

Thursday At The Other Lake

I worked up some gumption and drove over to Kumeyaay Lake to pick up some fairly new geocaches. On the way I stopped on one library to return books, took some moola out of an ATM, stopped at another library to check out some books, looked for a geocache that I haven't been able to find yet (Going for the DNF record!), looked for yet another geocache (and found it), and bought some grass trimmer line at San Carlos Hardware (that turned out to be cheaper than Lowe's).
But, I digress...

There were three geocaches at the lake. I've never been to the lake part of the campground, nor the campground part, for that matter.  I HAVE plugged up a toilet in the restroom on a dark, dark day in November 2009. I managed  to find all three caches, even though two of them had "3" (out of five) difficulty ratings. One of the caches was full of GUNS!!



I spotted only one person at the lake, an artist sketching.

I did a bit of reconnoitering  for some caches I need on the north side of Pyle's Peak. I discovered that what I, for some reason, thought was a valley, was indeed a BIG HILL. Topographic maps, how do they work?

Next I went to Lowe's to get some sticky ant pads, checked the price of grass trimmer line and was glad, then I went home.

Not Much Going On Here

Bacon and Eggs - A day's work for a chicken; A lifetime commitment for a pig.

Tuesday Meanderings

I walked up Mt Nebo today, up the secret stairs, looking for some geocaches. Geocaches that have eluded me before.  I found one of them, but two remained, uh, elusive.  The GPS receiver refused to acquire its satellites for an hour. I thought maybe we were at war!

Walking home, I waited at a four-way stop for the first car on my right to cross. I stepped off as he crossed the intersection. The second car, containing Jerk-person, took off and almost hit me as I was half-way across the street, in the crosswalk.  I screamed at them, and called them a curse-word.

Up at the nasty University/Baltimore intersection I observed a bicyclist SIGNALING as she changed lanes. Some people!

Check out the action at this odd-jointed intersection. As SOON as the light changes, Mr. Black Car on the right honks his horn. As soon as Mr. Pink car gets NEARLY half-way across the intersection, Mr. Black Car turns left, cutting off Mr. White Car(s) coming from the left, who (is)are going straight. And they complain about bicyclists!

Well, that is enough complaining for one day!

Sat. and Mon.

Saturday I walked over to my second-nearest cache and replaced the wet log and added a bit of camo. The next day a guy looked for it and couldn't find it. Maybe the camo was too good? See the pic below:



Monday a new cache popped up in my email so I drove over to MTRP to make the find. I was first, so I scored the FTF! As I was exiting the bushes I met the fellow who would be second-to-find (STF).

In the afternoon I had to run an errand, so I looked for some caches along the way. One was called Claustrophobic Canyon, an ominous name! It was deep little narrow canyon just off of Collwood sort of in the Collage area. The water must really run during our "rainy" season, those shopping carts are really buried!



My backpack kept snagging on the overgrown overhead brush and trees. This pic looked much more interesting in real life, the pic is sort of flat. That's the trail, as it were, heading into the canyon.



I finally made the find, and only got stuck a few times by a wicked-sharp agave plant. I suggested in the log that one might need to wear safety goggles here!