Weekend Respite

With over 7 inches of rain falling in the Southern California area over the past week, the weekend dawned bright, and for the most part sunny.  There were patchy clouds in the sky, and the mountains were out in all of their glory.  From the looks of things, it appears as if the snow level was down to about 4000 feet or so.  That's Mt. San Gorgonio, which tops out at over 11,500 feet.  Beyond San Gorgonio would be Joshua Tree National Park.

The Tadpole and I went out on Saturday, first to visit my mom who's in the hospital recuperating from hip replacement surgery, and then secondly to pick up some caches.  We did a circuitous route through Riverside and then north to Redlands and finally west through Rancho Cucamonga.  We found a variety of caches, including one virtual cache which I ended up putting on my top 5% list.  Our last three caches, I'd done some research on and we didn't have any coordinates for the three caches.  We ended up finding all three of them without the benefit of the GPSr.  The cache page descriptions and Google satellite images were enough.

With more rain forecast for this week, we'll have to hope that the weather cooperates on the weekend.  Until then, we'll enjoy these respites between raindrops.

Picture was taken near Bravest of the Brave - by SlowMover

More Weather

The second of three storms blew through here today.  We actually had blue sky this morning with some overcast, but the day became progressively colder and darker.  It started raining hard just after noon.  These pictures were taken around 4 in the afternoon after a half an inch of rain had fallen.  We've received more rain since then and now the biggest storm is coming.

Inclement Weather

It's raining in Southern California.  I have a weather station in my backyard with a minimum and maximum thermometer plus a rain gauge.  So far, we've received a little more than 2 inches of rain from this first of three storms.  There's been a respite since about 4 in the afternoon so we must be between storms at the moment.  The third one is supposed to pack the biggest punch.

If you're reading this from the east, you're probably thinking that 2 inches isn't very much.  Most of Southern California is desert to semi-desert.  Where I live, we average 13 inches of rain per year.  2 inches in a 24 hour period is a lot of rain.   The hillsides absorb a lot of it, but if there have been fires recently, then there will be problems with mudslides.  The Tadpole and I went out to find some virtual flags today and we actually heard a broadcast from the emergency broadcast network this afternoon, warning about flash floods in certain areas.  I think that's only the second time I have ever heard an actual emergency broadcast on radio or the television.

More to the point however is I used to think rain hindered my ability to find caches.  I don't think that way anymore, although the rain did a number on us today, but I'll get to that later.  With inclement weather, a geocacher just needs to have a different mindset.  On the 30th of last month, Chaosmanor came out here to go on a hike with me.  By the time he got over here, it was raining.  Well, at least raining by Southern California standards, which is mostly a drizzle with occasional bouts of slightly heavier rain.

We could have gone out, but would have been hiking in mud which didn't sound like a whole lot of fun, so we opted to do some suburban caching.  That was the best decision we did because we had a great time and found many caches that I'd passed up in the past due to high muggle activity.  With the rain, muggles don't go out unless they actually have to and so most geocaches that tout on the cache page something along the line of "high muggle area" don't have that problem when it's raining.

This might not be much of a revelation to most, but I hadn't really thought that seriously about it.  My thoughts about rain was it made caching less fun.  My glasses would get wet and I wouldn't be able to see as clearly.  Clothes would get wet when you searched in bushes, etc.  Chaosmanor and I have cached in the rain a couple of times, but that time last month, for whatever reason, was the eye opener for me. We found a lot of caches and enjoyed the time caching and the time together.  As you can see from the pictures, places where caches might be hidden were quite vacant as opposed to what they might look like on a nice day.

Needless to say, I didn't hesitate to go out today, even though it was pouring.  I figured that the rain would slacken at some point and we might be able to get a couple of caches in between the virtual flags we were seeking.  We'd come to an agreement that if it wasn't really pouring, we might try for a cache here or there.  The weather really didn't cooperate with us at all.   It seemed like every time we got to a flag spot, it would be pouring, while when we were commuting between flags, it wasn't raining as hard.  That's how it goes some days.

We did find a couple of caches near the end of our trek today.  One was a lamppost hide in a parking lot.  Rain kept the muggles away and we found it quickly.  Another was by the side of a road.  There weren't any joggers to bother us.  I think the Tadpole and I both decided that we're not going to let a little weather deter us from our "appointed rounds."

Another planet?

I like to joke with people that I live in the state of confusion, otherwise known as California. A friend of mine suggested that California really is another planet. In some ways, I think he's right. Most of the country is locked up with snow, and while parts of California has had a lot of snow, I went caching in shirt sleeves yesterday. Not too many places in North America when one can go geocaching for an extended period of time on December 30th and not come back without a case of frostbite.

While most of the country tends to get four distinct seasons, here in California, we tend to get three - dry season, fall and wet season. The dry season runs from late March until mid November. It can also be called the fire season. Then we get fall from then until early January, then it's the wet season. Your mileage may vary depending upon where you happen to live in California, but for the most part, that's the way it goes here. I only have to look in my back yard where my silver maple tree is still shedding leaves.

While out caching, we came upon a cache site that led us to some beautiful fall color.

The leaves were a beautiful golden color and anywhere else, one would assume that it was mid September. Cool crisp nights followed by mild days are typical for this time of year. That's us right now, only it's the last day of the year. And yet at the same time we had views of the local mountains covered in snow, indicating that it really is winter up there.

I have to say I'm lucky. Because of where I live, I can get out and cache on a fairly

regular basis without having to worry about the weather. The days of rainy weather are few and far between, while the really cold stuff happens infrequently and isn't much of a bother either. I could just as easily be in Minnesota or Wisconsin as out here had my dad found a teaching job there instead of here back in 1961.

Since the new year is upon us, I want to take part of this time and make my geocaching resolutions for the upcoming year.

1. Continue to hide at a rate of 1 to 100 finds. I have 22 hides, with 2306 finds after yesterday's excursion. I'm working on three caches right now that will keep that resolution going up through 2500 finds.
2. Continue to hide, in my opinion, high quality caches. Nothing teaches more than a good example. If I hide quality caches, then hopefully, it will encourage others to hide quality caches and we won't have as many parking lot lamp post cache hides.
3. Don't let the hobby interfere with what is really important in life. I have a wife who depends upon me to cook most of our meals in the non-summer months and I have three children who depend upon me to "bring home the bacon" so they can do things, like attend the college of their choice, etc. This hobby is not more important than that.
4. Keep reminding myself, that it's not about the numbers, although we attach numbers to just about everything we do. Yeah, it's fun to look at how many caches I've found, but it shouldn't be the reason I go out and cache.
5. Have fun with the hobby. If it becomes a chore, then is it really a hobby anymore? This should be fun and I intend to keep it that way.
   

Those are my caching resolution for the upcoming 2009 caching year. Happy New Year everyone.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
Bison Chips - by TheDeviousMaxPower

View of the Canyon - by jerrytcher