GC2ZKWV point n-at-u  by yipskip

GC2ZKW7 Luv Watermelon by Aladybug

GC3P33P Rat and Mushroom’s Ammo Can #26 by Rat & Mushroom

GC3P33X Rat and Mushroom’s Ammo Can #27 by Rat & Mushroom  – FTF!

Shampoodles and Hi Ho Silver

Mr & Mrs Shampoodles relaxing on the Houseboat

Shampoodles, HookRN, Tru2Cntry & Mr & Mrs Play Cache

GC322ZK Delamar by Play Cache

GC3RCC7 Shampoodles Climbs A Mountain by Shampoodles
Several days later Shampoodles calls me up and wants to know if I want to come play Bunco on the lake with here Bunco group…. so back up on the lake for some more fun with Shampoodles and her Bunco group on a gorgeous summer evening.

Tru2Cntry kayaking with Shampoodles

Bunco with Shampoodles on Shasta Lake

Saturday morning I checked my phone and Shampoodles had sent me a text message… “Want to join me at the lake today? I have sleeping bags if you want to spend the night” Wow… I get to spend the night? That sounds like the way to spend the weekend, I grabbed my stuff and was on my way again. Met up with Shampoodles and Geocached around the lake on Saturday, we grabbed an FTF, then went back to the houseboat, made dinner and played a game of digital Monopoly on the tablet.

BIG BEAR met up with us on Sunday night and we spent the night again on Shampoodles houseboat, up on TOP of the houseboat, which I think was the coolest place ever to sleep! We enjoyed the moon and the stars till way late in the night. Got up the next morning to Shampoodles making French Toast for Breakfast then headed over to do some caching up on the Squaw arm of Shasta Lake. Had just the best morning exploring the Bully Hill Mine area. Headed back to the houseboat for lunch, BIG BEAR made us BLT’s, then we packed up the house boat and headed back to the Harbor. Camping on a houseboat is the best way to spend a summer up here in Northern California and it was one of the best weekends I have had, thank you Shampoodles!!

A link to some Bully Hill Mine Photographs:

Bully Hill Mine Photographs Relating to the Lawrence May Family, ca. 1870-1919.

Exploring Bully Hill

Bear Prints

If your a Geocacher, then it’s a Power Trail!!  East of Sacramento are more than 3 Power Trails that have 160 caches combined.  Easy? hmmm no…. these are Mystery Caches, all 160 of them.  You have to solve the puzzle, or answer the questions to be able to get the coordinates to these caches.  It usually involves hours of research online to get the answers to solve the puzzle.  The Cache Owners did an incredible job of research to put these series together.  All of them are quality caches and it’s very rewarding to say that you have 160 Mystery Caches solved and logged!!  So sit back and pull up a Puzzle cache or two, after you have solved it enjoy the journey to the cache, log it and look for the next one, or in this case the next Series.

We started out at 3:00 am from Redding, CA heading toward the first Mystery cache on the SKH Series. Arrived at 6:30, Uh-Oh…. whats this?  No road?  No problem we have a Jeep!!!  Headed through the construction zone towards the first cache, got it!!!  All was ok until we me up with a Cement Barrier…. again, so glad we have the Jeep!!  We squeezed through the barrier and a telephone pole and now we find the road!!  Wouldn’t recommend driving on the first part, a bike or a walk might be a better way, well unless you have a small vehicle that you can take off roading!

First cache on the SKH Series: GC3B3DA SKH – Desperation by Voodoo Crew

When we started the College Bowl run there was another barrier, it seems there is a lot of dumping going on in the area, very sad to see.  Saw some Bald Eagles in the area and a couple of Hawks too! It was really a pretty area if you can look past the trash dump.  This place needs a CITO, and I would love to join in on cleaning it up.

First cache on the College Bowl: GC39HC3 The Rose Bowl by Voodoo Crew

We moved along at a fairly good pace, about 2  a minute average, then moved along to the Superbowl series. I grabbed my 6000th caches on the Superbowl Series, pretty cool.  It was great weather and wasn’t too hot, we started early enough that we didn’t hit the heat until about 3 pm when we were on the last part of the Academy Awards Series.

First Cache in the Superbowl Series: GC3A1WB Super Bowl XI (Raiders vs. Vikings) Voodoo Crew

First Cache in the Academy Award Series: GC3C770 The 1st Annual Academy Awards (1929) by Voodoo Crew

A big thank you to the Cache Owners!!  All the caches were in good shape, and there was parking available if you came in from the right direction, nothing to dangerous.  Your on a road, and traffic goes fast so you need to be careful, but hey we are used to that since Power Caches became popular. We found all but about 2 of the Geocaches on all of the combined Series.

After finishing the Mystery Cache Power Trails we headed over and did the Family Guy letterboxes and a Virtual.

Letterbox cache: GC3ABC2 Cleveland Brown – Family Guy (Letterbox Hybrid) by Voodoo Crew

Not a bad day – My accomplishments for the day:  178 caches total for the  day, 4 cache types: Virtual, Traditional, Mystery and Letterbox, and I  found my 6000th cache!!  Calling it a day and turning off the GPS‘r … oh wait… isn’t that a cache close by…. maybe one more???

Profile created using MyGeocachingProfile.com

4/23/12 5:46 PM Find #5495
Let me just say first that I will never forget tonight!

We came last year in March and couldn’t get to the cache because the waterfall was raging and the water was really high, it wasn’t safe to cross over.  Tonight BIG BEAR says remember my cache: BIG BEAR AND A DICE CHECK that we didn’t have the coords to last year? If you have the coords we can go get it tonight, and it is right down the road from Second Time’s a Charm.  I thought we were on our way up to go visit Rat &Mushroom for their Anniversary and to see their new kitchen. I found the coords to BIG BEAR’s cache and we set our Nuvi on it.  After grabbing BIG BEAR AND A DICE CHECK cache and jumping back into the Jeep,  BIG BEAR starts heading up the road to Second Time’s a Charm.  I had no idea that we were going to go to the waterfall tonight, but I was all for it, I had always wanted to come back and be able to get the cache this and the second attempt was perfect.

We have all the coords, waypoints, parking coords, turn waypoints  in the GPS‘r and we start heading towards the fall, this cache has it all: PO, Ticks, Ants, Bushwacking, and no GPS signals,  but we hear the falls and we are getting closer, so we must be going in the right direction.
BIG BEAR yells “I see the falls!”  And as I come down off the trail (?)  I see them too!  They are flowing almost as much as last year!! LOL. Not to sure I want to cross the raging river but BIG BEAR encourages me all the way, I really didn’t want to bridge the gap from the rock to the log, I have much shorter legs than BIG BEAR, but he helped me make it on to the log and we got across to the side where the cache is. I left the iPhone, the Garmin Nuvi and the GPSr on the other side though so they wouldn’t fall into the water!  So with no coords, no GPSr, no hint BIG BEAR heads toward the cache, good thing BIG BEAR has a good memory he went right up the cliff to the cache!! WHOO HOO!! I stamp the log and get a Smiley this time!!

Now the adventure begins!!

We start back down the way we came, hanging on the rocks, there is not much ground over there because the waterfall had cut the ground away. I was watching where I stepped very carefully but I made a wrong step and the  ground that I thought was there gave out from under me and down I went, I almost recovered and thought I could catch myself but nope down I went, I hit the pointy part of a big rock on the way down with my rib cage and went in face first. Soaked from head to toe, BIG BEAR comes back and reaches down to pick me up. Got up and out of the water, I have a big scratch on my side, I am sore, but ok. We had back very carefully, now that I am wet everything is slippery!

LOL, got back across ok with no further mishaps and climbed up to the rock where I left my iPhone, Nuvi and the GPSr and start collecting them. This is the same rock a year ago that we shared our first kiss!! I look down and BIG BEAR is not coming up, I asked him if he was going to join me up on the rock he says “No I am safer down here and he starts to pull a box out of his pocket!!!” By now he is on one knee and he says “Will you Marry Me?” I say “Oh Wow! YES!!
We are both shaking, me from the cold, him from nerves, he took out the ring and it took both of us to put it on my finger!!  This is a very very special place for BIG BEAR and Tru2Cntry, I look forward to spending the rest of my life with my best friend,  thank you for bringing us here… we will be back! What a night, what a place and what an adventure, that’s why we love to Geocache…

We headed back to the Jeep and on up to Rat & Mushroom’s to dry my clothes and share our good news!!  They had no idea when they opened the door and welcomed us in that they would have to supply me with some clothes and dry my soaking wet ones, but welcome us they did.  We shared our adventure with them over a nice cup of hot coffee and a piece of pie in their beautiful new kitchen.  They have some great dating and engagement stories too!, and they just celebrated their anniversary, fun night with good friends

This gets a Favorite Point for me, and yes Second Time’s a Charm, and has been a sort of theme to our day to day adventures too!
Love from BIG BEAR & Tru2Cntry

The Redding Geocachers Club continued an annual partnership with the BLM Redding Field Office on Saturday, April 21, cleaning up tons of trash from a litter-strewn parcel of public land in observance of Earth Day.

The club members held their annual “Cache In, Trash Out” (CITO)  event with more than 15 participants working on a parcel along Bear Creek east of Redding.  The BLM provided tools and equipment while the club members provided muscle and determination.

The work party poses for a group shot. The club even made a poster for the event (inset).

Nearly seven tons of trash were hauled out of the area. The crew picked up 54 tires, piles of household garbage, a few couches, and the battleship Missouri (a model replica). A barbecue was held after the event complete with door prizes.

Click to view slideshow.

Jumped into the Jeep and made  our way south on I-5 to Hwy 20 west to Hwy 101 and then North to Willits, caching all the way.

Saturday morning after taking care of the new job introductions and tours we head off towards Mendicino and find the Redwoods Series to cache, with our goal being a Waterfall Virtual that is 12 miles from Willits.  We competed the Redwoods #1 through #15: GC2W0H1 Redwoods #1 (Traditional Cache) created by Skycatcher  and then turn around to find the road that takes us to this Virtual:  GC9122 Hidden Waterfall (Virtual Cache) by vallen2

We found the Virtual and it looked like an easy walk to the Waterfall,  wooden stairs started us down the trail to the Chamberlain Creek Waterfall Trail which turned into a nice leisurely walk through the forest.  The cache page said there would be about a 200′ drop, we were on our way and could hear the waterfall,  so I was getting excited the closer we got.  We got about 100 feet down the trail and uh-ohhhh…. we found this:

Redwood Trainwreck

BIG BEAR finds the Redwood Train wreck

Well, what do you we do now?  BIG BEAR says “I think we can get over this”   I am not so sure though, I am not sure that it is safe to even try, but BIG BEAR has already disappeared, so I follow and I find him crawling over, under and through the splintered mess of Redwoods that completely wiped out the trail.  You didn’t know if you were stepping on foliage that could give away underneath you and you could drop 50 feet, so we went slow and very carefully through the downed Redwoods.  Some of the snags were pretty sharp and I didn’t want to be impaled on them. Redwoods are known for being big trees and these were not small trees!

But after about 15 minutes we did make it through and found the trail, and the Waterfall!

Chamberlain Waterfall

Chamberlain Waterfall

There was a Traditional Cache to get too and BIG BEAR and I jumped across the little stream grabbed that cache and BIG BEAR went and posed for pictures behind the Waterfall… what a fun hike, complete with all caches, waterfalls and a little of the unexpected adventure you find out on the trail when you Geocache!

The forecast calls for rain and it was right, no worries thought, we cache in the rain, snow, and wind it may slow us down a bit but we still get the cache! We have fresh batteries in the Garmin‘s, Butch the Geo-dog in the van and we are heading west for a fun day with Geo-friends. We will have lunch on the coast and we will be back to join up with Shampoodles and Ponytails for a Ride for Life Benefit Auction and Chili Feed.

Our route takes us on 299 from Redding to Arcata and all Geo-caches in between. As we get towards the summit the rain turns to snow, we keep going, stopping on the way of course. OldMrZ is driving and BIG BEAR is navigating…. 500 feet, 400 feet, 300 feet… looks like you can park at that turn off right over there.

Our First Stop: GC3CJY9 Fern Point by BRUHN – a very cool rock wall that used to be the Old 299 Hwy! wow… we actually took the hard way up, I saw later on the Cache page that you could have driven up to this one an easier way but we made it a 3 terrain, isnt that what you usually do when you Geocache?

We have more caches to get… so jumping back into the GeoVan and headed down the Hwy!

GC31ZT2 Anticipate This! by BRUHN

GC2BZ6H South Fork View by BRUHN

And of course there was a BIG BEAR cache to grab – a favorite for sure and it was published in July of 2004!! : GCK4ED BIG BEAR WHERE ARE YOU by BIG BEAR

I took some pictures here – it was a really pretty spot! Nice place for a cache.

Tru2Cntry & BIG BEAR at "BIG BEAR WHERE ARE YOU"

BIG BEAR at "BIG BEAR WHERE ARE YOU"

We did quite a few more caches – another favorite was GC32MZK The Fish Ladder by thedawdlers.
There was a Fish Ladder 100 feet below this little bridge built in 1923, it was very cool and worthy of some pictures. It was raining though so some of the pictures are blurry, still really cool little spot!

1923 Bridge

OldMrZ at the Fish Ladder

BIG BEAR, Tru2Cntry and OldMrZ at the Fish Ladder

OldMrZ looking over at the Fish Ladder

A few more caches to get by one or our good Geo friends: Humboldt Flier: GC223BH ” X ” ( X OUT ) by humboldt flier, GC223BW ” Y ” ( YEPPER – THAT BE A MIGHTY FINE VIEW ) by humboldt flier, GC223C4 ” Z ” ( ZEE, OR IS IT ZED )by humboldt flier and a few others that were great fun to get.

But now its time to put the GPS on the Seascape Restaurant for Lunch, a favorite place to get your fresh seafood fix on.

Afterwards we went for a hike around the Trinidad Trailheads and grabbed the caches on the trail, beautiful views and we worked off our lunch!!

Caches on the Trailhead:
GCWTGP KING’S CROSS by Arse&Hemi

GCV7HT Trinidad Trove by hidegoseek

GC3A1R2 A Spurious Cache by BRUHN

GC3A1PZ Hairpin Defender II by BRUHN to name a few…

its after 3 and we have to be back for a Chili Feed put on by our GeoFriends Shampoodles and Ponytails so we head back to the Geovan and start the trek back home, what a great day!

This was our first stop. This virtual told the history of the founder of the town and how the town got it’s name. Did you know that Benicia was the first city in the new state of California to be incorporated and at the same time was named the county seat of Solano County? And for a time it was the capitol of California, before the legislature moved to Sacramento?

GC94A4 Drunken Sailor (Virtual Cache)by TeamMoehrke.

Now up to the center of the little town of Benicia to this Virtual:

GC98C2 Working Capitol (Virtual Cache) by dgreno.

Out behind the Capitol Building there was a rather bumpy brick path that took us by several historical plaques commemorating events around Benicia and then we found an old Barn full of wagons and antiques, it is part of the Museum that is now inside the Capitol Building.

The little town of Benicia is home to quite a few more fun caching adventures:

GCEF85 Another Quiet Corner in Benicia (Virtual Cache) by Joe & Connie

Image via Wikipedia

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIG BEAR!

GC3B571 BIG BEARS BIG BIRTHDAY BASH by Tru2Cntry.

BIG BEAR’s birthday is no small event, at least it isn’t anymore! I thought it would be fun to celebrate BIG BEAR’s Birthday with all of our Geocaching Family. Neither BIG BEAR or I have family close by, and we love being with our Geocaching Family and Friends so we invited everybody to celebrate his birthday with us.

We published the Event and found out that there were 7 other birthday’s all within a month of BIG BEAR’s birthday. Well Geocaching friends are such great people, that’s one of the reason’s Geocaching is fun to do. Shampoodles and Ponytails, painted some great Geocaching rocks for the Gift Bags. We had a lot of Geocaches on the raffle table thanks to: OlCowboy, Georooks, Shampoodles, Ponytails, Dakotachix, Jeeperjones and Rat&Mushroom brought their signature Ammo Cans! Whoo Hoo… the raffle table was filling up!

I rented the Round Table Pizza Party room for 2 hours: 7-9 pm, I arrived at 6 to decorate and found out that they didn’t have my reservation for that day and time… so we just started filling up the tables and booths out in the Pizza restauraant area. And there was a birthday party already using the Party room that wasn’t scheduled to leave for another 2 hours… good thing we are flexible. The Manager at Round Table was awesome, “Penny” took over the sitution and the group with the birthday party left and hour earlier than they had planned. Thank you for that!

Geocachers were showing up left and right, no time to decorate, or so I thought. Lets just pick up our stuff and move to the Party room. Once in the room, Shampoodles, Ponytails and so many others started helping me decorate, I think Tink1914 team was putting up Party Zone banners, Shampoodles and I were putting down the table cloths. It was starting to look like a birthday party!!

RAT & MUSHROOM, Mushroom has a "Mush" stach!

While everybody ordered their pizza‘s and salads, we started things off with a Geocaching Bingo game mixer which I got here: Geocaching Online Resource Directory: Printables. For those who got a BINGO I had made custom Key Chain Lanyards with their Geocaching name on them to get as a prize, they were a hit!

After everybody had gotten their fill of Pizza I grabbed BIG BEAR and asked him to Emcee the Raffle. BIG BEAR is a natural at Emceeing! He had a great time calling out the numbers and having fun with everyone.

BIG BEAR emcees the raffleCantseem helps BIG BEAR with the raflleBIG BEAR and OlCowboy

BIG BEAR & T2C with the CakeBIG BEAR's Cake!

BIG BEAR blowing out the candles

Now it’s time for the Birthday cake and Ice Cream. BIG BEAR didn’t know about the cake. Dakotachix and I were putting the candles on and lighting them while the raffle was winding down. As soon as the candles were lit we broke into the “Happy Birthday to You” song and brought the cake in. It was a Bear cake made out of Cupcakes, with a Garmin 60csx in one hand and a blue iPhone in the other hand with a T-Shirt that read: FTF on it! The cupcakes went fast, and then I forgot to bring out the ice cream. I took it home and BIG BEAR had some later, so all is good there.

Overall there were over 45 people that came, 2 hours was a little to short, I think next time I will do a 4 hour Event and I will get there 2 hours early to set up. I am not sure but it seemed like everybody got there an hour early, so if I want to decorate I need to be there way ahead of time to do it.

But what a great time we had, Thank you to all our Geocaching family for coming and honoring BIG BEAR and for contributing to the fun. We are going to make this an annual Event and have already started planning next year’s event!!

GC78 Firestone by Scott Hinds

BIG BEAR’s birthday wish was to do this cache, it was published 10/02/2000 called Firestone.  It is located near Bodega Bay, North of San Francisco. So after biking the Golden Gate park earlier in the day, we jumped in the Jeep and headed north up Hwy 1 to the cache location.  The road into the cache was winding but it was a beautiful drive.

This was rated a 1/1 but we parked at the closest point and walked over, looked down and thought no way this is a 1 terrain.  We did see a trail though and later found out if you parked at the Trail Head (which we passed on the way up to the cache) that you could have an easy hike into this cache that was a terrain of 1.    Since we were at the closest point we through caution to the wind and started our way down to the cache, our terrain was about a 4.  It was very steep, but the views were extraordinary… it was beautiful.  There was no fog and we got there just about Sunset to witness one of the prettiest views of the ocean.

There aren’t too many of these old caches left and this one filled in a spot, or rather a date on our “Finds by Placed Month” calendar.  The caches with the older years for 2000 and 2001 are few and far between.  They were published when Geocaching was just beginning and now are very sought after caches.  On Firestone at the time there are only 260 finds for the cache.  For being published 11 years ago you would think there would be a lot more finds.  I hope this cache stays active, the owner has stated on his cache page that he has moved and it is difficult for him to maintain it, the Geocaching family is pretty good however at helping to maintain caches if they know that the owner can’t do it himself.  Trying to fill in the Jasmer Challenge Calendar: GC1GBC1 The Jasmer Challenge (Northern California Edition) by jasmerb

This cache for me will be remembered for not only the numbers it fills in for me but the memory of one of the most beautiful spots I have ever been to, and we ended the day by watching the sun go down. Perfect ending to a perfect caching day and it was a great way to honor my best friend’s birthday!

Happy Birthday BIG BEAR!