Heehee!

Well, its the day after christmas, and hooray! No more school until late late January.
In the news:

Putin just launched a bunch of satellites into space. Apparently the motherland wants something different than GPS, which is run by the US and can apparently just be switched off for certain areas. So they revived their GLONASS program Global Navigation Satellite System, from the good old Soviet Days. Might there be a future bluray/hddvd squabble between GPS or GNSS? Probably not, but it is always good to have alternatives. Soon Tom Tom will have new features, “Turn right, comrade! Head straight on to capitalist marketplace!”

An aside:
A 4th person has found our geocache! hooray! Hopefully Team Inferno will be going on hikes soon. Expect more posts!

Spelunking

So yesterday my Dad mentioned there was a geocache right next to a mine he never knew existed. So we headed up the top of Bolinas ridge, where the road forks. Strangely enough, we ran into Brian, my Dad’s friend, and he joined our party. Once parking, we covered the hillside pretty well until I nearly fell right into the open mine.

We hung out there for awhile, which was fun. The cave is about 6’3“ at it’s highest point!

It was 10-20 degrees cooler in this old mine. We found the geocache, and I think I’ll visit again today to leave a surprise for future visitors!

Father's Day Hike! 6/17

Oh man! I have been soooooo busy with work and traveling that I have barely had any time to relax or update blogness! But Here we go! Happy Father’s Day to Dads! We went on a hike up above Mt. Tam!

The hike started with trouble as we locked the keys in the car, it was hot out and the parents were a little under the weather so I won’t blame them, lol. We hiked down the hill to find a few Geocaches. One was by a bridge and another across a fallen tree bridge. Both my mom and dad got pretty excited about the whole Geocache thing, which was pretty cool. The first was located near an old corsair engine!

This inspired us to search for the rest of the wreckage, which was rumored to still be lying around. So, we scaled hills in the blistering heat, brushed against spiky scrubs and tumbled down valleys until we eventually found this neat little meditation spot. It was this old windblown tree surrounded by a rock wall and covered in all sorts of weird little trinkets.(Lets see if I can get this video thing to work...)


Success!

Anyway, we pressed on until we found our final Geocache... No wreckage tho... I wanted to bushwack to get home, but that made my mom very unhappy as she got a little beat up. They are getting old, but not old to the point that I can drive them through rough terrain for several hours! I hope to be as active when I am 50. After a lot of arguing we eventually got back to the car! Twas a great hike! Happy Pappys Day!

Right click here (or option click) to download the KML file for Google Earth!
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Jedi Caching 6/4

OK, My bad. I am 9 days late on this blog. Working 5 days a week is just so damn difficult sometimes! I am so tired when I get home, its dinner, TV, bed, then up again at 6 AM. I am even so low on time I’m not playing wow. Holy cow! And so, I am very sorry for my tardiness. So you, whoever you are, validate my entries and feel free to comment. woo. NOW onto the caches!

Sean and I decided we were going to go on a Jedi Geocache mission, and try to get find as many caches as we could with the few hours of daylight we had left. So I threw a bunch on the GPS and we charged fourth! We were lead up above St. Ritas where a very cleverly hidden cache was placed at the trailhead. Then it was on to D-Hill above Drake where we found a cache where we met our newest friend, Rinocotron! He is, as I type, on his way to Australia with Kristin. Exciting!

On the way down the hill, we ran into Sally, an old friend from Drake. She brought us over to Tracy’s house, where we talked caching with her parents. The three of us then ran over to Memorial Park and snagged a multi-cache! While we were heading back, we ran into Robin and her boyfriend, Daniel. We threw them in the car and kept going, picking up 2 more caches along the miracle mile.

We eventually wound up in Ross hunting around the police yard for a cache when we decided to give up, realizing it was pretty sketchy to be snooping around the police yard at midnight. Oops!

Anyway, check out the map, lets see if I can get another entry out tonight.

Right click here (or option click) to download the KML file for Google Earth!
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FIRST CACHE

Just a little link to our first cache ever published!!! http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=3bd862a5-705c-4804-aa6e-93f3ee943a8a GO! Two more posts are coming up tonight! BE READY!

The Frog Tree 6/3

So late last night I finished the coding to get this blog working and was dying to go do something after staring at a screen for 5 hours not playing wow. So I fired up the interwebs and lo and behold! A Geocache right in my back yard. At the Frog Tree no less! The Frog Tree is a tiny wind blown tree on the ridge between Kristin's house and mine. I have spent many an hour hanging out with people under that tree and was stoked to know about the geocache!

SO, Sean and I threw on our shoes and charged up the overgrown path I used to use in my days of a Middle Schooler. Did i mention it was around 9:00 PM and dark? I get slapped in the face with a tree and press on only to be stopped by Sean, "uhhh... wasn't that poison oak you just stuck your face in?" Thank God for Technu! We plowed straight up the hill to Frog Tree and realized the error of not bringing a flash light. We could not find the cache for the life of us. Luckily we were able to call Kristin, who looked up the exact location online, officially making this a TEAM INFERNO (WOO!) event! Sean eventually found the Altoid tin, just in time for me to stick my face in another poison oak bush looking for the stupid thing. I dropped in an Iris pin from work and took a cool coin.. i think it is chinese? Funny that this is only cache number 8 for me... Expect the number to double by the end of the week!

Right click here (or option click) to download the KML file for Google Earth!
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Roy's to White Hill

Sean and I have been aching to go on a truly EPIC hike. Right now our goal is to hike from his house to Stinson Beach. Woo. But because I'm fat, we have been working our way up to it. So, we decided to depart from Roy's Redwoods and hike east back toward town. We aren't much for trails, so once we hit open space, we took off into gullies and up ridges. Moral of the story, it was the longest 5 mile hike I have ever been on. I honestly would have taken more pictures were it not for Kristin's 32 MB flash card. 32 MB?! I thought you were a photographer! I'll bring my 1gb from now on! :P

We first stopped off at the Roy's Redwood's Geocache to see how it was doing. Ammo boxes are awesome, and one day I will replace all my GladWare with them. We then continued up the trail and through a barbed wire fence. Being the outdoors-men we are, we decided to take a shortcut through a fun looking little valley. This was instantly a bad decision as we realized that the only pleasant thing in this valley was Sticky Monkey Cock(the name Brendan calls Sticky Monkey Plant). By this, I mean we were completely surrounded by poison oak. Sean, because of his dirty redskin blood is immune, that jerk! Im not, so he would step on vines while I vaulted over the deadly shrubs. Once we cleared the valley, we named it, The Poisonous Valley of Oaks!

On our way to our destination, we found two large green circles. There was no water to be found, but these Emerald Oases were truly a sight to see among the golden hillside. Eventually, we finally got to our "destination," a large out cropping of rock we affectionately call Old Man's Perch due to its resemblance to Sean's mothe... i mean grandpa. Sean, the horticulture expert discovered some Blessed Thistle, a fancy burgundy thistle that is apparently good in food. A rare find indeed. Too bad they were all infested with meal worms!

Now that we were in the middle of no where, I was getting hungry and decided it was time to head back and eat. SO, we decided we would hike up to the ridge and walk along it until we got to the White Hill pass and find a ride into town. By the time we got to the ridge, we realized we were on private property. Every airplane sounded like a truck coming around the next turn on the fire road, causing us to hurl ourselves off the edge of the road and into the bushes. Before long we came to our senses and finally reach the Loma Alta Reserve. Here we hiked down the hill side and discovered and wooded area surrounding a large mound of rock. Against the mound, someone had built walls out of layered stone and attempted to thatch a roof. This shattered den, with a little of work will some day be The Assembly Halls of the Fellowship. The home of Team Inferno! We are going to get a big horn. And call the fellowship. It will be awesome.

Eventually we reached White Hill Middle School. There Sean saw one of his fellow coaches who gave us water! Bonus! Kristin couldn't pick us up because she was hanging out with him who shall not be named. Keeley was working some show and no one else was around. We were walking back along Drake toward Fairfax, calling my dad for a ride, how horrible... WHEN SUDDENLY MIA DROVE BY! She honked her horn and waved. I chased the car waving my arms in the air. When I talked to her about why she didn't pull over, she said she was already on her way to the valley and it would have been too dangerous to pull over. Thats right on Drake in Fairfax, into a parking lane. *sigh* new drivers. We'll get her back. Eventually my dad picked us up (hooray!) and dropped Sean and I off back at my car. Then we got burritos at Mi Pueblo! ¡DELICIOSO!

Hopefully this isn't too boring, future posts will be better, I swear!

Right click here (or option click) to download the KML file for Google Earth!
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