Leakage from a Cluttered Mind

I had the pickup worked on yesterday, and the intermittent misfire was fixed by replacing a faulty spark plug. So… I ventured out to Pleasanton.

It was also my first day of using the routing functions with the Garmin 60csx. First up was IHT Chugs into Pleasanton (1:00 PM), which was just off Valley and the new Iron Horse Trail.

Marky hid Nielsen Nano (1:30 PM) in a park that was deserted except for 3 guys practicing fly casting.

I looked for IHT Chugs #2, but couldn’t find it. Somebody else did get FTF on it today however. If it’s in the thick foliage, it’s as bad as an ivy hide.

California Towhee (2:36 PM) is a multi that starts in downtown. I easily gathered the info and then carefully did the math. I wasn’t sure about the location, but the cache was there.

Found Kids Rule-North (2:51 PM), an ammo can in a nice park. I approached via a back entrance, and an observant neighbor wasn’t sure why I left and then rather quickly came back.

For the final cache today, I again looked for RTH @ BMX (3:33 PM). Stage 2 was really hard to find, but finally I got it, a twig stuck in a hole in a parking barrier with the coords written on it. Stage 2 had just been replaced and it didn’t take much figuring to see that there was an obvious error. I knew the final couldn’t be more than a few hundred feet away and the coords put it over a mile away. So, I tried to brute force find it, and did. I must have almost stood on top of it last time I searched. I mark the final at N 37 40.158 W 121 51.215 while what was given at stage 2 was N 37 41.157 W 121 51.215.

Dan and I went to Martinez today and ended with a higher precentage of DNFs than we normally have.

The 680 freeway jammed up in Concord, so we exited to take surface streets into Martinez. Dan noted that TOY WORLD (1:42 PM) was right on our way, so we stopped to get it. Quick find in a lamp post.

We checked out a couple of others on the way, but one was a multi that required gathering info from 8 different things in a park (we didn’t want to take the time) and the other had some obscure entrance which we couldn’t find quickly.

As we were driving by the Shell refinery in Martinez, Dan noticed Churchill 1702 (2:20 PM) was nearby. Dan found this micro. It was full of water and the log was almost mush. Must have been the landscape irrigation causing the problem.

Special Delivery (2:36 PM) was clearly a nano on a mail box. We looked and felt all over that thing. Dan finally found it by sticking his head completely under it.

Traveling Forever (2:55 PM) was a simple multi at the old Martinez train station (the one we used for embarking on our long bike tour starting in Salt Lake City). Dan found this one too.

When we looked for Bridge the Gap (3:39 PM), we were fairly certain of the general location on the bridge where it was, but we didn’t immediately find it. Again, Dan’s persistence paid off.

We hiked along the shoreline trail to get Playground Madness #4 (4:14 PM). We think the coordinates were a bit off and had us looking under the wrong tree. Finally used the hint and got it.

We didn’t know that Joe Dimaggio grew up in Martinez, but Joltin Joe (4:24 PM) multi-cache clued us in on that. I found the cache quickly.

Shaken, Not Stirred (4:45 PM) is a virtual at a small monument that claims the martini was created in Martinez. Hmmm… I’m not buyin’ it.