A Day of New Beginnings

Today we took some new geocachers out to find some caches. We decided to walk the bike trail in various parts of Miner's Ravine and see what they could find. Hopefully, they would see several types of containers and hide locations that would prepare them for the great world of geocaching.

The new cachers are our neighbor (imawahl), her son (Skiritai72) and her three grandchildren (they were along for the fun). We let them follow their GPS receivers and look for a bit before we offered clues. OK, occasionally we whispered a few additional words in the ears of the grandkids so they could make the find. It was a learning opportunity for all of them and they did well!

It was a long hot day, but we were all having fun so we hardly noticed! Our last cache in the ravine was the Alice in Wonderland--Pool of Tears. It was the highlight of the day as it gave them an opportunity to cool off a bit. Unfortunately, we forgot to take a picture so they will each have to create their own image of the cache.

We ended the day at Starbucks courtesy of imawahl and Skiritai72--thank you very much.

Great fun! Maybe there will be at least two more geocachers in the world.

Tahoe in June

I can’t believe it, we actually left Cynthia & Mike’s house before our projected departure time of 7:00 AM. True, it was only by 20 minutes, but 20 minutes is 20 minutes. Besides, we had to make our traditional stop at Starbucks. By the time we had our coffee in hand, it was still before 7 and we were on our way to Tahoe. We headed out via the Mt. Rose Highway. Up, Up, Up we went. Round, round, round we went! It was a “steep” climb from roughly 4100 ft. to 8260 where we stopped for our first cache at the Mt. Rose Ski Resort. We actually got to 8889 before we crossed over the “Highest Year Round Sierra Pass” and headed down into the Tahoe area.

One of our first caches we found was just off the Cave Rock Trailhead, The walk to the cache was pleasant enough, but then we had to suspend ourselves on the side of a hill. Mike and I headed down hill, first to the trees and then to some rocks. We were “climbing” all over that tree as we were sure it was there somehwere. I eventually found the cache a little further down the trail. It was a fake rock next to a larger rock under a bush. I was precariously balanced while I signed the log with our geocaching names. There are lots of pictures of that one!

We spent a little time in a wooded location along a fire trail and found the cache decorated with the pieces of a pine cone. After finding the cache, we walked to a nearby park and watched a few minutes of a baseball game in progress. One ended and another started while we watched. We were taking a rest.





After that we headed to a nearby cemetery. It was an old cemetery and one of the neighbors came over to ask if we knew anyone residing in the cemetery. We told him no, that we just had an interest in old cemeteries. I took some pictures and we chatted a while to distract from what the others were doing. We had quite a lengthy discussion about cemeteries, genealogy, and the important Tahoe families that were buried here. Eventually, he got tired and returned to his house. Then we could get down to business and find the cache! He was a talkative sort!

At one point, we were on the edge of a fabulous meadow. It really was beautiful. Cynthia and I posed for Larry to take our picture while Mike grabbed the cache and signed the log. The neighbors were right there in their backyard so we had to be stealthy! We got a good picture out of the deal and all their attention was focused on us.




A little further along on Hwy 89, we came to the Promanade Walk. The Old Tallac Hotel used to be the site of a major resort at Lake Tahoe. There is an old walkway that connected this hotel with the Tallac Point House. The walkway was called the Promanade. The guests could walk between the two at night along this lighted path. We met another geocaching family (hawaiilovers) at the start of the path. We all walked along the path together. It was one of the sons who made the find. Nice family. This was such a nice walkway. We could imagine how much the guests enjoyed it in it’s day. Too bad they had to take down the resort. I guess the daughter was concerned about the impact on the environment even back then.

We stopped for lunch at a location familiar to Larry & Me--The parking lot by the Vikingsholm Trailhead. We have hiked the Rubicon Trail along the west side of the lake from this point to DL Bliss State Park so we were familiar with the area. We had a fantastic view of Emerald Bay from this location.. We set up a tailgate party in the parking lot as it was a little breezy to be eating from a point where we had a view. This way we could enjoy our sandwiches while we watched the other cars jockeying for a parking spot. I’m sure they were wising we would hurry up and eat.

Along our route we found several Mile Marker caches. A geocacher named “AppleJohn” has been working on placing a geocache near every mile marker around Lake Tahoe. He has now placed a cache near every marker but three along the westside of the Lake from South Tahoe to North Shore. We found some of them in interesting locations. They were not always right at the marker. Sometimes we had to follow trails off the road a bit and one of them was a multi which meant we had to find a couple of stages before we found the final location of the cache. At one point, I ended up at the bottom of a pile of rocks in a crevice. They didn’t snap the picture until I was already out from the depths!

All and all, it was another beautiful day. It was a little hazy and breezy at some locations, but we still had some beautiful views and ended up on some interesting trails. We left the lake at Kings Beach and headed back to Truckee. Once in Truckee, Cynthia & Mike headed back to Reno and we headed back to Roseville. Here’s to future fun-filled geocaching trips!

A Leisurely Day

We relaxed today. The “boys” got to sleep in while the “girls” rushed out to get a First To Find Cache. We pulled up and spotted two suspicious looking characters. They turned out to be AppleJohn (from the Tahoe area) and Randallh from Reno. AppleJohn had already signed the log and returned the cache to its hiding place. The rest of us finally got around to finding the cache after we chatted for a while. We always enjoy meeting fellow geocachers in our travels.

The “boys” were up and around when we returned. Once we were organized , we headed down to Carson City to see what we could find. Fortunately, we never know what we will find. In this case, we found the Carson City Sheriff’s Department Motorcycle driving competition. They had taken over one of the local parks and mapped out a course for the cyclists to follow. The participants were from all over--even Rancho Cordova and Sacramento. We were in the park to complete a multi-cache challenge. We completed our challenge and several of the officers had completed their course challenge by then. We don’t know the results, but we saw a great display of some pretty sharp motorcycle driving skills.



Our jeeps were at home and we were traveling in Geo-Jeeper’s Sequoia. We did have to try a dirt road and actually made it fairly close to a cache before we had to stop and walk the last 200+ feet. After that we drove up the Kingsbury Grade for a guard rail cache near the 6000 ft. elevation.
We had some beautiful views of the valley below, the mountains behind and the storm clouds forming over the mountains. Based on the cloud formations, we were expecting a thunderstorm later in the day .

We ended our day back up in Reno at Rancho San Rafael Park. We parked near the dog park and watched some of the dogs romping. The actual cache was up a walking path just outside the dog park. I think we were glad as it might have been difficult to explain why we were there without a dog. As it was, no one paid any attention to us. Then it was back to Cynthia & Mike’s house. The clouds were looking nastier but we didn’t care as we would be safe and sound watching the lightening and listening to the thunder from inside the house.

Northeastern California Here We Come

It's another day and another trip to find caches in various quads in Northeastern California. 7:00 AM was our (Cynthia, Mike, Larry and Me )projected start time. The first time we left it was 6:54 AM. The second and final time we left it was exactly 7:00 AM. I do believe this was the first time we ever actually started one of our trips on time! But, we had to make our first stop at Starbucks for our geocaching coffee fix. We do this every time, but we always forget to record it with a picture. This morning I asked a lady who was already late for something if she would take our picture. She did! And here it is for all to see!

We had a long drive to the first cache. We were following 395 when we came to the Honey Lake rest stop. It was a pretty nice rest stop! We had a beautiful view of Honey Lake, plenty of picnic tables and very nice facilities. Too bad we didn’t get to enjoy much of the surroundings, but, as usual, we were on another mission and had to keep going. Honey Lake is an interesting lake and it is pretty large. At one point I asked Cynthia & Mike if this was a good lake for recreation. Just as they said no, I knew why. There was a cow standing ankle deep quite a ways out in the lake. It may be big, but it certainly isn’t deep!

The first few caches were out in the middle of nowhere, but I guess nowhere is relative. We picked up the cache for Quad 51(GCJZ9P) right near one those infamous shoe trees. Good thing we didn’t have to check in each shoe! Then we headed for Quad 50(GCWVCC). We were driving along this dirt road and suddenly there is a man on a bicycle coming towards us. He must be lost. Where did he come from? Where was he going? I guess we will never know as he didn’t stop and neither did we.

Maybe if we asked one of the cows that approached us eyeball to eyeball along the road she could tell us. A couple of them “spoke” to us as they crossed the road in front of us, but Larry’s cow translating skills were a little rusty. I guess we will never know the answers to any of our questions.

10 minutes. That is how long we were expected to wait, according to the flag lady! There was construction up ahead and we were stopped. These construction people just didn’t realize that we didn’t have time to wait or waste! So ......we sat. Fortunately, not very long. Our forced rest period was only about 5 minutes and then we traveled through the construction area. It looked like they were widening and rerouting the road. 395 will be looking pretty spiffy one of these day--assuming they ever finish the construction.

We were Likely in the Pit at one point and if we had been prepared, we could have golfed along the way to Quad 41(GCP1MX). We passed through the town of Likely and then followed the South Fork of the Pit River for a while. According to signs we passed along the way, there was a golf course around here somewhere. We never did find that, but we saw some pretty countryside on our way to the cache. At the cache location, we were surrounded by swallows. They were building nests under the bridge where the road crossed the river.

We were in Alturas at lunch time so, after finding a couple of caches for quad 40(GCK8GN & GCWBDE), we stopped along the road beside the local cemetery and ate out lunch. How many people do you know that picnic in a cemetery. While we were enjoying our lunch, a robin flew in to have lunch with us. He pulled a juicy worm out of the ground and proceeded to munch it down. For dessert, Mike & Larry feasted on Cynthia’s homemade oatmeal cookies--much better than the robin’s lunch.

The Oregon border was our last stop along Hwy 395. We had two caches to find there. One gave us California Quad 31(GCCB37) and one was supposed to give us an Oregon quad (just in case). As we drove up Hwy 395, we were paralleling Goose Lake. It actually looked kind of muddy as we drove along. The clouds that were forming could have been casting shadows on the lake, but Cynthia said the description of one of the caches indicates the lake is only 8 feet deep. Larry thought the color was from all the goose “poop” while Mike thought it was in the direct flight path of all migrating birds. Since more clouds were forming, Mike was hoping for a thunderstorm, while the rest of us were hoping to find the caches before the thunderstorm started.

We traveled along Stateline Lane to get the Oregon cache. We were actually traveling between/along the Oregon/California border. As we headed to the cache, we were in Oregon. As we returned from the cache, we were in California! Unfortunately, we didn’t find the cache. We all looked carefully. but no luck. The last people who tried didn’t find it either so I guess it really was missing.

You know, we do have such interesting discussions on these trips the four of us take. Today Mike asked Larry what the difference was between a rancher and a farmer. He answered that a farmer raised crops and a rancher raised animals. We all joined the discussion and eventually agreed. A little further down the road, Larry raised the issue again. He said he had been pondering the answer for some time. Maybe we didn’t have the correct answer. After-all, Old MacDonald had a farm and on that farm he had a cow, a chicken, a pig, etc. So we got into a more lengthy discussion. We referred back in history and all our examples supported our theory. Then Mike asked if maybe it was a regional thing. Maybe farmers were more an eastern concept and ranchers were more a western concept. Interesting. We shall have to continue to ponder until we resolve this burning issue. We never lack for fascinating discussions!

Our next stop was Big Sage Reservoir for Quad 30(GC!0F2A)! And, guess what! it started to sprinkle as we headed up the road to the Reservoir. The sky was getting darker! When we walked down the path to the cache we could hear the thunder in the distance. We hadn’t see any lightening yet, but we didn’t stick around too long just in case. We did see lots of virga, but very little rain was actually getting to the ground. It wasn’t until Larry frightened us all when he yelled “WOAHHHHHHH, that one of us actually witnessed a streak of lightening. Mike missed it but we were all eagle eyed after that. I believe Larry saw the lightening just as we were passing the town of Fletcher. We didn’t see much of the town but maybe the lightening was a sign of something!

There it was! The rain came tumbling down! And those were pretty big drops! It was almost over before it began. The wind was blowing and we got bursts of rain at first and then lots of rain--maybe even some hail. The temperature dropped over 20 degrees (from 74º to 55º) in a matter of minutes and the noise level of the rain hitting the windshield was incredible. Mike figured this was the height of the trip. We were hoping it stopped before we had to look for the next cache! We just needed to get one more cache for one more quad and we were done for the day.

The rain stopped just as we arrived in the town of Adin. We pulled over into the parking lot of a park outside the county library and walked just a few feet to pick up the last Quad (39) and the last cache (GCK9WP) of the day. It took us a few minutes of searching before Mike suggested we look there. Sure enough, there it was! Once we had the cache properly logged we had to make the big decision: which road do we take home? We let Mike decide. It wasn’t long before we were on a dirt road connecting the town of Adin with the town of Madeline. We stopped once along the way in Holbrook Canyon to take a picture of the field of yellow flowers, but once we reached Madeline, we found hwy 395 and headed for home and our glass of wine! We saw a lot of distant lightening along the way home. Another fun day!