An interesting cache...

We spent a day driving around Clear Lake to do some sightseeing and find some caches along the way. On this trip we did not do much research and just stopped randomly from time to time at caches. When we don't read up on area caches we never know what we are going to find. Most searches have us looking through the bushes and opening a tupperware, or similar container, but sometimes at the end of the hunt we find something that was left with more thought and planning. We stopped to look for an ammo box which is usually a pretty easy find. As we arrived at GZ we spent a few minutes looking around and then spotted a rope that was tied to a log on the ground? Following the rope up, it was attached to an ammo box and hanging over a branch high in the air!


Above is a good picture of the girls at GZ and you can see the rope off to the left. We had not seen a cache hoisted in the air like that before, so the girls thought it was a cool one and of course an ammo can will be full of SWAG!



Above is the cache hiding high in the tree. As we lowered this one down we could not help but smile. The extra effort to hide the cache up high like that made it unique and cool. I gave this one a favorite point on geocaching.com for the extra effort. I did not include the name of this cache, since we were showing the hide. If you'd like to know it I'd be happy to send it to you if you leave a comment.

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Location:Clear Lake

A challenging summer cache

I'd read about this cache that requires you to either rent some kind of boat or swim/wade across water to get to it. The cache was called Isle Cache Here and the plan was to rent a canoe for the 4 of us and row to the island to find the cache. All the rental information can be found on the Sacramento State Aquatic Center website. (You can save the park entrance fee by parking in the Aquatic center's parking lot as long as you rent some equipment that day.) When we arrived we found out that only 3 people are allowed on the canoe's at a time, so we had to rent two tandem kayaks. This made for a much harder paddle across the lake, but the kids LOVED it! In a canoe we would not of gotten wet, but in a kayak we did, so plan accordingly. It was about .6 miles to the cache from the dock, and with no wind and a nice sunny afternoon we headed for the cache!


The kids loved the paddle to the island, and this was our first find that required something other than a hike to get to GZ. Once on the island we found the cache quickly. The girls were excited to get back in the kayaks and enjoyed the ride back.


The above picture is of Maya and I on our way back to the dock. Lake Natoma is a nice place to spend the day and I was glad we went after this Terrain 5 cache. So many geocachers are trying to grab as many finds in a day as they can, but a cache like this well worth the extra time and effort to get to. Go for it!

Rock City.... The hunt for the Alien Pod!

It was time for a fun day trip, and I'd seen some cool pictures of this place called Rock City inside Mount Diablo state park. It was the first time we left the house without pre-loading caches to the GPSr. We were using the Geosphere app on the ipad2, and were going to cache on the fly. We arrived at the picnic area and started our day off with a nice lunch, then the worst feeling.... raindrops... Was our day going to get rained out? We loaded the car up with our picnic stuff, and did a search on Geosphere for caches near us as we hoped for the rain to stop. It was a drizzle, and it came to a stop, so we jumped out and left the ipad2 in the car and put the coords into the GPSr, since it is waterproof.



Our first stop on the trail was a very cool rock that the girls loved. They are pictured in it above and loved climbing into the rocks natural caves. From here I had picked out a cache that was about .25 miles away called The Alien Pod at Rock City GC1NFN8
It was actually probably more like .5 miles each way following the trail. There was also some poison oak that we managed to stay clear of, but I can imagine in Summer it might be harder to do. The trail was very pretty and brought us to the spot below that we liked before we found the cache.



With all the large rocks and hills the GPSr was bouncing a bit here, but it pointed about 75 feet up a less traveled trail, so after the girls explored the caves shown above we headed up the path less traveled (if we were not geocaching, I am sure we never would of taken that path). I had seen pictures of the "Alien Pod" so I was on the lookout for it as I knew the cache would be close to it. We explored around the rock as we got to GZ and found the very cool rock formation shown below, and then Maureen spotted the cache! The Alien Pod formation made the entire hike and is another example of why I love geocaching... Check out Maya's cute smile as she sat near the Alien Pod. Great day!



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Location:Mount Diablo

A trip to Pismo Beach....



Our caching group at Dune Buggy Haven



We had a four day weekend planned to go visit our friends in Pismo Beach.  On the agenda was the beach, wine tasting, beers, and a few hikes.... These noncachers were in for a surprise!  Oh yeah, everywhere we went I had geocaches loaded that were close.  The weekend started off a complete dud as we had rain, rain and more rain.  I had split the drive down in half stopping in the Monterey area on a Thursday night giving me most of Friday to go about 2 hours and allow us to grab a bunch of caches on the way.  Friday morning came and it was pouring rain.  :(  Bad start to what was going to be a fun weekend.  We got down to Pismo with only 2 finds, and 3 days to go!  Saturday came and after the morning beach run and lunch there was a small break in the rain, so off we went to grab a few close by caches!  We headed to the Loose Tooth ( GC2CWH7 ) cache and once we got to GZ I noticed it was a micro.  I probably should of started off my newbee friends with a larger container, but we were here so let's try to find this thing right?  I said to my friend Joe, 'I usually don't take the kids on these micros because they can be hard to find, and there is typically no SWAG inside'.  Shortly after my daughter asked to look in a stump that seemed to be hallowed out and I told her that I already looked in there, and to go for it.  Then she said 'I think I found it Daddy?'  As she pulled the cache out Joe thought it was hilarious that it was 'too hard' for the kids, and Audrey found the it!  DAM!  As we got to GZ of the next one it started to rain like crazy and we had to hike back to the car.  This rain was making me angry...

      This brings us to Sunday morning and as we looked outside.... SUN!  No rain in the forecast and we had a great hike planned with a few caches along the way.  We were going to Oso Flaco Lake in the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes Preserve, and had about a mile hike in and out.  Along the way our first stop brought us to ~ Raccoon's Lagoon ~ ( GCKH77 ).  This was another micro, and might take us a while?  As we started our search and read the clue we had the whole group searching.  We looked high and low and before you know it I heard Joe yell out 'found it!'  This was a very cleaver hide and nice camo.  Right after we took some pictures and were about to be on our way we saw a Raccoon walk right up to us!  I guess we could see how the cache got it's name?   

Joe with part of the cache!

The hike took us all the way to the beach and it was not the warmest of days, but it was clear and beautiful.  On the way back we made a detour to hit one more cache that was an AMMO CAN!  No more micros for this group of newbees!!  It was time they found some SWAG.  We made our way to Dune Buggy Haven (GCJJNB ).  Maureen made the find on this one and the kids quickly looked through the ammo can full of swag for trades.  Was a great cache to find for people new to Geocaching.
     Monday morning we decided to go back to the trail where we got rained out on, and see if we could make a couple finds.  After Joe made ANOTHER find at the last dirt road... ( GCRJ78 ), we made our way to  Ellysian's Cache ( GC2CW95 ).  This turned out to be another micro, but in the description it said it was VERY TINY.  We were in the middle of a wooded area with TONS of spots for a small container.  This was a Difficulty 4.5 and I thought there was no way we'd find it in a short time.  It was not long before Maureen yelled out that she found it!  It had to be the smallest container we had ever found other than a magnetic nano.  Both Jesse (GeoJester) and Isabella (Bellagal) now have Geocaching accounts and you might see them on the geo-trail.  I guess they liked it!

A Fun day in Bodega Bay

     There was a Clam Chowder festival coming up in Bodega Bay and I love Clam Chowder!!  With Bodega Bay being about a 2 hour drive each way it was a doable day trip for us.  In doing some research I found that the area had plenty of geocaches for us to go after.  I used the Favorite ratings on geocaching.com's cache listings to find some interesting big containers for us to find.  I love this new feature for caching in area's we may never go back to, because I made sure a couple of the top rated 'favorites' would be caches we'd go after.
     We started our day off by picking up a map of the 10 restaurants that had Clam Chowder for the festival.  The Bodega Bay Visitors center was selling these maps for $5 and on the back they had a scorecard for us to rate the 10 chowders.  It took us more than a couple hours to get from place to place and try all 10.  It was a lot of fun and we all had our favorites in the end.  If you like Clam Chowder it is a really fun day, and I recommend it.  With the Chowder in our bellies and more of the day gone than we'd of liked we headed to grab some caches!  (Finally!!)
     I had read about a BIG cache that looked like it was about a 5 gallon bucket, and was hoping we'd have time to get that one before the darkness hit.  We first stopped to grab a couple easier ones and the second cache found was called Porto Bodega ( GCX56D ).  It was a smaller container and a pretty easy find, but it was close to an interesting tree that the girls loved.  They quickly turned into monkeys!  I love the picture of them in the tree!

     We made the short drive to the end of the Bodega point and parked. There were 6 caches all within about an hour and a half or so round trip hike, and I knew that the one BIG cache I'd read about was one of them!  All of us were a bit sluggish after all the Chowder and the hike started out with a slight uphill walk with some nice views.  We were getting closer to the first cache and I realized it WAS the one I wanted the girls to get to find.  :)  Rabbit Eye View ( GC9C ) was the cache name and it had to be one of the coolest cammo's ever, and was in fact a GIANT bucket of SWAG!!  OH YEAH!

We went on to find a few more on the hike and made our way back to the car.  All the finds there were nice bigger containers and the girls really enjoyed them.  We also ran into a very nice couple on our way out of town that was geocaching!  (Wyldreams was there geocaching username)  We shared a DNF search with them and swapped stories for a while.  It is always nice to run into other people that love the hobby like we do!  It was a fun day in Bodega Bay....

Our first Letterbox cache and find 250!

With 7 caches to go to get to 250, we made time on Saturday to find 3 caches and left 4 finds for Sunday to hit another milestone.  When we hit 100, and 200, I really did not pick a 'special' cache for us to find, so this time I decided to do some research.  I looked for some fun caches for the weekend and decided we'd get our first Letterbox cache for find 250!  Leading up to 250, we first dragged the grandparents to 3 other stops on Sunday's cache run.  The first was called The Big Bucket ( GCPENC ) and the name said it all... It was a 5 gallon bucket full of SWAG!  It was a great way to start our day off as the kids loved the easy find and giant bucket.  With the girls excited about the day of caching already (SUCCESS), we moved on to cache #2 which was a mystery cache called Geology ( GC221G6 ). 



@ the Geology cache

 Located on Sac State's campus the starting coordinates brought us to a rock garden where we had to match some rocks in the cache description to rocks in the garden.  After doing this we had to decipher some code and hope we matched the rocks correctly... Once we did this we had a new set of Coordinates and made our way to what we hoped was GZ, and it was!  We quickly found the cache (Grandpa did!) and we only needed 2 more finds to hit 250!!  From there I had a virtual cache for us to find next.  The Virtual was called Captain Hook ( GC456D ) , and it was at a cemetery.  Captain Hook was a nickname for someone as it turns out, and I told the kids we were going to 'Captain Hooks' grave.  This was an easy and interesting find, and the gravestone had a picture of a hook on it.  We now had one to go to hit 250 and had found a Traditional, Mystery, and Virtual cache in the same day.  The next find was going to be our first Letterbox cache and before we got to GZ I had to do some research on what that was?  A Letterbox cache is kind of like a mystery or mulit-cache.  Letterbox caches basically take you to a starting point and tell a story you have to follow to get to the end.  In following the story and clues you have to figure out a puzzle, and don't have the exact search spot most times.  The Letterbox cache we decided to go for was called 6th Inning - The Lingo ( GC24C9F ).  I love sports and this cache had us starting out at a baseball diamond, and the story we followed had a lot of baseball 'lingo'.  I loved finding the clues and then Grandpa made the find at the end!  He is getting good at making the find!!  It was a large bucket and it was full of SWAG!!  It was a great find for #250...   


The crew after the 250th find! 



On the last day of 2010....

The California Academy of Sciences living roof



It was the last day of 2010 and it was probably going to be the only day of the 3 day weekend without rain.  Knowing this we decided this was the best day to do a day trip and grab a few caches before we are stuck doing things inside.  We had heard about the California Academy of Sciences and were waiting until our youngest daughter would be old enough to enjoy it and at 4.5 years old we figured this was as good a time as any.  Being inside Golden Gate Park there were many caches close by which was a huge bonus.  California Academy of Sciences is a Science geeks dream spot, and even though we are not science geeks, all four of us enjoyed it and the day flew by.  The best advice I can give anyone that wants to go there is to buy your adult tickets at Costco (Saved $18 for 2), get there EARLY and get a reservation to the Planetarium show right away, and lastly I'd pack a lunch, as the line to buy lunch was longer than the lines to any of the exhibits inside (they allow you to leave and come back with a hand stamp and there is a park right outside, and I was glad we did this!).  We had saved the observation deck on the living roof for the end, and after a few pictures up there we decided it was way later than we'd expected and wanted to grab some caches before we made the drive back to Sac. 



The closest cache was Crayola, In Bloom (GC1VFRJ) and it was just outside the Japanese Tea Garden.  I have to admit had we not been looking for this cache I would not of even see this garden or known it was there?  We decided to pay the admission and go inside and check it out.  While inside we found many picturesque spots and my favorite was the picture of the girls on the wheel shaped bridge at the left.  We quickly found the cache outside (or I should say Maureen found it!).  It was so close to the California Academy of Sciences that it made this cache very popular, as it has over 450 finds in only 1.5 years.  There was nothing out of the ordinary about this cache but like so many others it brought us somewhere we would of overlooked.  We wanted to grab a few more caches and were running out of time, and then it started to sprinkle as were were walking towards the next closest one.  :(  We decided to get back to the car and head back to Sac.  :(  I'd wished we had more time earlier as we started our drive out of Golden Gate Park.  Watching the GPSr I noticed a treasure coming up that I remembered had the most 'favorites' in the area caches I'd researched the night before.  With many parking spots on the street open due to the day coming to an end (AND ME wanting to get at LEAST one more find!) we parked.  Audrey and I jumped out and made the short walk to Aids Memorial Grove (GC1FMB7).  We got to GZ and it was under a canopy of redwood trees in a beautiful spot.  There was a Aids memorial there and we could not pin down where GZ was as the GPSr was really jumping around.  We had a large search area because of this, and were coming up empty in all the obvious spots.  We had all but given up, and we were losing daylight quickly, and the rain was starting back up lightly.  I decided to look one last spot and WHAMO! we found it! and it was a VERY cool hide!!!  I'll be marking this one as a favorite on the geocaching website, and had we given up a minute earlier we would never of seen the cool spot for that container.  I hope we find another day to get back to Golden Gate Park to collect all the caches there.  Was a great end to 2010....  Happy New Year all!    

Too many rainy days!



Bull we saw!



It seems the past month has been filled with rainy days, and I can't stand weekends that are spent inside.  With only a few cache finds the past month and no end in sight to this rain, I decided this weekend we'd try to get out for at least a few caches.  We had to make a road trip to Monterey and back and hoped if we got away from Sacramento we'd see less rain?  I wish I was right about that but it rained all weekend up and down northern California.  I loaded the GPSr with caches between Sacramento and Monterey off the I-5 freeway in hopes we'd see breaks in the rain on our 2 days of driving???  There was one cache in particular that we wanted to get called Fossil Find (GC6B91).  This was a mystery cache and there was no container.  In order to make the find on this one we had to get to GZ and find a fossil!  I packed up a hammer and hoped it would work out to stop there.  As we left Sacramento the rain was pouring on Saturday!  Such a bummer... The Fossil Find spot was around Patterson off the I-5, about an hour and a half south of Sacramento.  As we drove through Stockton the rain was still coming down, but it was light.  The closer we got the lighter the rain got, so we thought we would at least check at GZ to see how cold, wet and muddy it would be?  As we arrived at GZ it looked cold outside but the rain was more of a drizzle, so we decided to see if we could find anything. 



Fossil!



We spent about 30 minutes breaking rocks and looking for something that appeared to be a 'fossil'.  The kids were getting wet and muddy and we were all a little cold and Audrey asked if she found something, and she did!  it was what appeared to be a fossil in the shape of a leaf.  We were all excited, and quickly got back in the warm car.  As we were driving off there were some Bulls grazing, and I managed to get a decent shot of one that was close to the road (I felt safe behind the barbed-wire fence!)... Was a cool unique find in a long rainy month!    

I see a container in everything now...

I realized as I went through all the potential containers for some new hides that I'm looking for them everywhere I go (as if I don't have enough, it looks like I'm collecting them!).   The picture above shows some of the containers that I'm getting ready to hide.  Tupperware containers are the most common and are usually able to keep the contents from being exposed to the elements.  The cammoed container at the front left of the picture was already hidden!  This was just a simple Tupperware container that I put cammo tape on.  As with all caches, I think it is more fun for the finders if the cache has a fun name or theme.  Since it was close to Halloween I decided to call this one Trick or Treat ( GC2HNZX ) and fill it with Halloween SWAG.  Some containers like that one can be hidden almost anywhere and others like the hallowed out rat in the picture will need to be in a more remote spot.  I actually can't wait to hide that one and call it something like 'you dirty rat' or 'a rat in the kitchen'  (UB40 song!).  I'm still looking for the right place to hide that one. 

A couple weekends ago I was at my parents house and took the girls on a geocaching run and came across a container that was perfect for the spot.  The cache also had a name that tied it into its surroundings.  This is something I try to do with my hides as well.  As we found the cache I decided to take some pictures of the cool hide.  The cache was called For the Birds ( GC1RDF1 ).   As you can see from the picture at the left, GZ brought us to a cool bird house.  The cammoed container was a perfectly placed in the top of a pole at the base of the bird house post.  I loved the hide there!   

Geocaching is for everyone!

Grandma holding the cache!

One of the things I say to people all the time is that ANYONE can geocache!  We often drag along friends and/or family on our geocaching adventures, and more often that not they have a fun day treasure hunting with us.  I guess we have dragged the Grandparents along enough now, because they started asking questions like "Is this a large or small container?" or "Can we start looking now?", and they are actively trying to find it before the kids do!  I realized that Grandma and Grandpa had tagged along with us more than a few times, as Grandma seemed to be interested in more than just watching US find the treasure!  We were on our way to dinner one evening and made a couple stops for some caches.   One particular cache was called Urban Redwood Forest ( GC28Z18 ) and it was supposed to be a larger container full of SWAG!  :)  We arrived in the parking lot close to a small grass area with a half dozen or so redwood trees, and everyone jumped out of the car to start looking for the cache while I grabbed the kids buckets.  As I was making my way from the car (before I even started looking!) Grandma yelled out "There it is!" and she was pointing at the container.  Her smile rivaled my 4 year olds on her first find, and it was kind of cool to see her make her first find.  I realized how much I like bringing others to go geocaching with us right then.  You just never know who else is going to love this crazy hobby? 

Geocaching changes your perspective!

I often find myself looking at things differently now that we are Geocachers.  Since we spend lots of time hunting for SWAG in urban settings, you quickly find out that geocaching containers big and small are everywhere and anywhere.  I've even parked in a shopping center with Audrey and watched her look under the lamp post cover.  (we have seen many hides like that)  I asked her, 'What are you doing' and she replied, 'looking for the treasure!'  I guess we have been on the way to the movies or a store and stopped for a quick find, so I can't even really say anything but it is pretty funny.  Could we find a cache we did not even know was there?  There are even times when I see a pile of rocks that looks a little off, and I've wondered if there was a cache hidden there?  This past weekend we ended up at a geocache that was exactly that.  It was a container hidden in a wall of rocks that reminded me of so many 'piles of rocks' I'd often wondered about.  The cache was called The path to nowhere ( GC24NK2 ).  The picture at the top left is a close up of the spot where the cache was hidden.  The rock in the center of the picture was covering a large hole that the cache was in.  This was a fun one!  We were walking to GZ which turned out to be about 10 to 15 feet away from the cache and my wife asked if I was at GZ?  As I replied yes, my oldest daughter yells out 'found it!' and had the cache I hand! Sometimes we are so focused on where to start looking, that by the time we find GZ there is a kid with good geo-sense that makes the find!  Audrey was all smiles as you can see in the picture.  Gone are the days when we find it and pretend that one of the kids finds it first.  I actually love that!  :)           

A Sunday away from the TV, and Football...



Rollins Reservoir

After attending an out of town funeral on Friday and getting home too late on Saturday to really do any kind of day trip, I spent some of Saturday evening researching something fun to do as a family on Sunday. (Don't worry the DVR was all set to save the NFL action for me to watch later)  :)  I was not interested in a long drive since it was Sunday, and I was pretty tired from the past 2 days.   I started looking at http://www.geocacaching.com/ for a cache or 2 that was interesting and figured I'd find a close by town, lake or park for us to explore.  I came across Rollins Reservoir, which is about 45 minutes from the house.  I knew this was probably not going to have the best of beaches, and was more known for boating, but since we had never been there this was the winner!  The picture in the above right was the view we had from the beach.  Before we hit the beach we had a few geocaching stops to make.  The first stop was a cemetery cache called Bill Bean Is Free! (GCMAV5).  In reading the description of the cache, and seeing that the name Bean was the guys last name, I thought we should check this one out.  Bean (or Beanie ) is my wife's nickname given to her by her sister when they were very young.   


Officer Bean's Bench 

  We arrived at GZ and found that the grave site was for a police officer that died when he was only 29!  There was a very nice bench there for Mr. Bean and I had Maureen sit on the bench for a great picture.  Bean sitting on Bean's bench with the cache too!  :)  We took some time to look at the plot and it was hard not be feel sad.   Maureen wrote a short note in the logbook, and we loaded back up in the car and were on our way.  From there we had just one more stop to make before the beach.  There was another cache that required us to solve an easy puzzle that would take us to a fire station.  This cache was in the town of Chicago Park, which is close to the entrance of the reservoir.  It was called, In Honor of the Brave Ones (GC1MDCP).  I thought this was a very cool name and the description said small children could solve the puzzle, so I figured I could do it!  :)  We arrived and there was a fireman outside the station washing one of the trucks, and he was nice enough to take a picture with my girls.  How cool is that?  We told him we were geocaching and had to find a few things (address, and station number).  Audrey found the address and I found the station number and we quickly solved the easy puzzle, and had the coordinates to the cache.  It was only 250 feet from where we were standing.  It was not long until we had the cache in hand and were on our way to the lake.  Was a great day with 2 fun finds and some relaxing time at the beach, and I didn't even bring my laptop to check the scores in the games.    
 

My girls with Fireman Bryan



Our 200th Find!

We had not seen any interesting geocaches in a while, and had planned to take the girls treasure hunting this past weekend.  The past few weeks we had been out a handful of times and just never came across any interesting finds or locations to write about.  We researched a few different options for day trips and found a saved article on 88 Giant Burger To Go in Pine Grove, CA.  (About an hour from Sacramento).  It looked interesting and was close enough for us to drive for lunch while squeezing in some geocaching along the way.  We left in time to arrive for lunch at 12:30, and as we were getting close everyone was getting hungry!  As we pulled up to the address, we all saw a building under construction.  :(  The restaurant we wanted to go to was no longer there!?!  It appeared to either be changing owners or going through a remodel, but it was definitely NOT open.  With everyone hungry and few options for lunch we quickly found a cafe about 8 miles away in the GPS's points of interest.  Not wanting to waste much time we just started driving.  We ended up in a small Mom and Pop place called Cafe 26 in the town of West Point.  It was VERY GOOD and the service was great too!  Since this was 8 windy miles out of the way, we backtracked to the Pine Grove area where we planned to find our treasures for the day.  Turns out we only needed 6 to hit 200 (for some reason I thought we needed 8 to get to 200!!)  Thinking we needed 8 to hit 200, I figured we'd find 7, then plan a Mystery cache or long hike or something different for #200 when we got back to Sac for another day.  We found 5 QEF caches and made our way to a Cemetery that had 2 hidden in it.  After we found what turned out to be our 200th find ( GCGTJD ),  (Yeah when we got home we figured it out!) we had to walk about 125 yards across the cemetery to the last find.  On our way there we came across a back corner of the cemetery that had what seemed like a shrine.  There was a picnic table and a 7 foot tall cylinder with a bench inside, that appeared to be for just one person's plot.     

The girls sat inside the cylinder on the bench for a picture but we kept wondering what it's purpose was?  Why was it there?  Had we driven to the last geocache instead of walking through the cemetery we would never of seen this structure.  One of the cool things about geocaching is the places you see that you would not of, or the interesting things you might come across, and I guess that made our 200th find cool and interesting!  At night this part of the cemetery would of been PITCH BLACK AND CREEPY!  I don't know why, but I never went into the cylinder!

Day trip to a berry farm!

We had a nice day planned to take the girls on a short day trip to pick some berries.  I'd seen this article about a berry farm about 45 miles from our house that lets you pick the berries right off the vine! ( Patrick's Berry Farm )  I figured the girls would love it so, I loaded up the GPSr with some caches in the area that looked interesting, packed our lunch and snacks and we were off.  We made our first stop for a cache and were not disappointed.  It was not a difficult find and it was just off the main road.  Cache was called Vineyard View - Apple Hill Tour #9 GC144RP, and there was a great view from where the cache was hidden of the surrounding mountains and Vines below.  The top picture shows the girls in their pink gloves, with Maya holding the cache container and Audrey with the GPSr.  This was a pretty easy find, but worth the stop to just take a minute to see what people 100 yards away are missing (Interstate 50). 

We jumped in the car and made our way to the berry farm and found a nice picnic area there.  Everyone was eating quickly to get to the berry picking!  We checked in, picked up buckets, and it took no time to start picking the berry's right off the vine.  We were eating them while we picked too!  (had to be sure they were good right?)  I love this picture on the left of Audrey.  She was so concentrated on finding the BIG black berries (we were told to pick the big ones only), she did not even see me with the camera.  The girls really enjoyed filling up their buckets with berries, and I started to wonder if we were going to have to take a loan out to pay for them?  I was pleasantly surprised that we only had about 2 pounds when they weighed us out.  It was enough for a home made pie (yes it was GOOD!), and plenty to snack on for the week.  If you are in the Sacramento area I really recommend a stop here.  We packed up and left the berry farm with plenty of time to stop at a couple more geocaches before we got home.  We ended up making 3 more stops and the one I liked the most was not really anything special on the surface.  Most geocachers would consider this hide a QEF, or a 'Drive up and grab' type.  Not something I'd usually choose to post in the blog.  We drove up to None of the Above GCZFAG , and we all jumped out of the car.  We could not of been more than 20 feet from GZ, and for some reason Maya was leading the charge and started to look around.  She thought she spotted the container and yelled out ' FOUND IT!! '  I doubted that she found it for some reason and she pulled the cache out from it's hiding spot with the biggest smile on her face!  It was REALLY cool.  Inside the container the girls swapped with the SWAG, and I found a trackable ( WDD 2007 Commemorative Geocoin ).  This particular trackable was a World Diabetes day coin.  These coins were created a few years back to celebrate the fact that November 14th is recognized as World Diabetes Day.  VERY NEAT!  Will be a pleasure to move that geocoin along soon!     
 

Who needs TV, when you could be geocaching?

This is one of the beautiful views on our short hike today!  It was the King of the Meadow GCQTAR cache.  We spent the day with Nanny and Papa, and were on our way back to Incline Village and I noticed a treasure that looked to be a short hike from where we'd be parking.  Only .37 miles to the treasure from the parking spot!  Let's go!  I had a TB that was attached to what looked like a hood ornament (WAS BIG) and needed to drop it in a large container, and was hoping this was the one.  We started down the trail and stopped to take the picture of the scene on the left.    

How great is that? Very nice day today. We came to a Split in the trail and decided to go to the left (Wrong way of course!). We ended up having to cut across the meadow to the path we should of taken.  The treasure was off the path about 500 feet. Since this was a bigger container, we let the girls looks for it, and eventually Audrey found it! It was just barley big enough for the trackable to fit in. The picture to the right shows the girls looking through the SWAG, while I sign the logbook. They each picked something out and Maureen grabbed a cool wooden nickel signature item. Was a really nice little hike for all of us.

Mystery Caches - Why don't more people go for them?

Tonight I wanted to return to a mystery cache called Natomas Stonehenge GC24QMF, that I took Audrey and Maya to over the weekend.  We ended up with a DNF that day, as the girls were more interested in playing at the park nearby than searching for the treasure (it happens sometimes!).  But this particular cache is not just a matter of going to a spot and looking in a small area.  Part of the riddle to get to the cache, was that it could be hidden within 500 feet of GZ (ground zero).  I did a quick sweep of the area, and did not manage to come up with the find that day (was a bummer!).  Many mystery caches seem to go ignored for some reason?  We often pass on them as well, and many are not as difficult as this one was.  They can be more satisfying finds, and they seem to have BETTER SWAG in the cache!  So, with the kids being out of town, my wife and I headed over to GZ and were going to tackle this one.  Since I had been there a few days back I thought it was going to take us a long time to track it down.  We split up and were going to search making our way to a center point, hoping one of us found it.  I had not even started looking yet and Maureen yells out "Found it!".  She had a look on her face like, that was easy... DAM!  Now knowing where the cache is hidden, I'm sure we will return with the girls and let them find it, to trade with the SWAG another day.  The picture attached is 'Natomas Stonehenge'.  Often when out geocaching we see things we don't even know are there.  Was a pretty cool monument.