Saturday, December 29, 2007

National Automobile Museum



Took kindergeek to see Harrah's Collection after the event.


To say KG loves cars is a serious understatement. So, I figured he'd love to see the great collection at the museum. After talking my Dad into joining us, we all headed up to Reno to go through the galleries. Here's some shots from today, though no where near the number that both b0neZ and I took while there.

KG in front of the 1907 Thomas Flyer











b0neZ and KG being driven crazy in 1926 Ford











Me and KG in front of the 1960 Flying Caduceus










KG admires the original 1966 Batmobile

Kickin' it in Carson


Having a great time celebrating the end of the year with all my caching friends!!



Spent the morning just hanging out and I managed to successfully cook pancackes for kindergeek and myself. Then it was off to the event! Had a great turnout with a lot of people showing up. Not bad for a mid-holiday mid-day event.

Got to meet lots of old friends, and see some new faces, including one guy who had never gone caching before and had showed up to learn more about the sport. Hopefully, after talking with several of the folks there, he'll get into the sport. He was interested in using his ATV to explore some of the back hills of Nevada - and living up in Virginia Highlands, he's in the perfect place to do so.

We had a lot of fun today!

Thursday, December 27, 2007

1600 or bust!

Today was the day.

Spotted a bunch of caches out in Fernley this morning, so after breakfast and kindergeek playing numberous rounds of Crash on the gamecube, we headed north to Reno and then out I-80 to Fernley. I'd originally intended to grab a few on the way back, but - forgetting winter's habit of geting dark quickly - we only got the ones in Fernley itself.

Had a great day, ending up with 12 caches by the time it got too dark and cold. But we did get to wheel around the hills north of town and play in the snow all over the place. Some very creative cachers out there, especially Nitro. The best cache was his Ninty-Five-Fifty cache, but you'll need to head out there to see what it was so good.

Came home in time for two notifies to pop up telling us that Clark Gable and Garmin Dude had been busy while we were away and they placed two new caches. The first was an easy one right outside the Craft Market (where, alas, my dad had been considering placing one) and the second turned out to have bad coords. Sent an email off to Gable and then we went and looked at Christmas lights at the Governor's Mansion.

Once we got home (again), settled down to dinner - I finally got the hang of cooking some delicious chicken - and played some video games while everyone logged. With the 13 I'd picked up today, I'm now sitting at 1602. Yeah!

After dinner, my email began lighting up. Monty is finally giving up his Nevada caches and I adopted 7 of them. Some are, eh, whatever - if they go missing, they go. But I did get Box Falls out of the deal which is the best cache location I've found. Also 4 or 5 Crazy Guys is in a decent location, just the puzzle portion of it is shot, so I need to rework that. So, out of the now 27 hides to my name 13 are mine, 3 are joint with Dad, 2 adopted from Seredipity, 6 adopted from Doc Rock, 2 adopted from boogsar, and 1 "stolen" from Mountain People. Nice.

All in all a great day - and I still have two more days off this week!

Caches we found today: Hillside, what a view, Hang Lowe., Amazuma, All About the numbers #3, On the way to Reno, Park Right Next To It!, Block Me, Ninety-Five-Fifty, We have it all, Desert Pilot Cache, Wadsworth SHM, Crafty One

Caches I adopted today are Used to be Wearing a Ghillie Suit, FST: Give Me Immortality Or Give Me Death, Belongaboog Kid Cache, The NEW C-Hill Cache, Box Falls, JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED: Prescription Refill, and FST: 4 or 5 Crazy Guys

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas! / Late caching post

And a happy new year to all my friends and family.

Today was the usual Christmas thing, though b0neZ and I went out to his folk's place in Silver Springs to be there for breakfast. All the presents had been opened already (as we got there about 11am), but we opened ours. I got a cool fuzzy bear blanket, a wolf picture frame, and two wolf plaques to hang on the wall.

I spent the time hanging out with b0neZ's family - watching kindergeek play his new GameCube game, and Ryan play around with his new tool set and race track. His Dad was putting together a video game cycle, where the peddling and handlebar position controlled the action on the screen. Great idea!

Then it was time for me to go to work. As I was driving into Dayton, there were two caches that have just been nagging me right off the road (literally this time, promise, GPS read 0.5 miles). So, I got sick enough of seeing them, and had enough time, that I drove up the hillside to go get them.

It's been a great day - and the week will only get better as I have three days off and then next week its off to Viva Las Vegas, Baby!!!

Today I found "Have a Cigar" (very creative hide) and Rattlesnake MT. Both had excellent coordinates.

12/22/07

I can't believe I forgot to post our brief (1 hour) caching trip after kindergeek got here. We ran up to Reno as I'm still on my quest for 1600. Swung by south Reno to grab a small clump that I saw down there. Trouble was 3 of them were along a walking path and a one hour crunch time does not allow for that. But I did get to play some more with my BT-20 and KG got to play with the Legend Cx as I still need to check the accuracy on that thing.

We found GBES Poker 07 - Ace of Damonte, Big Red of Damonte, FTF Compulsion, and Hewey

Friday, December 21, 2007

Waiting on eternity


Hanging out in Brew Brothers as the flight is unexpectedly delayed.




It's been a long day - first Nicole and I went up to Reno for a great lunch and conversation at TGI Friday's, then came back home. Then Dad and I went up to Reno to play with my new bluetooth GPS, a Delorme BT-20. Got the thing working last night and it is so cool! Now I have a trick if RoadRunner publishes a cache while we're out and about and we're caught without either GPS (its been known to happen). I can use it either with the included Street Atlas or with Google Maps.

Then came back home and grabbed b0neZ to head back up to Reno and hang out in the airport waiting for the one and only Kindergeek. As the pic above shows, the plane was delayed over in Oakland, so our two hour wait turned into three. But all is good and he is here - and now playing the GameCube that b0neZ got him (ARGH, there is a game console in my house!)

Stay turned as I'm only 17 away from the big 1600 - shall we see what transpires over the next few weeks?

Caches hit today: The Eye of Providence (I think b0neZ would enjoy this), Old KooKoo's Nest (finally - kept ignoring this), GBES POKER - 07 - Once Upon An Eagle Thrifty.. (the bigest LPC I've seen)

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Another snow day


According to b0neZ, this started a half hour ago. Its really coming down. I'm glad I went caching yesterday.



Thankfully the snow didn't last too long and the rain that followed along with the sun later on melted almost all of it down here in the valley floor. Unfortunately for us human's, though, it dropped below freezing again and the nice layer of water from the snow and rain became a nice layer of solid black ice. Even my hiking boots lacked the tread for some patches and I biffed it while outside of Cabella's.

We went in to look around and had fun admiring all the COOL toys! Dad had asked me what I wanted for Chirstmas and the only things I could come up with were City Navigator for the Garmin or a portable printer for the house. We looked at the City Navigator, but I wasn't fully set on getting that. So we drifted over to CompUSA (who are going out of business!!) and I spotted the bluetooth GPS section.

:drool: And a beautiful Pharos 600!! But, alas, $650 is steep.

I ended up walking out with a cool little Delorme BT-20 for the Pocket PC. Spent all night trying to get the thing to work and finally had to muck around with the registry and the comm settings to get it to link up. But I was able to run both the Street Atlas and Google Maps with the GPS connected. Score!

The next morning though I have had issues witht the com ports to link up to the net (I'm blogging now, so obviously I got those working again. Now just to make sure that the bluetooth still works!

Wish me luck!

Edit - solution was to make sure that I deleted the open Com settings for the GPS before attempting the open the Com setting for the modem. One extra step, but hey, I got it working!

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Caching around Reno

Just finished a great day of caching around Reno with Mama Gravy and b0neZ



Once b0neZ got off work, we headed to Reno to try to clear out the area around northwest McCarran.

Started in Rancho San Rafael, where we finally got the Rowley Grove Micro, and also picked up a 5th grade medicine cache on the other side of the park. b0neZ made the comment that he was surprised at how big the park really is. After that, we started playing connect the dots on the map, and grabbed Wooden Teeth (great camo!), Bring Bread (tons of feathered friends), Electric 5th grade cache, Montezuma's Revenge (thankfully not like the Tonopah one), HelloMoto (cute container), Hey...What's the SCORE (watched some little doggies out playing), Top O the Hill (awesome dog prints), the totally cool Jenny, and Extra Naughty (appropriate for this time of year).

Managed to get my count up to 1580. No, it's not about the numbers, but sometimes its just fun to play around with them and score some good personal milestones. 1600 is a nice round number.

Update on MooseMob has him out of the hospital and home (and "feeling fine" - though what drugs were prescribed, no one knows) with pins, screws, and braces. Joy.

Kindergeek arrives in two days, and then the two upcoming events are going to make sure that the end of 2007 is anything but plain and boring.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Poor poor Moose Mob!!

John (2-old) got off the phone with MooseMob, and he was told to post this to the NGA site.

Moose Mob broke his ankle Sunday on the way to a cache. Techatticup Bridge.

Thanks to Broncocacher, whtwolfden, and members of the caching/hiking group from Meetup.com that were there.

Pictures of the extrication are posted on the cache page for Roadhobbler.

He is having sugery today (now, in fact) to either put in pins, or braces for the ankle. No riding to caches for 2 weeks, and then only to easy parking lot types for a while.

He will be out of work for 4 - 6 weeks, and they will go from there.

Get well soon, my friend!!

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Delorme Finishers Party

Party's getting into full swing as all of Reno joins in to celebrate the most recent completers of the greatest Challenge



Rode up with Dad today to attend the 3rd Delorme Challenge Finishers party, congratulating Lil' Devil and Team Alamo who were there, and a far-away congrats to spudkicker, FlaXJer, and jahoadi and john.

Around 25-30 people showed up and overran the little party room at Straw Hat. Course, dummy me thought it was at Round Table, and only the inflata-Bull out front kept our attention enough to spot GeoSpyder's own Green Jeep. Good food, great company, what more can you ask for?

Let's see, Team Alamo, rock & crystal, fisherwoman and ???, me, b0neZ, and Dad, LostInReno, faith (no cookie that I saw), iamacaver, SKWERL, CharlieBaltimore, Topaz GeoGoats, LaughingGravy, Find Waldo, geospyder, FortuneFinders and Lil'Devil were there, plus a handful of kids running around. Great turnout! Moonchaser and abeyoni showed up at the end of the event but still got to say howdy to everyone.

Afterwards, about six of us walked while the rest drove over to spyder's new cache The Canidate which RoadBird had published about two hours before the event. That was a blast to see, in Lee's words, a gaggle of cachers surround this poor little hide. It didn't stand a chance.

It was a very cool day! I'm planning on trying to hit about 30 caches in Reno on Wednesday before work (wish me luck) and then I'm hosting an Event here in Carson on the 29th. Hopefully I'll bag 1600 by the end of the year. Hard to believe it was only in February that I broke 1000. Course there's no way I'm getting about 400 before February to gain that magical 1k in 1 year - though it'd be nice.

On another note, over in the NGA forums, a simple question was asked as to who would be the Geocacher for November - well, one thing led to another, and, well, here's the post from JoBoSoMo's Mom:

"I come back with one post and I'm being mentioned on other threads. Gosh but it makes me feel good. "Life Experience", "caching experience". I'm not sure that qualifies me but if it does I will say that it is official. Nevada Wolf is now the Official Geocacher of the Year for all of Nevada. If anyone out there doesn't agree let me know. It won't make any difference but you can let me know. I think all the votes that have been submitted verify that I have made the right call."

I'm going to have a seriously stupid smile on my face all the way through to the event down there - I think the lackey's are going to wonder about me. Tis all good, and I'm so thrilled that this simple little wolf has such great friends.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Awesome Day

White Elephant Christmas Party 2007



Today was so cool! Started out this morning with a rush up to Reno to meet up with Mamma Gravy and Doodad to pour over some maps for the Rally course next year. Think we have a really good road planned out and I can't wait to see if it has the overlook that I believe it will. Oh, participants are going to love the 5th Rally!

Picked up b0neZ for a caching run around Reno with Gravy and managed to grab a handful of caches before it got to cold to get out of the truck. Finally managed to get the Shelf Life and What's MINE caches which I'd been staring at for a long while, but never could make it during business hours.

Dropped b0neZ off and returned to the White Elephant event hosted by GBES. Lots of cool presents with some wacky twists in them. A room full of friends and pizza all around. how can you not have a good time?

Today was also my first 12 of 12 day, so hop on over to that blog and share in the pictures I took today (though I spaced on getting one of the three of us with maps spread out all over the place.)

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Moments of coolness

Jobs Peak, with cloud layer, totally cool sight.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Winter caching


Out and about on a snowy cold day of caching. Stopped off at Emerald City café for the travel bug hotel and for lunch.



Today was a great day, despite it snowing last night. Met up with LostInReno, moonchaser, NVGreenGecko, and Razorback for a day of caching around Reno. They needed some areas cleaned up and I was just along for the ride.

Caching in the snow is definately a unique experience. Cold, windy, and icy all add to the adventure. We were breaking apart chunks of snow on trees, sticking hands down into frozen rock piles, and generally getting cold. Though both Gecko and Razorback had bought little hats that, in Gecko's words, made them look like "Heidi from the Swiss Alps" or the little boy in A Christmas Story. We were threatening to find a flag pole after that.

I managed to score 15 caches and 1 DNF. Not sure how much of a dent that put into the total needed in Reno, but hey, its a start.

Got home, waited for b0neZ to get off work, then the two of us went to go see Beowulf in 3-D. OMG!!! Totally worth the cost of admission for a mind-blowing experience. The technology for the 3D plus the skill level on the graphics was enough to completely suspend reality. Course, the little "Oh, look at the 3D effect" cheap effect moments were unneccessary, as the overall movie was just downright COOL! Highly recommended, especially if you gave up on movies for expense and lameness.

No plans yet on the next caching adventure. Two upcoming events are the Delorme Finishers Party and a huge Groundspeak event in Vegas. Fun times are going to be had!

Friday, December 7, 2007

Crumb muffins!!



Well, it finally decided to snow down here in the valley and stick. Figures, since I was hoping to do a run on the Rally course tomorrow on my one and only day off this week.

In the background is Bill's new Bronco. He wanted something that he could play off road in.



I like WNC's webcam - it shows so many nice things:

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Go Mobile

I set this up awhile back, but so much has passed, I need to see if its still possible.



Alright, so I'm able to upload from the phone, awesome. Now I'll be able to post from the road and then return home to fill in the story. The break above will be the seperator point.

Above is b0neZ fussing with his new blog. You'll find the link to it on the side.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

A quick summary of 5 months

Oh good lord! What happened?!

Caching wise: Since the hike to Snow Valley Peak, several things have happened on the caching side of my life. Quick highlights include:
  • Solving some cool multis with Mamma Gravy
  • An AWESOME hike to Mt Rose with randallh, abeyoni, and eph
  • Enjoyable hike through Galena Park with Mamma Gravy, b0neZ and kindergeek
  • Cool trip through Fernley with b0neZ, kindergeek, and geospyder
  • Pre-trip to Lagomarsino with b0neZ and KG to check on my cache.
  • A BUNCH of FTF's around Carson
  • Trip down through Yerington and back through Gardnerville.
  • The MEGA-HUGE Meet & Greet event in Tonopah
  • A second trip along the 2007 Rally route
  • A re-check on the Tonopah caches

Not only that, but I got roped (gladly) into helping with the 2008 Rally Route. There's been a lot of events past and future that I'm going to try to get to, another Delorme Finishers party, the GBES birthday party, and a major Vegas event shortly into the new year.

Life side: Too many changes have happened, some of which are why I haven't had time to cache, blog, or anything else for that matter. Biggest changes are I moved into my own place and I have someone new in my life. b0neZ showed up while I was looking at info about the Angora Fire. He's been by my side ever since and I've majorly gotten him into caching. He's seriously afflicted with the FTF bug and between our notifies we have run all over Northern Nevada at some very bizarre hours.

Hopefully I'll be able to start this up again. It may be short entries, but I'll try to post something from each trip using Mobile Blogger.

Stay tuned!

Monday, July 9, 2007

To the top of the world!

It really feels wierd logging in a story twice (one here, one in One Thousand Footsteps) but the focus is different. There I just record hikes and various bits of info about them. Here is the tale about the cache!

I saw this one get posted long ago (well, in April). Back then, Abe hadn't started caching again. But then I notice that he logs one of my caches, so I check his profile and see that he bagged the FTF on this cache. Doing a little research shows that it's up on Snow Valley Peak, the bald peak that you can see from Carson - I think, need to check that. Back then, I was thinking there is no way I'm getting that! However, now after three months of various moderate/difficult hikes, this suddenly came into the range of possibility.

So I started off and walked down the trail that I'd walked last week. Cept this time I headed up, up, up to the peak. Course, by the time that I reached the junction between the trail and North Canyon Rd, I'd changed the batteries on my GPS three times and was now out of fresh batteries and it was beeping at me that it was low. Thankfully, I'd read the cache page last night and also looked at the spoiler picture. So, once up at the peak, I simply aligned myself with where I thought it was, fired up the GPS just long enough to see that I was 200 feet from the site and as it reached 20 feet, the batteries gave out entirely. Found the cache regardless.

Managed to have enough juice in my phone to take pictures (the cameras batteries having been sacrificed to the GPS) and to log in from the summit of the peak. Also sent out a couple emails with the recently taken pictures to prove to Mamma Gravy I was still alive. Then one phone call to dad to tell him I was heading back.

The return trip was uneventful, save for one moment.

As I came over a slight rise to a section of the trail that leveled out, I happened to look up just in time to see.... a mountain lion! spring from a cluster of fallen trees and bound over the trail, up the small hill, and vanish into the forest.

Um, whoa...

Seems to be a lot of first to see animals over the last year. First bighorn sheep, first scorpion, and now first cougar. Gawds was he a beaut!

And now I'm whipped, so this is coming to a close.

Slide, Galena, and Como

Well, actually I've gone out and found some interesting caches lately.

While at work a few days ago, I see an email notify that RoadRunner published a new cache by Abe. Figuring Randy would beat me too it, I looked it up anyway and saw that it was up on Slide Mountain. Of all the peaks around here that I've been wanting to climb, Slide just never came across as one of them. So, a little research reveals the back road up and the next morning I take a risk to see if I can manage to out hike Randy (for once).

After stumbling around the campground and nearby summit looking for $5 (all I had on me was $10s and $20s and much as I like the wilderness area, the Forest Service is not getting that much of a tip from me) I park the truck and begin the hike up the service road. An hour later I find myself overlooking Washoe Valley, the Truckee Meadows, and a good half of Lake Tahoe. BEAUTIFUL!

Course, I had to call Abe as my foul GPS was still 30 feet off and his definition of a "tower" varied from mine. Drat. Still, bagged the peak and the FTF. This morning was good.

Mamma Gravy and I hooked up on Friday for our hike, but as it was over 100 degrees, we opted to just work on a couple very well-done multis. The first had us following clues through the trees, but I needed a lifeline as the standard clue vanished and was replaced by a container with the coords. I like having Cache Angels on speed dial.

The second multi was an awesome puzzle (three of them actually) leading up to a great overlook of Reno. Course, the heat was starting to get to us by this point, but I did have a spark of brilliance on the second puzzle and found a completely harm free work-around to get the answer. I've seen/heard of too many caches falling victim to impatient cachers.

Today, Dad and I had some free time, so we drove out to Como Rd in search of two FTFs. Course, stupid me navigated him onto the completely wrong road. Watching the ever growing plume of smoke from a large fire to the south, we wheeled across the Eldorado Canyon Reservoir dam and headed up to the powerline road on the other side of the ravine. Eventually came to some ruins that my GPS labeled as the Canyon Quarry, and the cache lie on the other side. Parked and followed some old footprints out (desert caching at it's finest - Follow the Footprints!) and the cache, and FTF, was ours!

The second cache had just been published the night before. I love that notify email. So we wheeled up to the site and got out at what looked like a good turn around point. Cheatgrass, dry day, and hot vehicle underparts are not a good combo and the thick layer of smoke was a good reminder to be safe. The hint said to reach up, course this gazelle just climbed right to the top and sat next to the cache. Uncovered it and handed it down to dad and the logbook was opened to record our second.... TO FIND?!

ARGHHHH, beaten by two Minden based cachers, BigTruckCrew and lil miss muffit. Both of whom had scored the FTF on Dad's new cache - and the proof of that visit was resting in the bottom of the cache currently in Dad's hand. The Green Jeep Travel Bug made it a whopping 10 miles before ending back in our hands. I just had to grab it.

Replaced everything as found and headed home for the day. The smoke had turned and filled the entire valley, dropping ash as it did. I really hope it doesn't affect my hike to Snow Valley Peak tomorrow.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

A very good weekend

Haven't been doing much cache-wise as for some reason I've not really been in the caching mood. It's like if I have the choice between caching and "something else", something else usually wins. I even had a whole day and ran a PQ on Fallon since I know John's been busy out there - but staring at the map, the thought of driving out there just did not appeal to me.

So, if you hop over to the One Thousand Footsteps blog, you'll see what I've been doing when I'm not caching.

However, I was invited by GeoJeepers to join them as they ran around the desert picking up the Rally caches. They were in So. Cal during that weekend and I was hanging out with Lynn and Letty, so there were now 50 odd caches waiting to be found. I missed the Saturday run, but was able to join them Sunday.

So, first thing in the morning it's the required stop at Starbucks, followed by a photo-op off all the Jeeps (and one lone Toyota) before we were off. We were heading for the Night Rally caches, those throughout the area between the Minden Airport and Sunrise Pass Rd. There were a few that were non-Rally caches, but of those I needed only one. Jeeper had pre-run the route we were to follow, so we bounced along through the desert, winding our way around the various caches (all of which were "pipe bombs" - white PVC pipes - in a bush). Linda had way to much fun with the predictions about what we would find and where, course no one was about the bet she was wrong.

All told, for me anyway, the day netted 22 caches. Jeepers, Geospyder, and L3-Geo went off to Virginia City for more caching fun and I had to head to work.

That night, however, I learned that I had Monday off. Not a whole lot of time to plan for anything, but Dad was also off for the Independence Day holiday. So, we went after another kind of cache.

A couple weeks ago, Dad spotted a cache in California that was still waiting for the FTF - 8 months after it was published. So, we packed up the truck and headed to Summit City, north of Truckee. We wound our way back into an area dotted with slickrock and a lot of lakes, and finally crawled down into an open meadow with a large lake in the center. Meadow Lake was also home of 5 other caches. We worked our way through a few of them before heading up a very rocky 4x4 trail that began climbing the mountainside.

What awaited us at the site was a breathtaking view of the entire area, no trees up here, just a straight panaramic view. The cache was found, the Jeep toys got to play on the rocks and our Tacoma got to pretend it was a real rock crawler for awhile. Then back down to the ghost town. A few more caches, one up in the cemetary and another in more 4x4 rocks, and then to the final cache in the area. The description read it was on an island in the lake. Wading or swimming was required, and there was a cautionary note that the winter may have swept the cache away into the lake itself. Fun.

We pulled up to the site and walked through the campground to face the island.... and there was none. The water level was so low that the "island" was a sandy penninsula with high and dry ground straight to the cache. I dove into the bush and retrieved it, before replacing it by shoving it back in it's little niche so tightly nothing short of brunt strength is freeing it. But, I was disappointed that I didn't get to get into the water. So, I went out there anyway.

Nice thing about REI hiking pants is they dry super fast - so I took off my boots (the boots are waterproof, but the water was deeper than the cuffs and my socks are anything but waterproof) and walked straight out into the water towards some old tree stumps that were exposed. That was total fun and I went back to grab my boots and then walked in the lake as far as I could before having to come onto ground again to head to the truck.

We drove back out towards Truckee before heading up into Tahoe to drop off the various bugs and coins that we've been carrying around since White Hill. However, the one decent sized cache that's easy to get to was now locked inside a closed Visitor Center - so it was up and over Mt. Rose to go for the caches up there that I knew about. Found two and dropped off everything we had (cept the Red Jeep, not sure yet what I'm going to do with it).

Once back into Reno, we went to go see Rattatoui (sp?) before going home.

Yeah, this was an awesome weekend.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Ophir Creek Trail

Mamma Gravy and I got moving again by heading up Ophir Creek Trail. We'd each done various portions of the area cleaning out the older caches, but now there's new ones up there, so it was time to get them.

It was a great stroll all the way up, though the day started out rather cruddy. An understandably upset email from both Habu and John regarding some comments made seemingly from the Board. Personal politics aren't going to enter this blog, though Gravy and I did talk about them the entire hike. Even got a call from MM, both to steal his Jeep (whoo hoo!) and to talk about just what the difference between "power" and "authority" are and what he has of those. This had been a conversation we'd had the night before, so we just picked it up from there.

After deciding to ignore life in the valley for awhile, Gravy and I found three caches up the trail (including one I'd already gotten) and had a great little picnic lunch sitting by the lair of White Tiger 1. It's been awhile since I was up here, but I still remembered exactly where that cache was. Course three times up there to look for it really helped me get to know that boulder field.

Continuing on we made our way to White Tiger 2 and a GREAT view of Washoe Valley. Though the hunt took longer because the GPS was really screwing around, but I finally found it. Admired the view, sorted through the cache - aside from two other logs in May, the cache had not been found since 2005!! Geeze!

Hoofed it back down to the car and headed into work. Found out, due to something work related, that I won't be getting a day off again for awhile, though I'm hijacking the closing schedule.

The next day before my class, decided to go take a walk up Hobart Rd that connects to Lakeview. Since there aren't any caches along the lower part of the road, the only thing I'll mention about that is I think I screwed up my foot. It started to really ache.

At work, it just plain downright hurt.

By the next morning, the thought of pressure on it was the furthest thing from my mind. Following the RICE therapy right now, hopefully I won't be gimpy too long.

White Hill

Okay - posting the quiz below also reminded me, well, I haven't updated this since Saturday.

Ok, Sunday morning, now that the Rally is over, Dad and I went to breakfast with the entire MooseMOB! Stress the second part there. Total party of 8, Lynn and Letty, the two daughters, and the two grandsons, and us. First we hit Cracker Box - um, riiight 8:30am on Father's Day. Well that ain't happening. So, it was off to Pop's BBQ for good breakfast and surprisingly empty restaurant. Of course I had the cinnimun roll and could feel the sugar clogging everything in me.

Then, since we had time, it was up to White Hill. Dad headed off on his own to go fill up the cooler and I led the Jeep up the Spooner Road to enjoy the backcountry of the Sierra. Managed to also find the Wood Nymph, though I couldn't remember where most of the carvings were. John called at this point (first me, then MooseMob) to get the coords for the picnic.

Once up on the hill, we saw that dad, wildoates, and the Topaz Geogoats were already there. I parked up at the front and MM parked his Jeep next to the road. Later, when Spyder rolled up in his 2-door version, they lined both Jeeps up as a gate that all others had to pass through. It looked cool.

We set up a table for bugs and coins, and MM's collection was laid out for all to see. Also set up the various raffle prizes and ever the new cache that was to be placed up the hill. I can't remember who all was there, but we had a fairly decent gathering for exhausted cachers. A lot of Rally folks came up, a handful from ODL, and one or two just random visitors. Great time and a lot of fun, which is purely what caching is all about.

It was also cool having not only RoadRunner present, but we also had Hemlock there - so when the new cache (who's page was already submitted) was being packed up with numerous bugs and coins, Hemlock was on his phone publishing the cache! That wwas just too cool for the rest of us caching minions.

After a long while of just hanging out, it was time to shuttle everyone back to their own places and things to do. I headed back to Carson with part of the family, said my farewells, and went home to log in.

And crash!

I think Dad was out on the couch even before I got my computer on.

Though, while logging, I realized I'd let both volunteers go without getting their coins! Drat! But, coincendentally, Lil Devil called for a lifeline on the Hobobrother cache that I'd just found and refound with MM. Whoo Hoo! Helped him out, and listened as they spooked up a rattler, and told him that I'd like to discover his coin. So we were invited to dinner that evening.

Dad and I get down there at a little after 7 and I think we left a little after 10. It was awesome being able to hang out and just talk, and talk, and talk some more. Both of them are on my short list of the folks I'd really like to go caching with one day and just hang out with.

This was a totally wicked weekend and I'm seriously bummed that it's over with.