Hiking and geocaching in Round Valley

We’ve been hiking with Chase (he is home-schooled) after he finishes his schoolwork. This gives his older siblings a quieter house in which to complete their studies. Today we went to Round Valley and I loaded up the GPSr with a bunch of geocaches to add some variety to our hiking. We completed the series of eight Ridge Run caches. As the name implies, we did a bit of climbing up the ridge line. Altogether we found 11 caches, hiked a little over 5 miles, and really enjoyed ourselves. Happened to see a well fed coyote—we interrupted its ground-squirrel hunting.

Chase finds a cache

Chase finds a cache

Mount Diablo peaks over the ridges

Mount Diablo peaks over the ridges

Geocaching buddies

Geocaching buddies

So pretty this time of year

So pretty this time of year

Delayed present

As part of her Christmas present we gave Audrey a choice of someplace special to visit. She chose visiting the Jelly Belly factory. We finally took her and her siblings to Jelly Belly, along with an ice cream treat at Fenton’s. They all enjoyed the treats and seeing how jelly beans are made. Cortnie liked seeing factory robots in action.

Kids next to the Jelly Belly truck

Kids next to the Jelly Belly truck

Lunch on the Jelly Belly logo

Lunch on the Jelly Belly logo

Happy or sugar-high?

Happy or sugar-high?

The dog made me do it

For several years I have set loose goals for annual hiking and biking mileage. I’m not obsessed with these goals, but I get some satisfaction from achieving them. For a couple of years now I have wanted to hike 300 miles and bike 1,000 miles (the years of over 5,000 miles biking are long gone).

In 2014, I rode my bike 1,206 miles, but just before Christmas my hiking miles totaled only 288, with no plans (and seemingly no opportunity) to increase it. Then, my daughter asked us to dog-sit their golden-doodle. Echo is a rambunctious one year old and needs a daily walk. As a result, I finished the year with 321 miles of hiking/walking. Thanks, Echo.

Echo

Echo

I should note that no single hike or bike ride was exceptionally long so I failed to achieve my goal of biking my age in miles. I may have to change to the metric system.