Puddles and Poo

Today we celebrated the end of “The Big Storm” by driving out to Fernley and Fallon. Our greatest concern was that, because of all the snow and rain, we would be restricted to pavement and wouldn’t be able to go off-road. Once there we found huge mud puddles that we avoided, no puddles at all and more than our share of puddles that were just right (it’s a guy thing).


We decided that once we reached Fallon we would grab all the caches south of Hwy 50 and then work our way back hitting the caches north of Hwy 50, creating a roughly circular counter clockwise route. Our course took us through thick sand and slimy mud to lifting skirts in parking lots. And, we visited many more of Fallon’s famous “Flood Gates”. More than once we stirred the curiosity of the locals, irrigation canal and utility workers. Luckily we were able to flee before we were asked to explain our strange interest in diversion dams and fence posts.

Toward the end of the day, we found ourselves near a dairy searching for a nano in a haystack, or was it a tree, or..maybe on (in) that cow. Anyway, after we found it we took off down the road to the next cache. I thought the brown colored piles in the road were dirt but when GeoJeep started slipping and sliding I knew the brown stuff came from that dairy. It was more than a little obvious that their manure wagon was overflowing or incontinent. When we got out at the next cache, GeoJeepette wrinkled up her nose, looked at me and asked indignantly, “What’s that smell!” I quickly pointed at GeoJeep hoping I was right. I was...and IT was all over the previously (and lovingly) applied mud. Brown on brown and reeking of poo!

We managed to continue caching until it was time to head home but we weren’t very enthusiastic whenever we had to get out. On the way home GeoJeepette made it crystal clear that, if I didn’t wash GeoJeep before we got home, he would be spending the night on the driveway. So, as the sun was setting I found myself at a do-it-yourself car wash knocking chunks of mud and poo off GeoJeep so he could enjoy the comfort of the garage. Despite the odiferous experience, it was a beautiful day to get out and do something we love and we had a great time.

Beating the Storm

Today we decided to stick close to home because there was a big storming coming. There were several new caches in the area and we’d been saving them up to we could be more efficient. We headed out to Spanish Springs - the farthest point from home and worked our way back.

Our first cache was a short walk down a very icy path. We had been here once before after the last storm and decided to wait for the ice to melt. We felt sure it would be gone by now. No such luck. This time we decided to go for the cache anyway. We worked our way around the ice as much as possible and made the find.

At our next cache we ran into the laughinggravy’s. They were out caching before the storm as well. We visited and each headed our separate ways. As we toured Reno it kept getting colder and colder. We finished our last Reno area cache around 1:30pm just as the snow began to fall. It was pretty light so we decided to make a quick run to the north end of Carson City for a cache we couldn’t get to last time we tried because of snow. As we headed down 395 south, the snow got heavier and heavier. Soon we were traveling through white out conditions. Who had this great idea (not Mike)? But there was no turning back so on we went. We arrived at the cache site, walked through the accumulating snow and found the cache quickly. The nearby hawk wasn’t too pleased to see us but aside from “talking” to us he left us alone.

It was now time to head home. Actually the drive home was a lot calmer. The snow was lighter and it was already melting on the road. We finished the day with nine caches. By the time we headed to bed, we had six inches of snow around our house and they were predicting six more by morning. We’ll see. The weather never seems to go along with the forecast.

PO'd in Auburn??

Saturday morning we hopped out of bed at 5am with Mike kicking and screaming and were out the door by 6:30am headed to Auburn for a day of caching. Thirty minutes up the road Mike was talking to me again so I knew he was finally conscious. We found our first cache at 8:29am and by 9:04am we had found five. We were feeling pretty confident by then so we headed out Forest Hill Road to pick up four more caches. Three DNF’s later we finally found our sixth cache at 10:20. Our confidence was waning, but we headed on back to Auburn in hopes of more caches to be found.

We had a roughly circular route in mind taking us up Highway 49 and then home via Magnolia Road to 80. We worked our way back and forth on both sides of Hwy 49 and were being pretty successful. We visited the back roads of Auburn to find obscure trails to walk. We made a quick left turn into a “Do Not Enter” area, but are happy to report that no cars were coming at us so as I was squeaking, GeoJeep saved the day and headed for the right side of the road. We visited the Auburn Cemetery for the second time and ended up stopping for lunch just outside their gates.

After lunch we tried to find a new cache that no one else had been able to find. We walked up a short path, around some nasty berry bushes and started our search mucking through the trees. We came up empty as well. We widened our search thinking the coords might be off but with no luck. We went on from there and by the end of the day we had 25 caches and 8 DNFs. It was about 4pm so we headed home.

After arriving home, we discussed whether we needed to worry about poison oak (PO) and were sure that we had not seen any at any of the caches. We had our dinner and I logged our finds. After finishing logging the successes, I started to log the DNFs. As I logged the DNF on the new cache with the berry bushes and the trees, I noticed that a previous cacher said that the trees were covered with PO. Well S**T!! For two old folks, our clothes came off in record time. We slathered on the Technu, waited the required time and jumped in the shower. Luckily we have two showers so we didn’t have to fight over who went first.

Now two days later we are glad to report that we weren’t PO’d in Auburn!!

Cold Ducks and More!

Yesterday the sun came out for a few hours and so did we. Because of work, snow, wind, and cold, we hadn’t been able to cache in several weeks. Since we were tired of sitting in the house, we planned a caching trip and waited for the weather to cooperate. When the sun peeked out from the clouds, we grabbed our caching stuff, jumped in the car, and were off. We started with a cache called “Cold Ducks”. We walked around a local man made lake and at GZ started our search. All of a sudden then was quite a flurry of wings and water. We looked up to see what was happening and realized that all the small black ducks were headed for us. They raced up and practically stood on my feet hoping I would feed them. I felt really bad because it hadn’t occurred to me to bring food for the ducks. They persisted and so did we. We found the cache, but unfortunately, they didn’t get any food.

We continued on our route around Reno and found 5 caches before the cold and wind stopped us again.

Today we raced out to look for 3 caches we didn’t have time for yesterday. We made short work of them and headed back to our warm house.

We have only one thing to say. ENOUGH ALREADY OF THIS COLD AND SNOWY WEATHER!!

BTW: The picture doesn't even begin to show the number of ducks that were first there. By the time I got out my camera, a lot had given up.