Genealogy and Geocaching! We have spent a lot of time in cemeteries while geocaching. We wander through and read the inscriptions and actually learn a great deal about the area. The markers give us information on families, on time frames for serious disease, on dates the area was established, on the wealth of the area during the early days (elaborate markers), on custom changes as relate to information on grave stones, and much much more. We also learn how important the cemeteries are to the town residents as many of them are in a dilapidated state while others are well tended.
Today we will be going to a cemetery in Rio Vista. Larry’s fifth generation grandmother is buried in the I.O.O.F section of the cemetery. We have been here before and even taken pictures but today we will be recording the coordinates of her grave site. Larry has wanted to do this for a while and today turned out to be the day to just do it. It is a foggy dreary day and that seems appropriate for a visit to a cemetery. Who knows, maybe we will see a ghost or two.
Geocaching is our second objective for the day. We never go anywhere any more without checking for nearby geocaches and we have several in the area. Once we have paid our respects to Olive Wade Bowman, we will branch out and tour the Rio Vista area while searching for our hidden “treasures. It should be an interesting day.
Our first cache of the day was on a guard rail on one of the back roads of Dixon overlooking Barker Sough. T get to the right location, we passed fields of sheep. The babies were frolicking with each other. I always thought lambs were born in the spring, but guess that isn’t true all the time. We do love these back roads but we wish other people didn’t mistake them for garbage dumps! We were somewhere in the Northern Delta Hills and we were rewarded with lot of cows, goats, sheep, and horses
The cemetery (The Rio Vista Odd-fellows & Masonic Cemetery) is a far cry from the cows, goats, sheep, and horses. It is right along highway 12 on the way into Rio Vista. Olive’s grave stone is on the cemetery entrance road right next to the road and next to the metal maintenance shed. The marker is metal and has Olive’s name on it as well as the name of a daughter (Angie--5 years 7 months). It is quite an elaborate metal marker. We have not seen any others like it either here or any where else. This area appears to be one of the older sections and the markers are either right next to each other or far apart. We can’t help wondering if there are unmarked graves here. We may have to do more research to-find the plot map of the cemetery. At least we were able to finally get the coordinates for Olive’s gravesite.
We enjoyed our lunch at Foster’s Bighorn Restaurant. Fosters is sort of a landmark. The original owner was a big game hunter, a taxidermist, and a photographer. He photographed and stuffed all the wild animals he killed. There is quite a story behind his escapades and you can get additional information at:
http://www.fostersbighorn.com/history.html. Someone had also hidden a virtual cache at this location. To log the cache, we have to answer some questions about two of the pictures. We knew which two pictures we wanted but we had to find them amongst all the zillion other pictures lining the wall. We eventually found them and learned a bit about Fosters adventures in the process.
Later in the day, we found ourselves at the Ryer Island Ferry. We were ”searching“ for a virtual cache at this location. We again had to answer some questions. Fortunately, the information we needed was available on the side of the delta that we were on. We watched the ferry arrive and the ferry depart. It is a 24 hour operations. The ”drivers“ get 20 minutes for lunch and 20 min for dinner. Otherwise, the are on duty for the entire day and night.
We ended the day with a tour through windmill country. Apparently this can be a pretty windy area at times and there are lots and lots of windmills. They are a little eerie looking in the fog. The look like very large graceful birds. None of them were working but because of their color, their shape, and the fog, they would change shapes depending on our angle. Parts of them would actually disappear and then return. We tried to capture it with our cameras, but I don’t think we were successful. It was, however, a great way to bring our day to a close.
