Eating An Apple On Mt. Miguel

Headed over to Mt. Miguel this morning.  It was all cloudy.  I was afraid it might rain, and me without any rain gear!  Coming down there were a few, just few, drops of water, but it was ok.  The wind, though, was quite breezy, and my ears were bothered.  I tucked a pair of handkerchiefs under my hat brim to cover my ears.  You can see them in some of the photos!

I'm not sure where all the photos were taken, exactly. Sorry about that!

This one covers the very tail-end of Sweetwater Reservoir, with La Presa and Dictionary Hill in the middle.




This one is from the same spot, I THINK, looking to the south over the Otay Lakes.  Did I mention it was cloudy?



Possibly Proctor Valley Road down there, or maybe not.  I took the pic because of: Sunbeams!



A bit higher up we can now see more of the Sweetwater reservoir.



Getting closer to Mt. Miguel, but not as close as one might think.  There is still some up hill, then some down hill, then a WHOLE LOT OF UP HILL to get there!



Higher up and a big farther along, we have La Presa and Dictionary Hill again.  Hey, I've been on that road down there.  No, I was wrong, it's posted No Trespassing, I was on the legal trail on the other side of the fence.




And there's them Otay Lakes again. So much for the much-vaunted views!



Gosh, I gotta go UP that??


\
The rock lies!



NOW I'm almost there!



A kindly man offered to take a couple of pics of me at the top.



Gazing off into the future, I mean, distance.



Otay Lakes from the top of Mt. Miguel, while getting radiated from all them antennas.



See that trail down there?  Yeah, gotta get back down there.



This flag is at the second "peak" in the picture above.



And looking out again at those Otay Lakes again.



From some place on that hill I took this pic, at max telephoto, of the vehicle parked.  And you can see the trail heading up the hill.  All the other vehicles near mine are hiker's.



Planes were constantly passing overhead, unseen.  As the overcast cleared a bit I began to see them. This aircraft appears to be disappearing into the Twilight Zone.



Found fifteen out of sixteen caches.  The one I did not find was OF COURSE the last one, at the top of Mt. Miguel.  Round trip distance was either 4.5 or 5.5 miles, I forget which.

I got home around 12:30 PM.  Took a shower and washed the clothes.  And the my shoes. Which stink. 

Then my son came over and we went to the local Thai restaurant and had a very nice lunch.  Then he took me grocery shopping, and I bought some jasmine tea.

Then I came home and fell asleep.

This and That, Here and There

Took another one of them Pew quizzes tonight.




AND I had pizza for dinner!  Flatbread though it was, at least it didn't commit suicide on the oven elements!

I ALSO had peas, for a balanced meal.

I must admit that I guessed #15, as I know absolutely no-thing about the First Great Awakening.

Speaking of religion, I just finished The Hawk That Dare Not Hunt By Day, by Scott O'Dell (Island Of The Blue Dolphins), which is a historical fiction concerning William Tyndale's effort to bring an English language bible to England in the 1500s.

Bought a pair of anchor points for the truck.  No rated capacity, no installation help on line, I guess you get what you pay for.

Also bought a pitcher, then found one at home.

I am weeding books like mad at work.  One book had only one circulation, by a girl I remember as a Library Monitor when I started working there oh so many years ago.  She must be in her early 50s by now!

Minimum Day

Today is Garbage Day.  I threw out the frozen Breaded Shrimp that Camellia love so much, unopened. Some tears were shed.  Another wall of the Little House is in the can, also. No tears over that!

At The Base Of Mother Miguel

I got up early this morning, but could not come to a decision, and so went back to bed.  Finished Where The Sea Breaks Its Back, by Corey Ford. Ran across it while inventorying, decided to read it after being titillated by the description of Brigette, the eventually-to-be wife of Stiller.  And when I finished the book, I fell asleep.

Awoke later in the morning refreshed, got up and went geocaching south of Sweetwater Reservoir.

The first cache I found had TWO containers within a foot of each other, but each still was under its own rock. I signed both logs.



The second cache had one container but TWO logbooks.  I only signed one log.

The fourth cache was easy to find.  A motorcyclist passed by. I was thinking, "Nice, that would save a lot of walking, would it not?"  It was a very quiet bike, I think it was a BMW.



I headed off to the next cache, which is on the other side of that there lake.  I was sitting quietly when three women on horses passed by.  The horses were a bit spooked by me sitting there, that ladies kept telling the horses "That's a man, not a mountain lion."  I took off my hat so the horses could see my smiling face, but the ladies said "Just keep talking." I told them that the dogs at the dog park earlier had the same reaction to me.  I'm talking to YOU, Sasha!!

I was still sitting there (drying the wet log sheet, and re-bagging it) when the horse ladies waited for a bicycle to pass.



The most physical cache was Mother's Rock Garden, which involved bush whacking and a bit of rock scrambling.  And a close watch for snakes, of which I did not see a one.

I forgot my water bottle at home.  I should probably carry a spare in the vehicle.  I CITOed (CacheInTrashOut)  a half-full water bottle from the side of the trail, but I'm not gonna drink that, sir!  I watered the plants with it.  Drank from the fountain at the dog  park after the first cache find, which is where I met Sasha the dog.

Nest:  Mt Miguel??

Saturday In The North Country

After a good night's sleep I got up early (5:30 AM) downloaded a bunch of geocaches, printed some maps, ate bran flakes (with banana) and headed TO THE NORTH, that is up the 15 to Scripps Parkway, then wandering around until I finally found Stonebridge Parkway.  I DID remember to take my Thomas Bros.  I DIDN'T remember it was the 2004 edition.  Stuff seems to have change in the last decade...

I found the first cache on my list in a few seconds, but managed to lose the top to the container, and so spent at least a half-hour, a FRUITLESSLY SPENT half-hour, searching, as I said, fruitlessly, and so had to beg forgiveness from the cache owner, from who I have not heard back. 

Did I mention it was foggy?  Here are some foggy pictures for you.



So these are looking to the south or south west, towards Sycamore Canyon.



Except this one, a bit later, is looking towards the west, I think.  Or at least across the canyon towards Via Santa Pradera, which means NOTHING in Google Translate, each word seems to be in a different language. Something about a Holy Prairie, I don't know.



And foggy means dew, and dew means WET!  Fortunately, I was wearing my synthetic hiking pants with my new synthetic hiking shirt. Both, while too large, dry quickly.  Most excellent!

I found all the caches, but two of them gave me a lot of trouble. 

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Check out this one.  This is what we in the sport call a "nano".   I came back to this spot FOUR TIMES to look under this branch, as it was the only logical place it could be, according to the hint.

 

And here the branch is back in place.  A little bit harder to see, ain't it?  Actually, branch is not all the way down, there's a little rock there I had to pull out.




Before the Great Nano Hunt I was a bit farther down the ridge.  It look like someone had weed whacked the, uh, weeds, there were some native plants planted, and there were a whole bunch of these drains.  At least, I GUESS they are drains.  Do they drain somewhere? I don't know.  There wasn't any sprinklers to water the area, and it sure doesn't rain THAT much around these parts.  Maybe it's to collect all that dewey fog.



I was thinking I should have brought the bike, 'cause it wasn't that hilly and I could have saved a lot of time.  Saw this guy coming down the road, great minds think alike, right?



He wasn't moving too fast, and he looked a little jerky in his pedaling style.



Oh.  Never mind.



The fog was gone by now, I made it to the vehicle just in time!  In the pic below, that is Cowles Mountain way out there past the ridge on the right.
 

I went back to that first cache to see if I could find the lid.  Nope.

Headed back to Scripps Poway Parkway to stop at Sycamore Canyon Park.  Didn't see the turnoff.  That is because there IS no turn off from Scripps Poway Parkway, I found later.

I also found out that the old Atlas missle test stands are just to the south of Stonebridge Parkway about three thousand feet.

Stopped in Lakeside to take a quick look for a cache.  Found I didn't have the coordinates on me. Huh.  Stopped at Target to look at the GoPro camera.   None on display.  No, I did not to the clerk.  I DID find that Target has the same answering machine I drove all the way to Kearney Mesa to buy, for only $14.99.  Oh, well!

On a totally different note, did you see that NASA launched some cell phones into orbit last week?  Also here.  I've been monitoring 437.425 mhz but I haven't heard anything but static.

I guess we are finished here!

So Much For Dinner...

Burnt Pizza?  The pizza slipped while I was putting it into the oven.  This is AFTER I cleaned it up a bit.



Looks like a lot of other burnt stuff needs to be cleaned out, too.

And the slipped pizza went into the trash.

Une Très Jolie Et Nouvelle Porte De Garage

The little house. It's time for it to go.



Half the roof fits in the trash can.  I calculate it will take six weeks to get rid of it completely.



The garage door guy came out to replace our door today.  I took a day off work, 'cause I got a lot junk in the garage to move out of the way.  Here's an inside corner of the old garage door.
 


And the outside of the old garage door.



Lowering the old door on to the truck rack.



It's down!



And rotated around.



The guys place the first door segments.



I asked them if they were gonna put more pieces in.  Tom said they ran out of metal segments, so they were gonna cut off part of the old door and use it!  Ha ha!



And, it's finished!



Rolls real nice, and should be a lot more water tight than the old door.

Let Sleeping Cats Lie

In the news:



But was it asleep?


I felt real proud of myself after taking this little quiz. That is, until I read other people's comments on how easy it was.



Garage door pictures coming later today!

Monday's Trip

A helicopter was flying white stuff to Cowles Mountain. What could it be?



I drove out to Kearny Mesa Staples to purchase the one of the last three answering machines they had in San Diego. I save a small chunk of coin by telling the clerk that their web site price was less. I am so proud of me! On the way home I went geocaching down an odd little trail.



Lots of pretty flowers on the trail, which didn't show up to well in the photograph.  Trail is well-worn by football fans sneaking down to see what is going on at the Chargers practice fields, which are nearby.


At this point the camera batteries died, so no pictures of the fabulous view of Murphy Canyon (Named for 1860s settler John Murphy).

I can think of nothing else to add, so fare thee well!

Saturday Morning

Drove out to Santee to the Mesa Road trailhead so I wouldn't have to walk QUITE as far to find a certain puzzle geocache.  So far, so good.  Up the trail I went, made the find, and headed back.  I got the bright idea to follow a little trail off the main trail.  There wasn't a SIGN saying NOT TO, so I did. I figured there might be a connection between THIS hill and ANOTHER hill where there was a cache I was looking for, several times in fact.  Well, I headed along this little path, and I'm certainly not the first.  Found this nicely constructed fire pit/ring/circle/whatever.  Undisturbed  gray ash, in use since the last rain?  Hmmmm. 




Headed on along, now the trail is going down into a ravine, and the trail is fading out.  And at the bottom, it's gone.  So I'm bushwhacking my way up the hill, hoping to the  road/trail that I know is up there.  And yet, I keep going up. Up up up the hill, I'm at the top, no road.  Whoops, I see houses below.  I'm on the wrong hill!  The road (that's old Mesa Road, by the way) goes over THAT hill.  So I gotta bushwhack my way down to the houses, which I'm sure both the park rangers and the home owners would be thrilled to see.

Well, I get past the houses and find the cache area.  And find the cache, THIS time!  Fabulous.  So now I head down the old Mesa Road trail.  Well, eventually I find it, it is kind of overgrown.  And eventually I make it back to the vehicle, and home again.

So I get home, I'm on the computer here logging the caches, FTPing the pics, and starting the blog entry, when I feel something crawling around and THIS THING falls out of my hair and on to the desk.  It's wiggling around!  What the heck is it?  Looks like a little twig piece, but it's MOVING!! It squished nice and mushy, I'll tell you what!




Really, people, I REALLY want to know what this thing is!!

P.S.  I took the Last Bag of Pepsi Cans to the recycling today. Got  $11.45, which I shall use for gas.

P.P.S.  Love my new red Sears Vacuum Cleaner!'

P.P.P.S  Totally forgot about the guy!  As I was strolling down Mesa Road/Trail, high above the valley, I could hear some guy yelling various rambling obscenities, religious opinions, and his views on various foods.  I couldn't spot where it was coming from, maybe he was hiding in the bushes.  Strange!