INTERSTATE MADNESS!!

We walked out our door this morning at 6:00am to find RAIN. But not to be deterred, we again took off early for our second day of touring the Northern California coast and then heading inland. Yesterday I complained that I never got to see the ocean, so soon after we left Fortuna, Mike said “The Ocean’s on the left, can you see it?” Well, NO, the fog was heavy and there was no blue ocean in sight. Maybe later!

Our first stop of the day was in Eureka where we picked up a quick cache and then immediately headed out again. We had a lot of miles to cover today and our driver (Mike) let us know in no uncertain terms that we couldn’t spend time at any other caches or we wouldn’t finish our designated route.

Finally ocean. It was gray not blue because of the cloud cover, but the waves still made it an impressive sight. We saw cars driving right on the beach – where’s GeoJeep when you want it. (FYI, we left the jeeps at home and carpooled in GeoSequoia to share the cost of gas.)

Have you ever heard the phrase “I can see it, but I can’t get there”? Well, that was us trying to get to the scenic highway for our next cache. We went in circles north and south on Highway 101 till we managed to finally get the right exit. We jumped out of the car and were hit in the face with the cold. We shivered our way out to the cache where we had a beautiful view of the ocean, the beach, the surfers, and the beautiful rocks in the shallows. I guess it was worth the cold. Farther down the beach, we saw a big group of people that appeared to be standing around. Linda wondered if they were watching for a tidal wave. But no, on our way out we saw that that was clam beach so we guess they were claming. Linda’s explanation was more exciting!!

North of Klamath, we passed statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe, his blue ox. Linda and I wanted to stop for a picture since as children we heard many stories of how our father was a good friend of Paul Bunyan and in fact helped him and Babe build Puget Sound. You know little girls believe anything their father says! Anyway, by the time we screamed stop, we were too far past to turn around. Besides we were on a mission.

Finally we were traveling right along the ocean. Unfortunately the fog was so thick we couldn’t see a thing including the highway. What happened to the sunshine we were supposed to have for the weekend?

Our final caches along the coast were in Crescent City where we visited a memorial dedicated to the shipwreck of The Brother Jonathan and the Saint George Reef Lighthouse that was placed on the National Register of Historical Places in 1993. From there we headed inland through the Smith River Canyon on our way to Grant’s Pass Oregon before heading back into California. We had to travel through Oregon because there were no roads that went east from Crescent City. There were a lot of pesky mountains in the way.

As we were traveling the small mountain road, to our surprise we came upon a red light. What’s this doing here in the middle of nowhere? Well, it was their answer for road construction. Put up a light and save money on a flagger. Actually, it worked really well as our wait was minimal. Soon after the sun finally broke through the clouds. Yea!!

We stopped for lunch in Grants Pass, Oregon and then walked across the parking lot for a quick lamp skirt cache. Then began the longest stretch of our trip today. We had to catch 62 off of I-5 near Medford, Oregon and head to Klamath Falls where we turned south to head back into California to snag a cache in Modoc County. This cache was located near the Tule Lake Japanese internment camp a place I didn’t know existed. But I learned there were 10 such internment camps during WW II.

Now we had a decision to make. It was 3:30pm. Should we head south seven more miles to get Quad 29 or turn around and head back to 161 and to Weed a three hour drive. Well, you guessed it. We had come this far and were so close we just couldn’t resist. What do we care if we’re doing the final caches in the dark!! So south we went. The cache took us up our first dirt road of the day. The sequoia did a great job. The final walk to the cache was about 50 feet with climbing on rocks involved so we just knew it was a good thing we went the extra miles. Mike loves to rock climb.

After finding this cache, we then headed back north to catch 161 that travels along the Oregon, California border. We had two more quads to get before the day could end. The first quad was an easy ammo can find. Good thing, we were getting tired.

As we headed south down 97, Mt. Shasta came into view. It’s still covered by snow and is a beautiful site. It was even more beautiful because we knew our very long day was almost over. We planned to stay in Weed, California for the night, not far from the base of Mt. Shasta.

The last cache (and quad) of the day was in a Memorial Sculpture Garden. We walked the paths seeing various sculptures depicting different wars. In amongst the walkways, we easily found the cache. After a long day in the car, it certainly was great to do a little walking.

Our day ended at 6:01pm when four very tired cachers walked into the Comfort Inn in Weed. Mike was right – we had to move right along all day – but I’m happy to report we completed our route and found 12 caches that included 3 counties and 8 quads. We enjoyed our cocktails, logged our caches, and planned our trip for tomorrow.

CRUISING THE COAST

We were up at 4am this morning to begin our trip along the Northern California Coast with Linda and Larry (L3-Geo). We were on a mission to pick up counties for the “Discovering and Logging California’s 58 Counties” cache and quads the “California DeLorme Challenge”.

The morning commute traffic slowed us down for a few minutes but finally we were on our way. We traveled through the wine country and were amazed by the acres and acres of grape vines. After two hours of travel we found our first cache at a new winery in the Calistoga area. Now we were cooking.

Next stop – Clear Lake, via a long curvy mountain road reminiscent of a roller coaster ride. Unfortunately, Mike (the driver) was the only one having a good time. Everyone else was too busy hanging on to their high tech gear and themselves to appreciate the experience. Clear Lake according to Larry was formed from the tears of Konocti, an Indian Chief, after he lost his daughter.

Our next stop was Lakeport, where we walked out on a pier over the water to find the cache. While there we visited with the nearby fishermen and gave them our advice on how to catch a fish. I guess we were good luck, because as we were leaving, one of the fishermen caught one. We also were lucky enough to spot a catfish meandering through the shallow waters near the pier.

We had lunch nearby and were on our way again. Trees lined the road and covered the mountains on both sides of us. Because we are from the driest state in the country (Nevada), we were in awe of the green countryside. Further down the road we made a quick stop and U-turn to look at bison lounging in a nearby field. There were flies all over their eyes, so they wouldn’t hold still for a picture so we did our best. Mike made a joke about picking up a bison tube for a future cache (only geocachers would understand his humor).

Our next cache took us to the Mendocino County offices to search an old tractor. Unfortunately, the sprinklers were on. So Mike, Linda and I stood with our feet on the sprinklers to block the water while Larry searched. He managed to stay dry, but I was soaked. The wind blew all the water right back at me. Next Linda took over the search, but after searching for about 15 minutes, we all decided enough was enough and we headed out to find another cache in this quad.

Before we knew it, we passed through “The Gateway to the Redwoods” at Willits, California. It took us forever to get through this little town. Everyone seemed to be in Willits today.

As we drove to the next quad, we realized that somehow we did not have the information for the next cache – one of the downsides to paperless geocaching. So Linda got on her phone, connected to the web, and looked up all the info. Luckily we found this one so we didn’t have to attempt a nearby cache where previous geocachers had reported bear activity (no not that kind of bare).

Eventually we reached the Richardson Grove State Park where we wandered through a grove of huge redwoods searching for some answers to a virtual cache. We weren’t sure if we found the right answers, but we got some great pictures of the giant redwoods.

Our final cache for the day took us to an old locomotive and a steam engine in Scotia. We learned about the 19th century lumber industry in this part of Northern California. There was a fantastic old inn where we considered staying for the night, but it was too early and too expensive so off we went again heading north.

We finally called it a day in Fortuna, California. It’s about 30 minutes south of Eureka, our first overnight stop on our trek up the coast tomorrow.

TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS!

Monday morning arrived with a surprise. We all survived a night in Bruno’s Motel! Cynthia and Linda had to admit that it wasn’t as bad as they thought it might be, but it’s only fair to note that Cynthia didn’t see the large colonies of mold lurking in the shower.

After enjoying breakfast at Bruno’s, we were on the road again (this is when Cynthia and Linda would break into song). The plan today was to take a very circuitous and scenic route back to Reno. After traveling west out of Gerlach for a few miles we turned onto a gravel road and headed roughly south along the west side of the Smoke Creek Desert. Even though it has it’s own name, the Smoke Creek Desert is geographically connected to the more famous Black Rock Desert that is north and east of the Smoke Creek Desert.

Twenty miles down the dusty road was our first cache of the day. Once we found the right road, it was an easy and fun Jeep ride up a hill bristling with tufa. We weren’t surprised that the cache was on top of one of the tallest chunks of tufa and it was Mike’s job to get up there and find it.

For the next 30 miles we followed the old stagecoach route that linked the few widely scattered ranches located wherever there was water. Surprisingly, a few of these ranches still exist today but, sadly, most are gone or are being slowly consumed by the desert. Along the way Linda and Larry picked up a cache located on a bridge spanning Smoke Creek. It’s hard to imagine that all the water flowing under the bridge will soon disappear when it reaches the thirsty playa less than a mile from here.

Toward the southern end of the Smoke Creek Desert the road passes through Bonham Ranch, an old stage station. To the left of the road is Round Hole Springs, a large deep spring about 30 feet wide and to the right (behind the old ranch house) is an artesian well. As the water flows out of the ground and onto the playa it transforms the otherwise barren desert into an oasis of life and color.

Terraced Hills and Sand Pass separate the Smoke Creek Desert to the north from Pyramid Lake to the south. Ten thousand or so years ago they were part of one huge inland sea known as Lahontan. Today, Pyramid Lake is all that remains of this inland sea, a victim of global warming that occurred long before white men came to this continent.

Just south of Sand Pass we turned west onto Fish Springs Road, another dry dusty gravel road. Thirty miles later we grabbed a cache near The Widow Maker, a steep hill climb into the Fort Sage Mountains. The plan now was to take a dirt road north to Herlong and then west on pavement to Hwy 395. That was the plan but sometimes plans have a way of turning to dust and blowing away just like the road we took to Herlong. At the end of the road with pavement in sight we came to a locked gate and there was no way around it. Crap! And just to rub salt in our wound, the gate had an old rusty handmade sign indicating that beyond the sign was a gated community. Har Har, very funny.

Our only option was to turn around and head south several miles to Laver Crossing Road and Hwy 395. Then north on 395 to where we should have intersected 395. Only a 16-mile detour and we were already behind schedule and to make matters worse we ran into road construction and lost even more time. After much teeth gnashing we turned off the highway, picked up some food and, of course, a cache.

Five miles up Hwy 395 we left the road just as the traffic was stopping for another construction zone and took the Milford Grade road into a completely different world than the one we had been in all day. As the road ascended up into the Diamond Mountains the visions of vast dry lifeless playas were replaced with forests literally bursting with water and wildlife. Within a few short miles of each other two completely different worlds exist side-by-side. And water is what makes them different.

There were three caches up here. The first was an easy drive-up cache by a gorgeous lazy stream running through a verdant valley. Then came “Otis Overlook”, a cache at the end of a long Jeep trail overlooking Honey Lake and the world we just came from. I’ll let the pictures describe what we saw along the trail and at the overlook.











After our experiences with Otis we were anxious for another Jeep Trail Adventure to the next cache…until we saw what laughingly was labeled as a “Jeep Trail” on the map. After about 50 feet the “road” vanished into the grass. After some discussion we decided to go up the road and check it out, after all, the worst that could happen is that we would have to back down a few feet. So the intrepid cachers cinched up their seat belts and…discovered that there was something of a road, no..a path beyond the grass. As we followed the path up the hill we wound around trees and boulders and over large dirt berms. Eventually, to the astonishment of us all, we drove within 700 feet of the cache. From the “parking lot” it was an easy hike to the cache. On the way back down the road we took the time to take pictures of the Jeeps as they negotiated over the dirt berms.

By now we were out of time and had to get back to Reno so we bailed on the “plan” and descended down the Doyle Grade Road to…you guessed it…Doyle. From there we headed to Reno picking up a few caches along the way. Once in Reno, we stopped at Chili’s, swapped pictures and ate some food. After lunch we all headed west on I-80 to pick up one last cache before Linda and Larry took off for Roseville and we came home and collapsed with a grin on our faces.

THE ROAD TO GERLACH

Today we headed to the "NV DeLorme Finders Get Lost in Gerlach Event" in beautiful downtown Gerlach, Nevada. We started early and headed into the rising sun (an every day occurrence when we were pursuing the Nevada DeLorme Challenge cache). The first cache of the day was on top of one of the many mountains in Reno. We explored several possible entrances to the area and on the second try we found the right road. We were able to drive pretty close to the cache and were glad to start our day with such success.

On down the road in Fernley, we picked up several new caches and then finally headed out the long road to Gerlach. We passed beautiful Pyramid Lake and had lunch along the shores of Winnemucca Lake, an area once totally covered by the waters of ancient Lake Lahontan, but now just a vast dry lake bed.










After lunch, we headed into the Selenite Range through the Limbo pass in seach of the "LIMBO CACHE" (GC10RPZ). The road was a pleasant change from the usual rocky roads we encountered in our travels through the rest of Nevada. The last 0.35 miles was up a steep rocky incline (the more usual Nevada road). Along the way, we saw thousands of baby mormon crickets and smooshed our fair share. But luckily, they were nowhere to be seen at the cache site. We found the cache after a short search and enjoyed the fabulous views.











Our next stop was Gerlach where we met up with our fellow geocachers and exchanged stories (some true and some exaggerated) of our common obsession. After enjoying a great dinner of Bruno's famous handmade meat raviolis, we all strolled across the street for a picture of the group and, of course, to claim another cache. The whole time we were being eaten alive by a horde of little flying biting nasty gnats.

It was hard to call it a night, but everyone needed to make the long trek home, except us. We stayed at Bruno's Motel expecting a wild night in Gerlach - NOT!! Actually we had another exciting day of caching planned for the trip home to Reno and needed an early head start.

FOLLOW THE LEADER!

We started our day today with Linda and Larry (L3-Geo) by getting a First to Find on "Follow The Leader" (GC12KDY). It was a crisp beautiful morning and we followed clues that took us from tree to tree and finally to a cache hidden in a stump. What a great time we had but little did we know that the rest of our day would be more following the leader. Since we have found most of the caches in the Reno area and Linda and Larry were on a quest for 4000, we spent the day being more of a quide than a cacher - which meant they followed us around a lot.

We went from Reno to Sparks to Pyramid Lake to Wadsworth, to Lovelock and back to Reno (or was it the other way around, its been a long day) with Geo-Jeep in the lead and The Golden Retriever following. We hiked through the woods, we bounced over rough roads, we climbed rocks, we hiked trails, and we climbed tufa. At the end of the day, we had 8 caches and they had 29 which brought them to 4000.




Congratulations Linda and Larry!

OH NO, NOT AGAIN!!

I awoke this morning to the sound of the drain pipe outside our window dripping. When I looked out the window, what to my wondering eyes should appear but SNOW. Haven't we had enough?? Apparently not as we spent the whole day running between rain, snow, and hail as we made our way around Reno with L3-Geo finding some easy caches instead of 4-wheeling around the mountains having more adventures.

We had found all the new ones in the area and were two short of our 3700 mark. We considered taking a short hike, but we decided it was too cold and windy so we headed down to Carson to grab a few caches. Success - we ended the day with 3702. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day since we have plans to cache around Pyramid Lake.

HUNTER CREEK HORROR

This was supposed to be an easy and boring day of geocaching. NOT!! Our intent was to grab a few caches around town, one of which would take us up Hunter Creek Canyon. My computer was acting up and we could no longer track the roads, but we decided to go for "Father and Sons 1st" (GC11GQG) anyway. Finding the right road turned out to be tricky. In fact, the right road was the right road but we chose the left. And so our adventure began!!

We traveled into the canyon about a mile, bumping over rocks, avoiding ruts, picking more wrong roads, and adding many more pin stripes to the jeep. We knew we were in trouble when there was a washout in the road and below it was a rusted out hulk of a car. This is when I bailed because I didn't want to be in the jeep as it rolled down the hill. Mike, as usual, said "No Problem". I grabbed the camera, crossed the washout, and prepared to document Mike's demise. As he started across the washout, his front tires started to slip down the hill, but he kept going. Then his rear tires started to slip and he gunned it. At this point, he had nothing to lose and I was screaming quite loudly. WHEW, HE MADE IT.

I jumped back in the jeep and off we went for about a quarter mile until we encountered a deep creek we had to cross. Again I bailed - after all, by now I was the official photograher and I figured at least one of us should survive to walk out and tell the tale. Once again Mike said "No Problem". This time he was right. GeoJeep took this challenge in stride.

We finally reached what looked like a more promising road only to run into the same creek. Over we went again. We continued along the road, watching it get narrower and narrower until it terminated at a log fall. I was sure we were turning around. But Mike, not to be deterred, was weaving his way through the trees to go around the log fall and continue on the "road", which promptly ended. SHUCKS (my word, not his).

Our only option was to turn around, weave through the trees again, cross the creek again and this time follow the "better looking road" down the canyon. Rats!! The better road just deteriorated to ruts and gullies. BIG RUTS AND GULLIES.

Again, I jumped out of the jeep, of course, to take pictures (wink, wink). GeoJeep drove down the gully with the sidewall of the tires on the sides of the gully. Several times I thought the jeep was going to fall in, but, once again, “No Problem”.

We knew we were saved when we saw two runners coming towards us. We stopped one and asked for the directions out. He pointed out the road and we headed for safety. Oh no, another creek crossing (the same creek for the third time). We thought we were home free until we saw the road on the other side of the creek. It was a steep rutted 40 degree incline. As we went up the incline, all we could see was the sky. Then our left rear wheel dropped into a rut and we were headed over the side of the mountain. I, of course, was screaming (Mike says that’s what I do best in those circumstances). Mike, however, was madly steering away from the abyss. Since you’re reading this story, you know we made it and we didn’t even break the jeep.

The trip back to civilization from here was uneventful – thank goodness. As we came back to where we started, Mike pointed to a road and said that was probably the one we should have taken. Did I want to try it. NO!!! We will be back, and this time we’ll take the “right” road.

High School Math Revisited

It was a cold and windy day in Reno and the last thing we expected was to be climbing a mountain at 5pm to find a cache. We met up with laughinggravy (Bea) and NevadaWolf (Teri) for lunch at Qdoba to give Teri a copy of the great photo album and story Linda (L3-Geo) had made of our trip to the Dixie Valley (see below). We visited over lunch and asked them why they had never found our cache "Free Fall". They decided to find it and we tagged along to watch them. After we arrived at the location, Teri said "if its a Geo-Jeeper cache it must be here." She was right, but it took a few minutes for them to spot it. After they signed the log, Bea mentioned that she had solved the new puzzle cache "High School Math" and did we want to tag along again for the possible "First to Find" (FTF). We were all set to go when she discovered that she had made a mistake - so off they went to search for caches in the Lockwood area and we headed home for a quiet afternoon.

It didn't take me long before I had printed the "High School Math" (GC128H4) cache page and we were dredging up 40 year old high school math to solve the puzzle. Between the two of us and the internet we thought we had solved it. Geochecker. com told us INCORRECT. We started over again and found a mistake. INCORRECT! In desperation, we called Teri to compare notes with Bea. She made a few suggestions. INCORRECT! Since we don't accept defeat, we emailed the owner and asked for help. There was one answer that all of us were unsure of and sure enough that was our problem. We were referred to a web site, we changed the coords, went to Geochecker.com and..... SUCCESS!!!

It was 5pm by now and we already had a glass of wine in hand. Since we had only taken our first sip, we abandoned our wine and headed out for the FTF. Not today! We climbed the mountain, found the cache, and discovered that someone else had already claimed FTF. We read her log and found out that she was a math teacher. No fair! Oh well, we were still proud of ourselves for remembering most of what we learned 40 years ago.

41 Down, 17 To Go

Mike and I are working on "Discovering & Logging California's 58 Counties" (GCQ2VC), a challenge to find at least one cache in every California county. We currently have completed 41 counties and have 17 more to go. So far, we have traveled up and down the Eastern Sierras and zig zagged our way through the Central Valley. We've completed all the Southern California counties except two and are planning a trip with Linda and Larry (L3-Geo) along the coast from Santa Barbara to Eureka. We're hoping to complete the challenge by the end of this summer. Wish us luck and stay tuned for some great pictures!!

The Road Less Taken

“Life is not an easy road for most;
It twists and turns with many forks in the road,
Although always, and inevitably, we are given a choice ...

Do we turn to the right ... or the left?
Do we take the high road ... or the low road?
Do we take the easy path ... or the difficult one?”
(An excerpt from a poem by Kit McCallum)

Linda and Larry were here for a weekend of geocaching and 4-wheeling. Saturday we had joined up with another cacher and cached from Fallon, NV to Dixie Valley. The highlight of the day was our adventure at Box Falls, but, that’s another story. Today we knew we couldn’t expect another adventure of that magnitude so we settled for venturing up into the Virginia Range and hopefully getting “First to Find” on a new cache and possibly picking up a couple more if we had time before Linda and Larry headed back to Roseville.

There are a limited number of access points to the Virginia Range and after consulting topographical maps Mike decided the best way was from the south through a rural community called Virginia Highlands. Mike had explored that area before the advent of geocaching and Mike and Cynthia had once taken a trip up into the Range at the beginning of their caching history. It’s always been a rocky, rough, slow ride up to the top. Once there, the roads aren’t as affected by erosion and would be considered…better.

It only took one wrong turn before we found the road that would take us to the cache. “Road” is not really accurate, more like a boulder strewn track that once was a road, but eventually, it got us to within 300-400 feet of the cache. Imagine bumping and lurching all the way up here just to find a little piece of paper tucked into an ornament hanging in a Christmas tree. Oh, did I forget to mention the gorgeous scenery and a multitude of beautiful and curious wild horses? And, yes, we were the “First to Find” so happy dances were performed by the less reserved members of the group.


After the happy dances and walk back to the Jeeps, it was decided that we had time to find one more cache at Washington, an old mining town 1.4 crow miles to the north. Piece of cake…except we decided to take the short cut around the east side of a mountain instead of the longer “main” road around the west side. The map showed it as a 4x4 road so how hard could it be? Finding the road wasn’t that difficult but very soon it became obvious that this was the road less traveled. In fact, it’s entirely possible that we were the first in about 150 years.


It’s difficult to describe the road; I hope the pictures do it justice. At the point that I stopped and walked back to asked Linda and Larry if they really wanted to do this, the road was slightly more than an imagination. The pattern of the rocks and flora suggested that wheels had been by here sometime in the distant past, but that was about it. To my surprise, Linda and Larry were eager to try it, so we continued. Shortly, a berm of boulders appeared on both sides of the road and, as the slope of the hillside increased, the berm on the downhill side increased in height. You could almost imagine Chinese laborers moving boulders from the uphill side to the downhill side resulting in a fairly level track. If they used dirt/gravel to fill in the cracks around the boulders, it wasn’t apparent now. Now it was just lots of large rocks roughly outlining a very narrow way north.


We continued slowly and carefully. In many places the bushes and trees had seriously overgrown the trail and caused serious scratches to the paint and plastic windows, but we kept going. Several times we thought the road ended but upon close investigation we thought we could see the road, so we kept going. A small indistinct gully created by the mating of two hills marked the end…or was it the end. On the side of the next hill the pattern of rocks and plants again suggested there once was a road here. As scary as it might seem, it turned out that this was the best part of the road.


After the road went around the corner of the hill it deteriorated into little more than a gully with rock berms on both sides. Both machine and driver were coping with the slow rugged terrain until all that was left of the road were two rock berms and a very deep trench in the middle. Mike walked the “road” and discovered that the washout didn’t extend very far and if the Jeeps backed up a bit and drove over the downhill berm and across country they could bypass the washout and re-entered the road several hundred yards ahead. The plan worked!!


Once back on track, we slowly made our way around the mountain, weaving around the overgrown trees and bushes. Twice we had to get out and move 18-20 inch size boulders out of the way. Then, once more, the road disappeared and it was impossible to go any further. Mike walked the road again and discovered that the washout was much longer than the previous one. He placed Linda at the location where the Jeeps would re-enter the road and put Cynthia at a strategic spot along the work-around route. Slowly, carefully, Mike and Larry drove the Jeeps across county over rock and around trees and bushes until both Jeeps were, once again, back on the road.


During all this, with all the planning and maneuvering, while Linda and Cynthia were standing at their stations waiting to direct traffic, a remarkable thing happened. Everyone was having fun, even the women, who, until geocaching, wouldn’t have been caught dead off pavement. They were actually having fun out in the middle of nowhere on the top of a mountain range directing Jeeps around rocks and trees. Unbelievable!! One wonders how fast the good humor would fly out the window if we had to back up all the way to the beginning.

As luck would have it, once we were back on the road, the conditions dramatically improved and within a short while we could see the “main” road.
Despite all the fun people had, everyone was relieved to be back on a real dirt road, in fact if truth be told, Mike and Cynthia got out of GeoJeep and he kissed the ground while she did the happy dance. A short distance down this road was Washington and the second cache of the day. The way out to civilization was easy and boring compared to what we just experienced.

We are all a little better now for taking the road less traveled.