Wow Factor

Over a year ago, I wrote about virtuals and why I thought they had been discontinued by Geocaching.com. The powers that be at Geocaching tried to come up with some type criteria for virtual caches that they could live with in order to keep approving virtual caches. Unfortunately, they couldn't come up with a standard criteria for virtuals, so they were grandfathered and no new ones have been approved for several years. Now you can experience something similar to virtual caches on Waymarking.com, but it's really not the same thing at all.

Virtuals are caches that aren't really there, if that makes sense. You go to a specific spot, take a picture and/or gather some information for the "hider" and you get credit for a cache find. I like virtuals because they allow me to find "caches" in spots where I can't find a physical cache, like in a national park, such as Joshua Tree or Grand Canyon. My son and I have found virtuals in both of these parks and in other parks as well. The virtuals in Joshua Tree got us to a trail and spot that we normally wouldn't have gone on if they hadn't been there. We learned some interesting stuff while at these virtuals, including some local history.

The problem with some virtuals is they were missing the "WOW" factor. With a virtual at a national park, the obvious WOW factor is pretty much built in. Once you get to a spot, you usually say "WOW!" and you know it's all good. Many virtuals didn't do that. There have been some virtuals that I've visited that, in my opinion, have been downright dull and nonsensical. What was the purpose of taking me out to this neighborhood to show me a house that had medieval turrets? The WOW factor was definitely missing from that virtual. Geocaching.com realized this was happening and put a moratorium on the placement of virtuals. Unfortunately, it's hard to define the WOW factor and so this moratorium has become permanent.

Thursday, I posted about a Vexilla run that I was planning for the next day. It was a successful run, netting me all four of the virtual flags that I'd intended on finding, plus seven caches and one benchmark. All in all, it was a very good day. I also discovered a virtual cache that definitely has the WOW factor.

We'd planned on getting the virtual cache, Putt-Putt, Beep-Beep that morning. I wasn't sure what to expect at this cache outside that it was a museum showcasing classic cars. I tend to not read cache pages in depth very often and I hadn't read this one, so I wasn't sure what to expect when we got here. I'd never heard of the Nethercutt Museum, so I figured it was some small collection of cars. We'd get the information for the cache find and be gone. I actually said, "WOW" when we walked in the front door of the museum.

As you can see by the pictures this place was huge and had some magnificent cars in it. There was one entire row of classic Rolls Royce's. Every car, with the exception of one had been restored to pristine condition. The attention to detail was phenomenal. There was evidence that polishing and cleaning is a never ending job in this place. Once we'd found the answers to the questions on the cache page, we could have gone on our merry way. I think we left at least an hour after we'd found the answers, the place was that fun.

One of my favorite cars in the collection was the 47 Woody with real wood paneling and a beautiful yellow paint job. The only thing missing was a surfboard. Then we entered a side room and saw the pièce de résistance. In the side room was the original 1964 ½ Ford Mustang, the first Mustang to be issued a VIN. It was immaculate. I was in serious lust at this point in time.

Eventually, we had explored every nook and cranny of the place and it was time to take our leave and continue our cache run. I'm sure that some auto fanatics could spend an entire day in there. I probably could if I knew that I didn't have any kind of agenda for that particular day. Not only that, the price is right, since it's a free admission.

It's fortunate that this particular virtual was created before the moratorium happened. Hiding a small micro in the bushes outside of the museum wouldn't necessarily get people to come inside the museum. I could see many people just stopping by, logging their find and moving on. They would lose because although the cache was a physical cache, they wouldn't necessarily explore. That's too bad and that's why sometimes, virtuals do have their place in geocaching.

The pictures on this page are just some of about a dozen or so that I posted in my log for the cache. Feel free to click on that link and see the rest of the pictures there. Oh, by the way, did I mention there's a train out in back?

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocache:
Putt-Putt, Beep-Beep - by HenryKnowsBest

The Interstate 5 run

I'm starting a long four day weekend today. As of 2:10, the weekend had begun, but I stayed at school about an hour longer to get some paperwork done before heading out. Then I made a side trip to REI to pick up a windshield mount for my Garmin eTrex Legend. Up until this year, California was one of only two states that didn't allow windshield mounts for anything. As of the first of the year, the state now allows windshield mounts for GPS units as long as they are placed in the lower left corner or the lower right corner of the windshield. I plan to use the mount tomorrow morning when I go on a virtual flag run starting near Sylmar and ending somewhere down in the OC.

If you look at the map, you can see a nice line of 4 virtual flags running in a southeasterly direction, or northwesterly direction along Interstate 5. The purpose of this game is to get to within 100 meters (325 feet) of these virtual flags and tell others what you found there. Points are scored for each flag found. I found the Ecuador flag just south of Corona on the map last week and the flag situated in what looks like the middle of Rancho Cucamonga is pretty much inaccessible to get. The red highlight around the flag indicates that it's about to expire within the week and then won't be there anymore. Not like it's there anyway, since it's just a virtual flag. I could still go to the point, but couldn't score any points for the flag after it expires.

We plan on starting at the northwest end and work our way to the southeast on this particular trip. I ran some PQs around each spot where there would be a flag present, so at each spot we'll grab a couple of caches as well. I looked over some of the caches last night and picked a couple out that I want to try and get. That's one of the reasons I got interested in GeoVexilla. The flags are randomly generated, so when flags come up near where I live, I can go out and get those flags, plus possibly cache in a new area where I haven't cached before.

There appears to be an interesting virtual cache at an automobile museum near Sylmar. I wasn't aware there was a museum up in that particular area, so I'm hoping it should be an interesting side trip for us. There are also a couple of Letterbox Hybrid caches down in Orange County that we might be able to get as well. I've been working on a Letterbox Hybrid of my own, but haven't found the right hiding spot for it as yet, so getting one of these might prove helpful. Letterbox hybrids involve using clues, not necessarily geographic coordinates to find the cache.

All of the caching will be weather dependent since we have a high chance of rain tomorrow. It's actually supposed to rain the entire weekend (who ordered this up on a four day weekend no less?), but we'll see what happens. Tomorrow looks the least likely for us to get wet, so that's a good thing. We do have one more stop that's not marked by a flag on the map and that would be lunch. Since we're going to be driving very close to corporate headquarters of In-n-Out Burger, we're planning on stopping there for lunch. There's a micro there which we hope to grab and a couple of blocks north is a cache hidden near one of the old stations to the Pacific Electric Railway, commonly called the Red Car. For those of you not from Southern California, and have never heard of the Red Car, the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" deals with the eventual demise of the Red Car in a very humorous way. Whether that's actually what happened or not is beside the point. It's a very enjoyable and well done movie and had some good groundbreaking new types of animation in it, pre-Pixar.

I don't see too many obstacles to our run tomorrow. It should be an enjoyable day. I'll write more about it later in the weekend, particularly if I happened to be rained in for the rest of the weekend. I'll not complain though, since the entire state needs a few more good soakings this year and perhaps every year to keep the reservoirs filled. Drought is not a pretty thing in the state of California.

Three stages

My photography in geocaching has taken three distinct phases. When I first started, I was still using my Minolta Maxxum, which I loved dearly, but was showing its age having been a wedding gift to me from my wife back in July 1987. Pictures came few and far between, usually when I was at the end of the roll of film. I'd take the camera out and take some pictures, none that good in my opinion, but just enough to fill out the roll. Once processed, I'd then scan them and add them to the cache logs after the fact.

Sometime in 2002, I purchased a point an Olympus point and shoot, Camedia camera. I liked using that one a lot since it rejuvenated my portrait picture abilities. I would take it to family events and take many pictures. The built in flash was the major bonus with this camera. The Minolta had only an attached flash, that was cumbersome and needed to be remembered, which was not conducive to candid portraits that I preferred to take at family gatherings.

I was, however, still wedded to my beloved Minolta. That summer, the boys and I went camping along the coast of California. I took both cameras along, intending to use the digital camera to record caching adventures and the Maxxum for everything else. At our first stop, my son said, "Dad, why don't you just use the digital camera for everything this time and see what happens afterwards?"

As most people know, there was quite a bit of lag time between taking the picture with an early digital camera and it actually imprinting on the memory card. This caused a couple of problems, but nothing that I couldn't work out. I worked on timing and it went well, although I have to admit that my son jumping the "mini" ravine in the one photo took several tries before I was satisfied with the end result. I've used the Minolta only once since that summer when my son suggested that I go totally digital and only then to empty the roll of film that was in the camera. I used the entire roll of film to take a series of pictures of my in-laws. The first picture was the best of the entire roll. I am so glad I went digital. There's not nearly as much waste as there used to be.

The third phase happened a couple of years ago when I purchased my first SLR Digital, a Sony Alpha. At first I was amazed at the quality of the images. The picture of the leaves is my first picture I took with that camera while on a caching run. This camera has combined the best of both worlds of my first two cameras, built in flash and SLR capability. With this one, I have an excuse to bring the camera every time. I don't necessarily use it at every cache. I mean, how many pictures of lamp post skirts would I have to publish before they would get terribly redundant? I'd say, probably two. But when the opportunity presents itself, I have the camera with me to record our caching expeditions. That makes for a more complete record of our experiences out and about.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
A cache for Mike! aka Snake belly! - by BDC
The Redwood Barely There! - by Scott, Becca, Travis, Max
Cache Out - by CARGOLAX

Another Five Percenter

While out caching last weekend, the group that I was caching with found two very interesting and/or exceptional caches, both of which made my top 5% list. This list is my bookmark of what I consider my top 5% finds. The list changes as caches are added to it or removed because they've been archived. Since this list is public and visible on cache pages I want to keep it current and up to date. There is a cache at the top of the list that is temporarily archived, but I'm hoping the owner of that cache will replace it because I thought it was a good hide.

So what does make a 5 percenter? I guess it's a combination of things for me at least. They don't have to be rugged 5 star hikes to make the list. My average terrain rating for all caches found is a modest 1.58, so I really haven't been on my really tough hides like that. I like a little whimsy when I find caches. Caches that make me chuckle and laugh are usually rated higher than a typical lamppost hide, but then I would be willing to bet that lamppost hides don't rank too highly on most people's cache ratings lists. Then again, maybe I'm just deluding myself.

The cache we found this weekend called Lizard Mouth Cache was a fun cache to find. It was a small container tucked into a small crevice of a rock with several other rocks guarding the cache site, none of which could be moved. We actually had to use a tag team approach to finding it. I could see the cache from the other side of this one rock by getting down and looking underneath it, but because of the size of the rock, I couldn't reach the cache. Cache Viking had to put his arms in between two boulders while I directed his hand movements so he could make the grab. This was point number one for an inovative way of making the grab. I suppose that a single cacher could make the grab, but it would have been tough to do.

After we found the cache, I looked it up on the cache page because I keep a record of my cache finds in my PDA, so I can remember the order of cache finds when I log them later on. I noticed this particular cache was a three digit cache, meaning it was a fairly old cache dating back to the early days of caching in 2001 or so, yet it had a hide date of 2006. Now this didn't make a whole lot of sense until we saw that the cache had been adopted. I didn't read the entire cache page at this time because I'd already gotten the information I needed at the time, so I didn't really think much of this, but something was bugging me about the cache.

The kids enjoyed this cache a lot, probably not from the same perspective as the adults did, but from the endless possibilities for scrambling that lay before them. The area looks like God just poured out his bag of marbles on this hillside and let his rock marbles drop where they may. We watched the kids play for a good half an hour or so and eventually got sucked into their play as well. My favorite picture is one that has large boulders and small kids playing on them. I loved the contrast between the two. Cache Viking noted that the other picture looks like the kids are all saying, "Are you going in there? I'm not going in there. Why don't we wait for one of the adults and then sacrifice them?"

Because this area had also been passed through by the Gap Fire of last summer, the vegetation was thin in most spots, but there were areas where plants were already making a comeback. We found ferns growing in the shade of one boulder using nutrients from some of the ash for sustenance. Small pockets of grasses were starting to take hold and there were still plenty of spots where large patches of lichen still clung to the side of the boulders. There were endless possibilities for pictures and I took full advantage of them. That's usually a pretty good divining rod for me when I decide a cache goes on my top 5% list. If I've taken a lot of pictures, it usually means that the site was a pretty good one.

When I got home that evening, I took a longer look at the cache page and discovered that this cache was at least a second generation cache, meaning it had been muggled sometime in the past and had been replaced. The original had been hidden by Jeremy Irish, the owner of Groundspeak, the company that basically runs the Geocaching website. I found that rather interesting, even if it wasn't the original container. It almost felt like one of those 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon type of things.

With the kids having such a good time, great photo possibilities, a good hiding spot, great views, a short hike and the history behind the cache, I felt this one was a worthy addition to my list. As noted above, the list does change and caches get moved off the list as I find other caches that are more worthy. This cache didn't have great swag, it wasn't a large container, nor did it have a longish hike attached to it. It was the other intangibles around the cache that made it a good cache in my opinion. And, unless this cache gets muggled, I'm pretty sure this one will stay on the list for a long time.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocache:
Lizard Mouth Cache - by MJJJFISHER (Adopted from Big Daddy)

Survival of the fittest

Saturday, I went caching with friends from a couple of places in the southland. We ended up meeting in the hills above Santa Barbara for a caching expedition of "epic" proportions. It didn't work out the way we'd planned it, but that's OK, because we still had an enjoyable adventure. Life gave us lemons and we made some lemonade.

When we'd planned this trip, our main goal for the day was to find C' ISMUHU, a puzzle cache by IGBAY OOBAY who is known for his challenging puzzle caches. After finding a couple of preliminary caches, we met up and then drove up to the trailhead to start our adventure. Unfortunately, the area where this cache had been placed was closed for rehabilitation of the flora due to the Gap Fire that roared through the area last July. Signs were posted everywhere stating the area was closed and would be closed until September 2009. So we punted.

The signs also stated that the Lizard's Mouth area along this road had been re-opened, so we decided to drive up there and try our luck with some of the caches up there. We got up to the end of the road and found a place to park and then started a hike down to Western Skyway 3. The dirt road is apparently being let go, as it was quite rough and rocky and a 4WD vehicle would have been needed to get down it had it been open, but it was closed to vehicular traffic probably due to the fire.

Since we were hiking, it made for a pleasant walk without having to worry about traffic coming or going along the road. The distance to the cache was approximately .31 miles, but we walked over a half mile down to get to the cache because of the way the road bent around the hillside. At one point, I thought we were going to have to turn back because my GPSr was making it look like the cache was on the other side of the ridge we were walking around. Two more steps or so and the GPSr righted itself and we were in the ballpark again and on the right trail. I'll blame signal bounce for that one since we were very close to a large cliff as we were walking.

Once at ground zero, I wasn't very optimistic about finding the cache. The entire area had been burned out from the Gap Fire and there wasn't much living plant material around. I spotted a melted piece of plastic and expressed my thoughts that we might be very lucky if we were able to find the cache due to the fire that had passed through this area. But when we looked at the cache page, we noticed the cache had been found on the 18th of January, so we knew it to be here, unless it had been muggled between then and now.

As we continued to search, I spotted something that didn't quite look right and asked the Tadpole to check it out. Sure enough, it was the cache. As you can see from the picture, the cache had suffered some fire damage, but all the contents were OK. For the most part, it was pretty much out in the open the day we found it. The picture shows exactly how we found it. I can only imagine that it had been hidden under one of those infamous geocaching SPRs (Suspicious Pile of Rocks) to have survived the fire with minimal damage. I had to put this one on my 5% list, after it had survived what it had.

A similar fire passed through the Chino Hills area recently, burning 95% of Chino Hills State Park. On a ridge, just off a fire road in the park, is the cache San Juan Hill. This cache was the second cache I had ever found. It was found after a 2 and half mile hike from the Orange County side of the park. We met other geocachers on the trail that day and the cache has special meaning to me, because it was the longest surviving cache that I'd found. Unfortunately, it's probably gone due to the fire that went through the park last year. However, seeing the Western Skyway 3 cache, I feel there's still hope. Since the Chino Hills State Park is still closed, I guess we won't know for sure for a little bit. I will continue to hold out hope in the interim.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocache:
Western Skyway 3 - by GeoBigDogs

Backyard discoveries

Yesterday, I went up into Johnson's Pasture again to hide the first stage of Exploring the Technology, the multi-cache the Tadpole and I worked on this weekend. When I got home from work, I noticed that he wasn't home from school yet. When my other son got home about thirty seconds later, I asked him about it and he didn't know anything, so I called the Tadpole. Gotta love technology sometimes. I reminded him about letting me know where he was if he wasn't going to come right home and then asked him if he wanted to help hide the first stage, which he agreed to do, so I went and picked him up.

This was probably one of the best calls about geocaching that I've ever made. Had I headed up the hill without him, I probably would have gone up with the single purpose of hiding the cache, then getting back home and clicking that, "Yes, it's active" button on the cache page so it would go to a reviewer for approval. But, on the way back from the hide, Tadpole noted to me, "You know, we've never gone up that way before." And yes, he was right, because we'd never gone up the trail to the west of us. On the map, it's labeled at B P L Rd. As you can see, it's also bereft of caches. The four caches in a line from left to right are, Pasture-ized, Exploring the Technology, Rusted Gate and Melted Cheese.

I'm really at a loss as to why I've never explored this part of the trail before, but there's all sorts of terrain over on that side that's open for some neat caching. As we walked along the road, we encountered a nice trail that wound its way to the north along a ridge. We walked on that one about a quarter mile and it didn't seem to be petering out at all, so I expect that it would eventually hook up with another fire road to the north of the B P L Rd.

After hiking back out to the main road, we took it further west to another spot overlooking the city below. The possibilites for caching and for hiking were tremendous and I'd never even thought about going that way before. I estimate the trail is about 1.5 miles in length, so roughly 3 miles over and back. And it's all about 2.5 miles away from my house, once again, literally in my own back yard and I hadn't even realized it before yesterday. I owe a debt of gratitude to my son for having the foresight to explore new territory.

Hidden weekend

Part of the game of geocaching is hiding caches. If no one were to hide any caches, how would anyone find any? As noted in this post from earlier in the month, I had several caches ready and waiting for me to get out and hide them. This weekend became that time.

About 2 miles north of my house is a large plot of land known locally as Johnson's Pasture which was purchased by the city to remain open space for the enjoyment of everyone in the city. It is adjacent to the Claremont Wilderness Park which abuts the pasture to the east. There are a series of fire roads which can be used as walking trails through both parks. Inside the wilderness park is a five mile loop trail that is quite strenuous and used quite frequently. There are side spur fire roads leading from Johnson's Pasture over to the wilderness park. There is not loop within Johnson's Pasture, but when geocaching friends come to visit, we usually end up taking two cars and creating a shuttle. We park over by the wilderness park, then drive everyone over to the Johnson's Pasture area and then hike from there over and down to the parking lot at the wilderness park. It's about a five and half mile trek that way and a nice way to find a bunch of caches.

Most of the caches up in these two parks were hidden by me. I enjoy roaming around the two areas and whenever I feel the need to hide a cache, that's usually where I end up going first. This weekend was not exception. The Tadpole and I loaded up our backpacks with four caches, took our GPSrs and hit the trail. As long as we were up there, we might as well find some of the caches that my son hadn't found yet. He found the first one as we entered into Johnson's Pasture. Then we hiked up to a mystery cache of mine to do a maintenance check on it. After the Tadpole found that one, we tried to find a spot in between these two caches that would work, but they were too close together to hide another one, so we moved on to where I wanted to hide the cache the Cheeseheads sent to me at Christmas.

There is a microwave tower that dominates this area, since it's on one of the high hills in the two parks. It serves as a benchmark for surveyors as well and I thought it would make an excellent spot for a cache hide. We hiked up there and found several spots where a nice sized cache could be hidden. Once we chose the site, we got coordinates for it and then started back down. As we had been hiking up, we'd been taking coordinate readings for a letterbox cache that I wanted to hide up here, but couldn't find a good spot. I may have to look along another trail for a spot to hide that one. But on our way down, we found a perfect spot for a small decon container and hid that one as well.

We'd also been working on a multi-cache. I had already scouted out the final location. That wasn't a problem, but we needed to check out possible sites for the first stage of the multi. Once we agreed on a good spot for the first part it was time to make our way back home. We came back the next day to take some final readings for the multi-cache as well as take some pictures that I could post on the cache pages. At post time for this entry, I'm still waiting for the paint to dry on the first stage. The wet weather we've been having this past week hasn't been helping, so I brought it inside today in the hopes that will quicken the process. I suspect that I will be making one more hike up there tomorrow after school to hide the first stage and complete that cache.

The first two, Melted Cheese and Rusted Gate have already been approved and I would expect the third, Exploring the Technology to be approved sometime this week. That will bring me up to 25 hides. The Tadpole and I also discussed how we should list these. We agreed that we should list them under my geocaching account, but we should come up with some kind of name that would let people know that it was both of us that worked out the hide. We both like what we decided as a moniker for the two of us.

Pictures were taken at or near the following caches:
Melted Cheese - by The Swamp Things
Rusted Gate - by The Swamp Things
Exploring the Technology - by The Swamp Things

On the Boardwalk

It really wasn't the boardwalk, but last Monday I actually went out on a pier to get a virtual cache and get a picture taken for a webcam cache. The virtual was in the middle of the pier near one of the entrances to the amusement park built on the pier. It was a fairly easy virtual because I only had to answer a couple of questions to gain credit for the find. The webcam was a little more difficult. I had a cacher prepped for the picture, but I originally thought I was going to be there before noon, but I was there in the morning when this cacher wasn't available, so I called my son and walked him through the steps. As it turned out, the webcam wasn't broadcasting pictures, so I had to resort to having my picture taken at the right spot to get credit. I was expecting this to happen, since the webcam had been out since Saturday evening. When I got home to log the cache, the webcam was back up and operational. Doesn't that always seem to happen?

The way everything was laid out on the pier, it gave much the same feel of an old fashioned boardwalk, complete with carnival barkers, games of chance and a couple of thrill rides, including a giant Ferris wheel and a rather tame looking rollercoaster. I knew this was going to be there when I came out and tried to get the Tadpole to come along for the ride, but he wasn't interested, so I came alone. Hopefully, he'll come next time I come out this way. I think he would have had a good time.

It's been years since I've been on a pier of any kind. I can remember as a child in the mid 1960s, my parents would take us down to Newport Beach frequently where we'd walk out on the pier and get out over the ocean. I would love to look into the buckets of the fishermen on the pier to see what they'd caught that day. There were other fishermen who'd been out in the ocean who would bring their small boats right up onto the beach and sell their fish directly from their boats. Occasionally, my father would bust out his wallet and we'd have very fresh fish, usually halibut, sometimes swordfish for dinner that evening.

The last pier I was on, was more of a boat dock and it was located on Catalina Island, 24 miles away from Los Angeles. For a couple of years, we had a science camp field trip for our 8th graders where we'd take them over to Catalina Island, away from the touristy places near Avalon and teach them different things about the ocean that you couldn't do in the classroom. The hands on labs with plenty of ocean critters was, for many of my students, the first time they'd encountered many of the creatures in the Pacific Ocean. While on the Santa Monica Pier on Monday, the air was so clear, I could see all the way to Catalina, something that is becoming increasingly difficult to do here, because of ocean clouds (called the marine layer here) that block the view, but also because of the smog the area generates.

The last actual boardwalk I've been on, in fact the only boardwalk I've been on, would be the Santa Cruz boardwalk. I was up in Santa Cruz with a couple of buddies of mine right after we'd graduated from high school. This was our senior trip and we made the most of it, camping in different spots along the coast of California. My friend's sister was attending UC Santa Cruz and so when we got up there, we crashed at her apartment. That evening, we went down to the boardwalk and enjoyed the sights and sounds of the place. One of the highlights of the boardwalk was the Giant Dipper, a large wooden rollercoaster that consistently rates in the top ten of great woodie rides by coaster enthusiasts. I couldn't tell you how many times we rode it that evening, but it definitely makes my top 10 list as well.

The Santa Monica Pier, which I visited this weekend was a much smaller version of the Santa Cruz boardwalk. The Ferris wheel was large, but most of the other rides were scaled down versions of rides that I've seen before. As noted above, the rollercoaster appeared to be quite tame, though I didn't ride it. Had the Tadpole been along, I'm pretty sure we'd have ridden it, but with a couple of helixes and one and a half small drops, I don't think that one will make anyone's major list.

The atmosphere of the place is what I enjoyed. I could constantly hear the waves crash on the beach as I walked around the pier taking in the sights and getting plenty of pictures. The screams of kids as they rode the rides told of their enjoyment, or terror in some cases, of the different rides there. The park was very colorful and noisy, just what I believe one would expect of this kind of amusement park. And yet, there was a quiet side of the pier as well.

The pier extended out quite a ways into the Pacific Ocean and the amusement park is situated close to the entrance to the pier. There is a good portion of the pier that extends beyond the park. There's where the fishermen are, plying their craft. It was a different kind of attitude there. There wasn't any kind of bustle. Fishermen march to their own drummer I suspect and they have this inner calm. I don't have that kind of patience to be a fisherman. Throw that hook in and a fish better start playing with the bait pretty quickly, or I'm going to be bored.

As you can probably guess, I'm more attracted to the glitz of the park as opposed to the other extreme also found on the pier. And yet, I could relate to these people, because I know that I can sit for hours doing things that I enjoy doing, like reading a book, or contemplating a set of photographs. I used to do needlepoint and cross stitching for enjoyment, but can't do that anymore, because a mild case of carpal tunnel syndrome gets in the way. So I can understand the appeal of fishing, but it's just not for me.

While I was walking along the end of the pier, I noticed a couple of people pulling in their lines. They appeared to have snagged each other's lines and were trying to get them untangled. As they brought the lines up, I head one gentlemen state, "Man, that was a big sea bass that got away!" Now, I've grown up believing the myth that fishermen tell tall tales and the stories get taller by the day, and yet I still kept wondering to myself how big that fish was. I wished I'd been there a couple of minutes earlier, so I could have seen the size of the fish for myself. I wonder how big that fish has become in the story now that it's been a couple of days?

Pictures were taken at or near the following caches:
Santa Monica Pier - by GeoCraig
Don't Get Sucked In !! - by Splashman