Road Trip

It was such a beautiful day and we hadn't had an opportunity to geocache in a bit so we really only had one choice today. Where should we go? We decided to make a road trip up to Lincoln, over to Newcastle, down through Rocklin and back to Roseville.

Along the way we met mama and papa goose and their four little goslings. We met the family in stages: mama and papa first as they walked along the bank; and, the babies one by one as they each peaked their heads out of the grass. It wasn't until they took to the water that we realized there were actually four babies. They cruised along and eventually disappeared under the bridge. This was a great place to relax and enjoy the surroundings. There was a cache nearby but we think it was under the bridge. We never really had the chance to look because the swallows were nesting under the bridge and they certainly were not happy with us being so close. We didn't mind just staying back and watching all the nearby activity.

We checked out another nature preserve in Lincoln. We were restricted to the walkway along the edge but we were able to enjoy the geese and the ducks. The biggest excitement for me (L2) was the two geese on a nearby building roof. I guess I've never seen a goose on a roof before. They are always on the ground, in the air, or in the water. They were honking like crazy the whole time we were there. I was convinced they were calling out for help because they were stuck. L1 (Larry) assured me they were quite capable of getting down by themselves. He turned out to be right. As we were leaving, they flew down to the pond below.

Lunch was at Awful Annie's in Lincoln. This is a favorite spot of the locals and we often stop here if we are in the area. Today, we took a little more time for lunch than expected because the server messed up the order. She blamed it on her allergies. I guess her head was so stuffed she didn't hear me and couldn't see where I pointed on the menu. She also couldn't remember the entire discussion we had about fruit coming with my selection so I didn't need to order it on the side. She apologized and I eventually got what I ordered. As usual, it was delicious.

We traveled on 193 between Lincoln and Newcastle. The wildflowers were out in force, including the beautiful California poppies. Too bad we didn't have a chance to stop for pictures. No place to pull over and there were a lot of people out enjoying the nice weather.

We actually, got lost in Newcastle. That is pretty hard to do as Newcastle is a pretty small town. We kept going in circles and missing the road that we needed. I think the residents were beginning to question our number of trips on this same circuit. Fortunately, we found our way to the road we wanted and headed back to Rocklin. This wouldn't be so unusual, but I pride myself on my navigational skills and they let me down today. I think it was the sun, the heat, and the thrill of the trip that got in my way of finding our way. Good thing I came to my senses before we made that circuit one more time.

Our day was about over. We had one more cache to find near a local nursery. Looks like this was a good day for working in the garden because everyone was trying to get in or out of the parking lot at the nursery. The cache was a multicache and the first stage happened to be in their parking lot. We did get in and find a parking spot fairly quickly. but when it came time to leave, we had a totally different experience. The line to the exit was long and all we could do was join the line and wait our turn. When we finally got to the road, we pulled up, looked both ways, and couldn't believe our eyes. The road was totally clear in both directions!! We quickly pulled out and eventually met the rest of the crowd at the next major traffic light.

We were not the only ones out on a road trip! We were almost home when several turkeys decided to cross the road. This event was occurring a few cars ahead of us but it did result in a few cars swerving and drivers stomping on their brakes. We were one of the brake stompers. Yes, we all had to stop so the rest of the turkeys could proceed across the road. We had a little traffic jam going but it didn't last long. The rest of the turkeys didn't waste any time completing their journey across the road.

It was a beautiful day to be geocaching and a beautiful day to enjoy a road trip! We traveled 54.7 miles in 5 hours and 45 minutes and were entertained at various locations along the way. And, we found 7 caches! Not many for a six hour day, but enough considering the fun along the way.

Snow, Tunnels, and Sage Brush! Great Combination!

Cynthia and Mike have made several visits down our way so it was time to drive up to Reno. We took our time and geocached along the way. We didn’t encounter any spectacular caches that you would write home about, but we did trek through the snow to one. (We were wishing we had snowshoes, but we made it to the cache). We also found a multi that Team Alamo (the California cacher with the most finds) did not find. That made us feel good!

Once we arrived in Reno, we picked up a few more caches before heading to Cynthia and Mike’s house and then on to dinner. Dinner was at the Claim Jumper and, as usual, was good. After dinner we had plenty of time to relax and figure out the plan for today.

We left later than usual Saturday morning because it is COLD up here in the morning. It was in the twenties but I had my squall pants and boots and lots of layers on the top so I survived. We headed into the Virginia Highlands behind their house to find a couple of caches and to watch Geo-Jeeper hide a cache in honor of their dog Brandy. I won’t describe it as I don’t want to give it away, but it is a very appropriate cache. We did take lots of pictures with their camera and I’m sure they will tell you about it if you ask. The views from that entire area were incredible and were worth the “hike” up and down the rocks and across the snow.

In the afternoon we decided to do some caches in the Reno area. We ended up on the northwest side of town and bounced our way over some of the back roads. We had forgotten how much bounce you get in the Golden Retriever (jeep) on the Reno back roads.

Our most challenging cache was “FTF-Tag You’re It! #6”. It was a two stage multi-cache. The first stage was easy. It was right there at the original coordinates. The second stage wasn’t so easy. After entering the new coordinates, we figured out we had to be on the other side of the freeway and there is no access unless you walk through a tunnel (culvert) under the freeway. We had two choices. Mike and I started down the hill to check out the two tunnels. Cynthia and Larry stayed at the top incase they had to go for help.

We surveyed the two tunnels. One had fast flowing water going through it. The other appeared to be dry. We naturally picked the drier tunnel. That turned out to be an error. Shortly after entering the tunnel, we encountered a solid sheet of ice right down the center of the tunnel. We stayed to one side and picked our way along very very slowly. Ice skates would have been great but we had to settle for trying to stay upright with our hiking boots. There were occasional slides. I likened it to the sensation I imagine the kids get with their shoes with wheels--just stay upright and glide! Once we got to the other end of the tunnel, scaled the “wall” and got through the barbed wire fence, finding the cache was easy.

Now we had to make our way back. We decided to go through the tunnel with the running water. The water was not deep, nor was it wide. We could straddle it in parts and walk along the wall in parts. Imagine ducks waddling. I think that pretty much sums it up. Of course, whenever we slipped, we were walking in the water. Fortunately, our boots kept us dry. We were grateful to get back to the original side. One hurdle remained, though. We had to get back up the hill! Determination paid off. I huffed and puffed my way to the top (Mike just strolled) and we shared our story with Cynthia & Larry. We even managed to get a few pictures to prove we were really there!

We found a few more caches before heading home to our glass of wine and fine dining at the Rambo House.

Sunday we headed for Carson City. We headed first to Starbucks and then out the Mt. Rose highway to a cache in Galena Park. The snow was thick and the ice had the roads in the park closed. We had to hike in to the cache and then spend our time on our hands and knees in the snow until we spotted it. Always a good way to start the day.

From then on, it was a pretty unusual day. We spent time among the sage brush looking for different size caches. For some reason, the micro cache is catching on in Reno. Trying to find a micro in the desert in the sage brush is almost impossible. One cache was a shot gun shell in the ground at the base of a large bush. We searched for quite a while before Cynthia finally spotted it. I didn’t think I would ever say this, but I would love to find more ammo cans in rocks and bushes again!

Late afternoon we headed home to Roseville. The four of us had one more cache to find in Verde so Cynthia and Mike led the way. It was hidden along a trail in Del Webs Somerset community (A Reno Sun City). The cache was easy to find but we were amazed that active adults (55+) would want to live here. It is out in the middle of nowhere with only two points of entrance. No matter which way you go, you have a long way before you can get to medical facilities or shopping.

Once we were back on the road again, we were pleased with the light traffic. The Super Bowl was on TV and obviously a lot of people were watching it. We did encounter a little traffic just past the Tahoe entrance back on to the freeway. There were a few other people ignoring the football game and taking advantage of the lighter than usual Sunday homeward bound traffic.

We arrived home safely, put our feet up, logged our caches, and relaxed the rest of the evening. Tomorrow will be a day to unpack and regroup. Another great geocaching weekend.

The 2 Gs

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.

Geo-Jeeper reaches 7000

It was bound to happen! Geo-Jeeper reached a major milestone after leaving us in the dust! We brought them in to the world of Geocaching and managed to stay ahead of them most of the time. Today they found cache #7000 and we are still a couple of hundred behind them.

We had received a recommendation from 2Dee2Dee that we should go to Benicia to do some caching. We thought it was a great idea so we told Cynthia and Mike (Geo-Jeeper) about it and they said they wanted to go with us. They came down for the weekend and we headed to Benicia today. The day promised to be gorgeous weather-wise and it truly was.

We cached our way to downtown. We found some interesting caches as we tried to learn the style of the local cachers. We even ran into the owner of one of the caches. He is a young boy who caches with his friends and is pretty excited about the whole thing. He has found 47 caches and he was all set to give us all kinds of hints about caches in the area. He directed us to one that was just down the street and through the tunnel. It took him 10 times to find it so he told us it was a nano somewhere on the fence posts. We headed through the tunnel and found the cache after a brief search. We didn’t know when we might be back so we were glad for his helpful advice.

After checking out the site of the first California Capitol, the four of us had lunch at the the 1st Street Cafe. It was a small “quaint” place and we enjoyed our lunch. It seems to be a very popular place in town. While we were waiting to be seated, Mike took a stroll down the street to pick up just one more cache! And after lunch we walked down to the water front for another.

The day truly was beautiful! We spent most of the afternoon along the water front. We walked some of the pathways, took pictures, and, of course, found a few caches. We all agreed Benicia would be a great place to retire. Since Larry and I are already retired and settled, we will keep this area in mind for visits if we want to spend a day along the waterfront.

Somewhere along the way, Cynthia and Mike found #7000. I’m not sure exactly which one it was. I do know we took lots of pictures at several of the caches so we were sure to capture the moment. It was an awesome day!

Touring Grass Valley

October 25, 2008: It’s been a while since we have posted any of our geocaching experiences. We have certainly been looking for caches all this time, I just haven’t written about anything. Today we are off to cache in Grass Valley and Nevada City. Cynthia & Mike (Geo-Jeeper) are joining us. It should be an adventuresome day.

We never know what we might encounter in this area. PO and rattlesnakes will be at the top of our alert list. Let’s hope we don’t encounter either. So far we have been lucky. Only the berry bushes have attacked us. We have followed some of the back roads into some interesting places. The environment is woodsy and you think you are far away from everywhere--not so. There are an incredible number of houses in this area. Still, we found beautiful countryside and plenty of places to find hidden caches.

The caches we have found are interesting. Some were challenging. One was a rifle shell. It was in a hole drilled in the bottom of a 1+ inch branch. The branch was placed in a hole drilled into a pine tree. We finally spotted the branch and pulled it out. The bottom of the branch was covered with pitch. So much pitch, in fact, we almost missed the rifle shell stuck in the bottom. Once we cleared away the pitch, we had to use brute force to pull out the shell. Eventually we were able to sign the log. This was a challenging hide. Fortunately, we were up for the challenge.

We were driving on roads such as Clover Valley, Dog Bar Road, Rattlesnake road, town talk road (the early leaders of Grass Valley and Nevada City would meet here to discuss town business), burma road (no burma shave ads), whispering pines, and many many more. They all led us to Round Table Pizza for a geocaching event. Like all the other events, we were able to visit with fellow geocachers and learn more secrets to finding caches.

The day is ending and we are heading home. The wine and dinner awaits us. We will be back tomorrow to see what other roads we can find. We will have to wait to see where they will lead us.


October 26, 2008: We came back! We covered more back roads. We discovered some of the most interesting areas on these back roads. We chatted with alpacas, drove by llamas, donkeys, and horses, and passed field after field filled with horses. We also wandered through old structures. At one point we were looking for a cache along an old wall made of rocks. On the other side of the road was another wall made of rocks. Do you think the road now goes through what used to be an old building? We tried to figure what type of building it could have been. Or, was it two separate buildings? We actually prefer the idea of one building--makes it more interesting that a road runs through it.

We covered the area south west of Grass Valley all the way out to Penn Valley and back. At one point we heard gun shots as we located a cache on a back road. We hollered and they hollered back and the shooting stopped. (It’s deer season you know). We quickly signed the log and headed back to the major roads. We avoided the real back back roads after that.

The day turned out to be worth the trip in more ways than one. At one of the caches, we met another geocacher (Alpha-super Dog). We asked him about a couple of caches that we were unable to find. He provided a few hints. Back we went and we were able to find the caches. We even rechecked some we didn’t have hints for and managed to find those as well! All in all, pretty fun day! Unfortunately the camera was back home!

It was bound to happen!

It has been a while since we have been able to do much in the way of geocaching. Larry's hip has been out of commission for a bit and our activities have been restricted. At the same time, Mike (Geo-Jeeper) has been having problems with his back. Fortunately, Cynthia (Geojeepette) was willing to make the drive from Reno to Roseville so she and I have been able to geocache a couple of times. We managed to find quite a few caches without the help of the guys, but we certainly would be happier if they would recover soon and completely.

Today, Linda joined up with Ann Wahlenmeier (imawahl) and Don Stoye (dStoye) to walk a local bike path. A couple of the caches required a little tree climbing. Normally, Don would be happy to do the tree climbing. Today, I decided to make the leap. I had decided it was time to learn another skill in case Larry & Mike weren't able to fully resume their geocaching responsibilities.

I did it! I climbed a couple of trees, but this was probably the most challenging. And, of course, going up was easy. The getting down was a little more of a challenge but I stuck it out. Watch out Larry and Mike! We may have to draw straws next time! If this goes on much longer, I may even get Cynthia to climb some trees.

Sharks, whales, deep sea fish first. Steamboats, Indians, back roads second. #6000 Third!

We were in Nevada this weekend. We arrived late afternoon Thursday and headed home today. Our goal for the weekend was to find 6000 caches. Actually, our goal was not just to find them, but to find #6000 at the same time Geo-Jeeper found #6000. We brought them into the geocaching world and it seemed fitting that our numbers meet at some point for an important find.

Before we could get to 6000 we had to catch up to Geo-Jeeper. I think we were 30+ behind them at this point so we cached our way to Reno and then spent Friday out and about with Cynthia & Mike. Part of that time we were picking up caches that they had already found and many more that neither one of us found before.

We got a big kick out of finding so many ocean named caches--in Nevada no less! One of the more challenging was the “Whales Spout” (GC1BNQ5). Cynthia and Mike had already found this cache and you can read their adventure on their website GeoJeeper”s Great Adventure. Now it was our turn. We found the location quickly. The tricky part was in the retrieving. We went there with the plan of Larry and Mike hoisting me up on the top of the rock. If I wanted to get back down I had to trust that they would catch me! When we got there we climbed to a nearby rock so we could see the cache container (ammo can) in a spot that clearly looked like a whale’s spout. We thought about it a bit and finally Larry decided to try his trusty dusty retrieval tool that served as a light bulb changer in its former life.

With a few minor adjustments, it has served us well in retrieving caches that were well beyond our reach. This cache was no exception. Larry and Mike worked in tandem and hooked the retrieval tool to the handle of the ammo can with what appeared to be minimal effort. Larry lifted the pole and out came the ammo can. That was a much better method than trying to lift me up onto the rock! We had even more fun trying to recreate the retrieval for the camera. It wasn’t as easy to hook the handle with the subsequent tries but we finally succeeded and had our pictures and movies. With this cache, we have now found a full whale! “Looking Into the Whale’s Mouth” (GCKE5K), Whale Tale (GCH8AP), and now the Whales Spout (GC1BNQ5).

Another highlight was our lunch in Virginia City at the Palace Hotel. The lunch was fine but the real treat was the discovery of Moose Drool Beer! Mike combined that with his Buffalo burger and said the combination was out of this world. OK, maybe those weren’t his exact words, but since we went on a search at the local grocery store when we got back to Reno, I assumed that’s what he meant.

Our second day we added John of “Jahoadi and John” to our mix. We caravanned through Jack’s Valley and other areas surrounding Carson City. Here we ran into Indians, bears, rocks, and who knows what else (all caches). We also made our first geocaching video. We had tried bits and pieces the day before while we figured out how to operate the camcorder and how to set it up on the dash to take the movies. We had snippets that were OK, but today was the real action! The movies turned out pretty good--both with the camcorder and our canon digital camera.

The highlights of the day were the beautiful views from several of the locations. We did have one incident where Mike spun and buried his wheels in the gravelly sand. That meant we stopped there and walked to the cache. Now that the important part was out of the picture, we could concentrate on Geo-Jeep’s predicament.

It really wasn’t a difficult situation but for entertainment we had him try to go forward again so we could see how far the tires could throw the dirt! Eventually he backed down the hill to a more stable spot and turned around. Mike almost got stuck here as well, but John gave Geo-Jeep that extra little push she needed with his hands to save the day. Of course, the cameras were not aimed in the right direction and Mike and John refused to recreate the event for me.

John was driving a Toyota FJ while the rest of us were in our jeeps. We gave him a bad time about his jeep wannabe so he was proving himself at every opportunity. He was the one parked precariously on the hillside and the one doing wheelies at sandy intersections. He was certainly putting it through it’s paces.

We started our third and final day with 5992 caches each and a destination in mind on the West side of Lake Tahoe. John joined us again as we headed over Mt. Rose to Incline Village at the north end of the lake and followed State Hwy 28 down the west side. We found several mile marker caches and several stream caches all hidden by Applejohn.

We took the Barker Pass turnoff to head for Applejohn’s Sunken Meadow cache. That was the cache we planned to make our 6000 find. We set up our camcorder and headed out. We were actually providing narration about the cache as we went. Unfortunately, mother nature had other plans. The only two roads into the trail head were blocked by snow and they were closed. Guess we would have to pick another special cache. At least John got the opportunity to race through a mud puddle. Mike and Larry had to go a little slower as their additional passengers were giving them special looks and offering sage advise about the disadvantages of roaring through the mud puddle.

Our 6000th find turned out to be “Tahoe Streams 6--Blackwood Creek” (GCICW77). The cache was in a beautiful location. We followed a dirt path along Blackwood Creek to the final spot. As we approached we handed John our digital camera and asked him to take a movie as we found the cache. At the point we had to leave the trail Cynthia and I both pointed to the left and immediately spotted the likely hiding place. We raced to the final destination and jointly removed the cache. It was a “decon” container buried under debris at the base of a fallen tree stump. The day was beautiful, the location was perfect, and the find was all that more important because it was #6000 for both L3-Geo and Geo-Jeeper. Click on the picture to see a short movie of our adventure.

We continued around Lake Tahoe and found additional caches as we went. The traffic was getting heavier and people were everywhere. When we reached the Kingsbury Grade, we headed over the top and on into Mottsville and Minden. We ended the day at Dairy Queen with a treat of blizzards and root beer floats. By the time we returned to Reno we had reached a total of 6031 caches and Geo-Jeeper had 6021. We ended with more only because we were passing right by some caches they had already found and they were happy to stop and let us find these caches. As they said: “you are here so let’s do it”. Thanks Cynthia, Mike, and John for a wonderful weekend adventure!

The Call of the Pacific Northwest

We are headed to Oregon/Washington to attend the graduation of one of our daughters. She is getting an AA degree and plans to continue with her schooling to get a BA and eventually a Masters in Education. We will be rooting for her the entire way.

Naturally, we just don’t drive somewhere any more. We always have to stop and pick up a couple of caches. Today we will be checking out the Hwy 20 area west of Wiliams. We have an ulterior motive. There is one particular cache we need to complete a puzzle on another cache and it is located on Bear Valley Road of Hwy 20. We could just drive straight to that cache, find it, and then on to our final destination. Nah! It would hurt to much to pass up all those other caches!

We got a late start as we had some things to attend to this morning. It was a little after 10 when we could finally say “On the Road Again”. Our first stop will be in the town of Williams.

We left Williams and headed west on Hwy 20. We picked up a few caches along the road before turning off on Bear Valley Road. (Have you ever noticed how many Bear Valleys there are in California?). Bear Valley Road is a rocky dirt road that is well maintained. We were a little concerned we might need our jeep but we did just fine with the Sequoia.

We took a little side jaunt on Wilbur Springs Road to grab three caches. We were surprised to-find the Wilbur Hot Springs Resort at the end of the road. We couldn’t see the resort from where we were but it is an isolated area and looks like it would definitely be exclusive!

We made our last leg up Bear Valley Road to meet with Dan Quail. He was hiding out in an interesting old stump. As we arrived at the “spot”, we knew instantly where to look. We had to be at the right angle, but there it was. We signed the log, took a few pictures, and reluctantly headed back down the road. This was a nice little area. We saw lots of birds. Too bad we didn’t have a little more time to enjoy it.

Folsom Day 2

We actually slept in this morning. Well, sort of. We didn’t need to leave until 8:00 so we figured we could sleep in a little and enjoy the morning. Unfortunately, my body didn’t cooperate and I was up at 5:00. I managed to get lots of things done while I waited for the others.

At 8:00 AM promptly, we headed to Folsom for the second day in a row. We were bound and determined we were going to clear out a bunch of caches in another area of Folsom. I think we did a pretty good job. But first, we had to start our day at Starbucks. Somehow, it just seems better to start the day this way.

Throughout the day we found several wetlands areas, shaded bike trails, various parks, wooden bridges, and several caches. Throughout the day, the weather couldn’t make up its mind. We had moments of downright cold (the wind was a little tough), and moments when it was on the warm side. We couldn’t decide whether we needed our jackets or not so we changed from moment to moment! It was an interesting day.

We returned home sometime around 6:00 and managed a quick fajita dinner. We are all tired but it was worth it. We came pretty close to getting in our 10,000 steps for the day and we found over 20 caches. One of these days we will have to travel some of the trails we discovered today as they are intended--by bike.

Looking into the Whale's Mouth

It was raining! Ok, it was a heavy mist. I think it is semantics! The weather report says we would have occasional showers. Right now it is more than occasional. Fortunately, Raley’s was open and had ponchos, hats and gloves! We stocked up for the hike to the cache. We were not going to let anything get in our way of finding this particular cache.

We did see occasional blue patches in the sky as we headed north from Ukiah. Hopefully some of those blue skies will be over the coast near the cache. Doesn’t matter, though. We will make this “walk” to the cache. We will be celebrating three things when we reach the cache: 1) Cynthia’s birthday (officially tomorrow); Geo-Jeeper’s 5600 find; and just the fact that we did it. We have been hearing about this cache (Looking into the Whale’s Mouth--GCKE5K) since the beginning and it is one of those “must do” caches to gain the respect of others who have completed the Northern California Delorme Challenge. We won’t let a little rain stop us. Hopefully, it will stop the Elk from creating a problem on the trail--one of those things frequently mentioned in the posts on the cache page.

We arrived at Needle Rock Museum and prepared for our hike. You should have seen us! If you look at the pictures, you can see how ridiculous we looked. We were all decked out in our rain ponchos when we started the trip. By the time we returned, we had shed all the rain gear and a few other layers of clothing.

It was a gorgeous hike. We thought it would be a quick in and out, but it wasn’t. The wild flowers were in full bloom and the elk were in abundance. We spent a lot of time pausing to take pictures. We were practically eyeball to eyeball with the elk and they were not the least bit afraid of us. I could say we weren’t afraid of them either, but we did worry about maintaining our distance. We did not want to deal with an elk charge.

Some of the time it was like we were in a rain forest. No, it didn’t really rain that much--just a lot of sprinkles. It’s just that the vegetation was lush and wet from the rain and the flowers were gorgeous. At times we were under trees crossing creeks and then we were in the full sun skirting past the elk. We probably took a lot more time than we needed.

When we arrived at the end of the trail, we still had to head downhill along an animal track for about 300 feet. Unfortunately, the animal track was not clearly marked. I guess the animals have chosen other routes through this area and the plants have grown over the trail. So we headed down the hill very carefully. If we slipped, we would actually be on the beach at the mouth of whale cove, but it was a long way down. We reached the exact spot of the cache and pulled out the rusted ammo can and signed the log. Of course, we had to take bunches of pictures. This was Geo-Jeeper’s (Cynthia & Mike’s) 5600th find and tomorrow is Cynthia’s 60th birthday. Plus, this took care of quad 62 of the Northern California Delorme Challenge. It was a great day for celebrations.

The hike back to our car took a little less time than the hike to the cache. We were concerned at one point that we might be a little delayed. As we approached one meadow, we discovered that a herd of elk had set up residency on and around the trail. They didn’t seem to care that we were there and they were in no hurry to move. So, we advanced slowly along the trail. A couple of them moved aside. A few others tried the old stare down. We kept a steady stream of conversation going and did a little picture taking while we moved through them. We wanted them to understand that we had no intention of hurting them as long as they didn’t hurt us. It wasn’t until we got back to the car that we saw the sign that said: “Wild elk! Danger! Do not approach on foot!” Un oh! I guess we were just plain lucky or they have gotten so used to people that they never considered us a threat. It really doesn’t matter. We arrived back at the car without a single elk mark on us.

Our main adventure for the day was over. We piled back in the car to make the long trek back to Roseville. We won’t get there until passed “wine time” and the boys in the front seat will be whining about that for a long time. Of course, the most important thing will be whether we will be able to move by the time we get to Roseville. The muscles are achy and starting to stiffen a little, but we had a great time the whole trip.