Anniversary

9 years ago today, I was in a Where's George chat room when I first heard about Geocaching.  Later that evening, I looked over the site, checked out the FAQ page and signed up.  Two days later, I visited my local Wal*Mart and purchased a Garmin 12, the same model my father-in-law already owned.  Three days after that, my two sons and I drove the 7 miles to the closest cache and then hiked a half a mile to find a large bucket, painted black hidden under a large bush on the other side of a creek.  I was hooked, still am after 9 years of doing this.

Today, I went out and celebrated my "anniversary" by finding a couple of caches near where I work.  I've seen both types of hides before, but they were creative nonetheless for suburban type caches.  I enjoyed the afternoon and had a good time finding the two caches.  With those two finds, I'm currently at 2979 finds.  That's an average of 331 finds per year.  It's been fun and I'm looking forward to the next year.  Who knows what the next year or years will bring, but I'm sure I'll find some interesting caches on the way, hopefully most that will make me think.

Picture was taken near the following geocaches:
Wilderness Park Cache - by Elliott Aldrich
7 Miles Away and a Half Mile Hike - by Webfoot

Salinas

One of the fun aspects of geocaching is when you get to explore a new area and learn something from that area.  When I went to college, a friend of mine was from Salinas.  I didn't really think much of this except when I would come home along the 101 and drive by Salinas and think, "Oh, that's where so and so lives."  I had the stamina of a college student, but then again, I was, so it was easy to make a 12 hour drive, and be as fresh as a daisy when I was done.

Stopping?  Heck, we'd stop once for lunch, and a couple of times for gas and that was about it.  Today, I don't have the stamina for that kind of driving and although I probably stop less for gas, I do stop more occasionally to smell the roses, enjoy the air and to just plain stretch.  That's where geocaching come in.  It clears my head on those long drives.

Now that I have a reason to drive up the 101 again, Salinas comes into view every time we drive to or from Santa Cruz.  There's also a couple of interesting spots in town that deserved our scrutiny and we stopped this last time to check out some of the architecture and history of Salinas, CA.

Salinas is at the juncture where we leave the 101 to cut over to the coast if we're heading up to Santa Cruz.  On our way back, it's obviously, just the opposite.  We were heading south, toward home and driving through the edge of Salinas when I noticed a couple of caches just west of our intended route pop up on my GPS's screen.  I knew there were a couple of virtual caches near here and was delighted to see that both of them were right here.

This particular virtual had us examining some historic homes along a two block stretch of road in the old town part of Salinas.  The second house was the one that I particularly enjoyed the most because it was the birthplace of John Steinbeck, author of The Grapes of Wrath and The Red Pony, plus many other stories.  I can remember reading The Red Pony in junior high and I believe I ended up reading The Grapes of Wrath in either high school or college, but my memory is a little shaky on that second point.

Unfortunately, the house which is open for tours was closed that early in the morning when we were there, so we couldn't tour the inside of the house, but that will give us another excuse to come back through and stop.  While on this walking tour near Steinbeck's house we also ended up seeing a house that was home to the first female butcher of Salinas and another house where one of the first pharmacists in town lived.  The Tadpole also learned what a "dormer" was when we had to count them on one of the house that this virtual cache took us too.  As he has stated previously, he likes virtuals because you usually learn something while finding them.  I have to concur.

Salinas is obviously very proud of Steinbeck's roots as they have the John Steinbeck Library in town and the National Steinbeck Center which houses the largest collection of John Steinbeck archives in the world.  They should be proud.  Not many cities can be claimed as the hometown of a Pulitzer Prize winner and a Nobel Prize winner.  The other virtual in town we ended up deciding to save for another day.  I'm sure we'll get a similar set of stories from those historic building as well.  Perhaps we'll have more time to explore the Steinbeck Center as well.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocache:
Historic Homes - by The Plunketts

The King's Highway

Growing up in Orange County, California, I was constantly reminded about local history during school, plus my parents took us to many historical locations around where we lived so that we knew about the local history of both Orange County and of California.  Local history, no matter where you happen to be can be quite fascinating.  When we went on camping trips in summer to other states, my dad would always make sure that if we were near a state capital building, that we'd get a picture taken near it, or try to arrange a tour of the building.

I've eaten a picnic lunch on the grounds of the state capital building in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  I've also toured the capital buildings in Olympia, WA, Salt Lake City, UT, and Denver, CO.  Curiously, though we did this for other states, we never visited the state capital.  I know one of my sisters took a field trip to Sacramento to visit the capital, but for some reason, I never have been.  This summer, I intend to remedy this with the Tadpole in tow.

Part of the history of California is El Camino Real, the King's Highway, which stretches from San Diego to Sonoma where the Bear Flag Revolt happened, that started California on its way to independence from Mexico and eventual statehood in 1850.  El Camino Real was a road developed over time to link up the missions established by Father Junipero Serra.  Fr. Serra helped establish 21 missions in the late 1700s and early 1800s along the coast of  California and there became a need to link them together for transportation and economic purposes.  Thus became, El Camino Real.  

The actual road today is, for the most part, gone, but there are bell markers along the side of Hwy 101 for most of its length between Sonoma and San Diego indicating where the original road had been.  Other highways are also incorporated into the King's Highway, but the 101 is the main artery north and south of the central coast of California where most of the missions were constructed.  As we were driving down the 101 from our trip north a couple of weeks ago, I noticed several of the bell markers.  There is a Waymarking category for the bells and since I'm going to be using the 101 on a frequent basis over the next several years because of my son's choice of schools, it makes sense to put this one on my waymarking list of things to watch out for in the future.

As is our custom, we found several geocaches on the way down from Santa Cruz, including two at Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, which was established in 1791, the 11th of the 21 missions to be so created.  Most of this particular mission appeared to be recreated.  There were several original adobe walls near the entrance and I found it very curious that these original walls weren't protected in some way from the weather.  At San Juan Capistrano, there are some original walls and they are enclosed in acrylic forms so they are protected from the elements, yet still visible to people visiting the museum.

There also appeared to be some archeological digs going on behind several of the main buildings at the mission and it's probably a work in process.  The mission is 2 miles away from Highway 101, and probably doesn't get many visitors, which probably means that funding for projects are not nearly as plentiful as they would be in Orange County where San Juan Capistrano is located.

We toured the two buildings, which included the church and chapel of the mission, looking at the exhibits first before heading out to get the information needed for the virtual cache there or finding the regular cache hidden by the entrance to the grounds.  It was a nice quiet spot to get out and stretch our legs and learn a little bit more about California.  I have now visited 6 of the 21 missions, with Soledad being the farthest north.  I'm sure there will be more opportunities in the next couple of years to visit other missions along the King's Highway.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
Mission Possible - by needlepointone and zieber
Mission: Soledad - by Great Scott!

Fragility of Life

This has been an upside down kind of week.  I had several blogs rattling around in the back of my mind, but events of the week changed those thoughts entirely.  The fragility of life intervened this week and so I feel I must write about this instead.

Several months ago, I was able to reconnect with a friend of mine from high school.  He sat behind me in my U.S. History class and I'm pretty sure I'd met him in junior high.  I hadn't seen him since our ten year reunion, the last one I attended, but when I noticed his name show up on Facebook, I didn't hesitate to add Richard as a friend of mine.

During the next two months, I found myself interacting with Richard several times.  He had become a fan of Sleeping in Tents, a blog site dedicated to tent camping.  I found the site interesting and looked over some of the entries, liked what I saw and figured that I might as well become a fan as well.  During this same time period, I discovered that he'd recently gotten married to my high school physics lab partner.  The two of them were two of the nicest people I was acquainted with in high school.

Unfortunately, this blog does not have a very happy ending.  Richard passed away this past Monday of a heart attack.  Just last week, he'd been responding to one of my posts.  Now, he's gone.  Today, I mourn for his wife and for his memory.  Although we hadn't been reconnected for very long, I know I shall miss him.  Thank you for the short time we had Richard.

Honored

Today I found a cache.  Just one, but it was a nice one.  I was aware this one was going to come on line sometime today as the cache owner had forewarned me about the possibility of a new cache in my area.  When I left the house this morning at 10:30 to find some virtual flags in GeoVexilla, it hadn't come on-line yet, so I really didn't think much of it.

When I got home to log the flags that I'd found, I noticed an email from the cache owner encouraging me to get out there and find it and since the cache was only 1.62 "Crow Miles" away from home, I headed out again, much to the consternation of my wife.  I just told her that a cache had been hidden in my honor and that I wanted to go out and find it. That seemed like a good enough reason for her, and away I went.

When I got to ground zero, there were already two people standing there.  Looking at them, I didn't recognize them, but we made introductions and they were two other local cachers, whom I hadn't met, so that was a bonus right there.  We spent a good ten to fifteen minutes looking for the cache and as I noted in my log, had the cache been alive, it would have bitten me on one of my webbed feet.  I soon spotted the cache, then backed off for the other cacher to have the opportunity of finding the cache as well.

We exchanged some more pleasantries and then made our separate ways home.  I decided to take a picture, just to dispel any rumors that surface from time to time as to where I actually got my cache name.

I am still at a loss for words that maddmaxxawr wanted to place a cache in my honor.  I hope that I can live up to the standards that I have apparently been setting these many years that I have been caching.  I know he's a follower of this blog, so I'll publicly thank him here for the great honor.

Picture was taken at the following geocache:
Webfoot has Webbfeet in Webb Canyon - by maddmaxxawr

Brotherly Love

Every now and then, my older son surprises me.  This past weekend, I took the Tadpole north to visit his sister in Stockton and his brother in Santa Cruz.  I had a four day weekend, so it was easy to pull him out of school for a day so we could do this in a leisurely sort of way.  We spent one of the days in Santa Cruz, enjoying the lovely weather and touring the campus, as well as restocking my son's dorm pantry with goodies purchased at the local Costco.

When we first got there, he offered to give us a tour of the campus, primarily for his brother's benefit, since I've been to the campus several times.  Santa Cruz's campus is located on the side of a hill, so there's several bridges that cross ravines and in general, it's a pretty hilly campus, but a very beautiful one.  We saw 18 deer on campus that day, way more than my son said was usual.  Apparently, the deer were enjoying the good weather just like we were.

About half way through our walk, my son turned to me and asked me whether we wanted to find any geocaches.  Uh, sure son, but you're the one who calls geocaching, that "dorky thing Dad does" with my younger brother.  But this time he was honestly sincere that we have a good time and he knew we liked to geocache.  I hadn't brought the GPSr with me because I hadn't expected to geocache much that day, but I had brought along the iTouch which has all of my geocaching notes.  Because of the WiFi on campus, I was able to pull up the Geocaching site and I noticed a cache called Thimann Tribulation.

My son then pointed and said that the building we were standing next to was Thimann Hall. So we looked up the description and the hint and figured out where the cache was hidden, finding it in what I call "Commando Style," that is, without the use of the GPS.  Not a bad way to make geocaching a little bit more challenging.  I think this was about the 6th or 7th cache that I've found without using the GPSr.

My son even consented to several pictures.  It's very hard to get a good picture of him since he doesn't seem to like his picture being taken, but this day was also an exception, as I got several good ones of him around campus.  The Tadpole commented after we left for the day that he had really enjoyed himself and really enjoyed spending time with his brother.  That's a good thing, in my opinion.  For those of you who don't have teenagers yet, this is what is in store for you.  The Tadpole was shorter than his brother when his brother left for school last September.  The kid is a bottomless pit right now.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocache:
WUPH4_Best Soccer view in the world - by Mayela Mingi

It's that time of year again

February rolls around every year and because of the holidays attached to that month, I usually get to do a nice long road trip north to visit my children.  My district this year decided that we would take one long 4 day weekend as opposed to two 3 day weekends as we have in other years.  This Friday, I'm going to be taking the youngest out of school a little bit early and we'll head north to visit both of his siblings who are matriculating in college.

Our first stop will be Stockton where my daughter has been attending school at the University of the Pacific, majoring in violin performance and music education.  We'll probably have lots of time to geocache on Saturday, since my daughter is working most of the day helping out the music department, but we'll get to spend some time with her both Friday and Saturday nights.  The Tadpole will get a chance to look around campus as well.  He's had several opportunities to tour college campuses in the past year and even though he's still three years away from that step, he's enjoying the process.

Following our visit to the Stockton area, we'll head over late Saturday night to Santa Cruz.  My older son is in his first year at University of California at Santa Cruz.  He hasn't declared his major yet, but as noted above, he's still a freshman so he has some time to make that decision.  Right now, he's just enjoying the experience.  Most of Sunday will be spent visiting with him and touring the campus for the Tadpole.

Monday, we'll head home, geocaching along the way.  We have 9 travel bugs in our possession that we've picked up over the last couple of weeks, so we'll be distributing them freely across the trek we plan to take as well.  For those who are interested, I've created a bookmark of the cache route we might take.  The bookmark list has just about 300 caches in it, so I'll probably do two spot PQs for this trip, one centered on Stockton and the other centered on Santa Cruz.

It will definitely be a whirlwind trip, but it should be fun.  This will be the first road trip that I'll be taking the Tadpole on that doesn't involve camping.  We'll see how he adjusts to motel life.

Out of this world and other things

I thought I'd seen everything, but this has to be the hardest cache ever to find, especially since it's several hundred miles above the Earth's surface.  Richard Garriott, one of the astronauts that have been on the International Space Station (ISS), hid a geocache in one of the lockers on the ISS.  Not that I have enough money to buy my way on to one of the space tourism rockets planning on heading there probably in the next decade, but that would be a very cool cache to find.

In other news, Jeremy, the founder of Groundspeak, which runs geocaching.com tweeted about a travel bug rescue site that has started up recently.  Here's the video posted to the front page of the travel bug rescue site.



I checked out the map on the site and discovered two travel bugs that are in need of rescuing near me.  Near me is relative since they are both about 100 miles away from me. I've bookmarked the page for future reference.  The likelihood that we could get close to rescue a travel bug would probably go up during the summer months when we're planning our camping trips.

The one cache near San Diego looks like it either got muggled or washed away.  Reading the logs on that particular cache page indicates that the travel bug in question (Hoofy) isn't in the cache anymore.  It's still an interesting concept that could work as the site grows.