Lake Tahoe

Decided to head up to Tahoe today to try and clean out some of the caches up there, as well as do my part in maintaining some of the Opening Day at the Lake caches.

Dad came with and we had fun driving up and snagging caches along the way. I ended up Twittering my experience, and learned Leaky Spoon was just ahead of us, also using Twitter to track her finds.

We "followed" each other until they continued around the Lake and we stopped at the totally awesome cache of The Fire Line.

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9/13/2008

NevadaWolf found Get the Point?, Double Rewards, Mantenga Tahoe Azul, Tahoe Lookout, LT010 Kahle Park Cache, SG008 Pony Express Trail circa 1860, SG016 How Can You Be In Two Places At Once? , LT036 Bal-Bijou Dance Hall, SG024 Fire Line, LT013 Pony Express, The Jolly Green Grasshopper of Gratitude..., Keep Tahoe Blue, http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=3392b652-cadb-43cd-a5c1-ecc585e39cd8, SG020 Round Hill Pines, Mile Marker # 44, LT007 Chukar Plug, SG040 County Park Walkabout

9/13/2008
NevadaWolf didn't find A Child's Blessing

9/13/2008
NevadaWolf posted a note for NV’s 38th Parallel OCC (Blue Edition)

Balloons and Burn out

Well, 2am comes way to quick when you go to bed at 10pm.

Woke up, got ready, and trekrr and I were on the road by a little after 3am. We headed straight into Reno and ended up getting caught in the traffic routing surrounding the Park. Finally found the right place, paid out $5, and ended up being the 7th car in the lot.

We found a good place to hang out and wait for the Glow Show at 5am. It was a fun time where four balloons all lit up at the same time, twinkled, and then played Dueling Balloons. The cutest was two Bumble Bees who took the turn as the guitar and you could see their pilots were having a lot of fun!

Then it was time for the Dawn Patrol. Every time I go, this is the moment to look for. The music is powerful, the balloons all rise together and they glow brightly in the pre-dawn air. Then they lift off and your surrounded by glowing spheres that slowly drift over to the brightening horizon and regardless of if lit or not present a breathtaking sight.

Afterwards we moved over to the hillside to watch the Mass Ascension, 90 balloons rising and lifting together from the fields. But that was all preceeded by a large American Eagle filling, standing tall, lifting off, and graced by a fantastic flyover of 5 planes, who flew a formation honoring Fallen Soldiers. This was all accompanied by Mike Algers, our local weatherguy, singing a powerful national anthem.

So we watched the full lift-off before heading back to Carson to meet up with b0neZ, kindergeek, BigTruckCrew, and Lil Miss Muffit to head up back to Como Mining District to check on the cache we'd luckily found awhile back. The original coords were way off, by about a quarter mile, but some logic and luck found the FTF for us. Unfortunately, the Como Fire went through shortly after and the area was torched. BTC and company went to find it a few weeks back and found only the charred remains of the penlight that once was in the cache.

Our search yielded the same, the cache was gone. So we explored the area, the numerous test holes and mine shafts - NO, we did not go in, but did toss a few depth test rocks - and found a new place for a cache in a far better location with an AWESOME view. Always better to improve upon a cache that's been essentially abandoned.

Then it was back down the mountain and off to Reno again to check out the Army surplus store that carrys a lot of AirSoft supplies. We looked through the whole store for awhile, before heading off to lunch. However, at this point it was nearing 4pm. Trekrr had managed to get one whopping hour of sleep since 9am Saturday morning. I'd managed to get 4 hours. Needless to say, we were starting to run on fumes. So back home, time to watch more mythbusters, and just crash out until bed time.

Another fun filled weekend!

OMG, can I smash any more into 48 hours?!

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So, a while back, Podcacher interviews this guy called Amtrekker. Someone who decided "Why wait?" to do a "50 things I've always wanted to do" list. Cool. I swing over to his website, http://amtrekker.com/ and scroll through the first couple of pages. Then I see #42 on his list: Ride an ostrich. Hey, the Camel Races are coming up soon and they have ostriches! (Little did I know he already knew this). So, I shoot him a quick tweet on Twitter and start following his adventures.

What does that have to do with today? Patience!

It's another weekend and that means another AirSoft game. This time though it's up in King's Canyon and with the recent decline of my asthma condition, upon finding out just how steep the terrain was, left me sitting up on my truck rather than risk a full blown attack that left all my friends having to drag my heavy butt back uphill and then to the hospital. Yeah, I'll stay here. Unfortunately that means no pictures.

Afterwards, we head back into town, and do a quick change before heading up to Virginia City for.. you guessed it.. the 49th International Camel Races! We find our spot on the mine tailing that the rodeo grounds have been carved out of, and hunker down for a good show. And it was a lot of fun! Camels running everywhere, jockeys sometimes on their rides (sometimes not), and a large crowd having a lot of fun!

Then, it's time for the ostriches. Amtrekker, Brett, has a distictive green ball cap that let's him stick out once you know to look for it. We watched him get introduced and interviewed by the EmCee and then he was off towards the gates. On your mark, get set, GO!!! They're off, the first two birds driving forward, but the third decides it doesn't want to do anything and plops down right on the track, refusing to move, and spilling its rider. Guess who the lucky rider was?

Well, the crew took pity and Brett was allowed to ride in the final ostrich race. So we watched more camels kinda sorta going thata way, if they felt like it. There was a zebra who preformed some fun tricks and looked like he was enjoying his chance in the limelight. A trio of belly-dancers also entertained the crowd.

Back to the ostriches, Brett set up his videographer and then he climbed onto the back of another ostrich. On your mark, Get Set, GO!!! He's out first! He's pulling ahead! He's... turning around?! And around?! And headed back! Uh oh! A good solid twist of a fluffy feathered back and Brett found himself on the ground, curled up to protect himself as the ostrich tried to find it's footing - on top of Brett!

The bird was chased away, Brett was helped up, and the crowd started yelling. One of the other ostriches had jumped the fence on the far end and was standing confused at the mountain wall behind the arena. Expertly wrangled back into the field with the crowd pushed up into the higher levels of the seating area, we all got our nice bit of excitement for the day.

I took the chance to walk around to the rider's area, watched a brief interview and a rapid Twitter post and then broke in by finishing his sentence of "Just doing a quick Twitter update..." with "Yeah, and it's a pain trying to update while standing in a field!" Had a great time talking with the four of them, found out more about him and his plans for the future. An incredible guy and amazing to talk with. I'm glad I got to meet him so soon after learning of his project. I would LOVE to be able to drop everything and do the same - though I'd go out and tackle it as a major geocaching project.

A quick run out to Silver Springs and then home to sit here and type. Tomorrow morning is the Great Reno Balloon Race and I want to go up to once again see the Dawn Patrol!

I'll load photos specific to Brett's visit here: Amtrekker's Ostrich Ride