Leakage from a Cluttered Mind

I had hoped to get over to San Jose early for a full day of caching before going to the Little Shop of Horrors event. However, there were too many things to do around the house, so I didn’t leave until noon.

I had a general idea of where to go (Camden Avenue near Blossom Hill) but I haven’t been in that area for 30 years when we used to go see Chris Christopherson. So, I wandered around a bit before I settled on a parking lot that seemed like it must be close to the Alamitos Creek trail. I parked and got on the bike and headed for the closest cache, which was about 0.25 miles away since its a cache dense area.

I started out on a bike path in a long, skinny park under power lines, and the first find was an easy one called Dollar Tree, which I found at 12:55 PM.

Next, I found 101 TFTs — One Pair at 1:24 PM, but when I started to log it noticed that it had some prerequisites. In other words, it’s not really a regular cache.

In between the first and second find, I had searched for a while for Trapped by Victor, but couldn’t come up with it. On the way back, I stopped again, read the description, and realized immediately where the cache was, and found it at 1:34 PM.

Blinker is a nano-cache hidden by Marky and Joani. Once the GPSr really settled down, it wasn’t too hard to spot (1:50 PM).

Oak Trail Kid’s Cache was off a trail in a grove of oaks. Easy find at 2:01 PM.

Duck Blind was finally along the Alamitos Creek trail, where I wanted to go in the first place. Found this one at 2:30 PM.

Further along the trail was Treasure Chest, a small, tin chest. Found at 2:49 PM.

Next up on the trail was Creekside Trunk Cache at 3:03 PM.

Pfeiffer Stone House was near the location of an old stone quarry. The cache itself is well cammoed, but I found it at 3:17 PM. It’s a painted styrofoam plug in the end of a guard rail. Has a couple of bolts in it to add realism.

Blend-in-tree was one I almost didn’t want to get. A PO branch was growing next to and over the coffee can container. I carefully grabbed it at 3:30 PM.

Bicycle Primes was tough–finally found it at 3:59 PM.

I found The Cache with the ReallyReallyReally Long Name at 4:08 PM.

I couldn’t find The Big Fat Cache. Perhaps it’s missing, or I searched on the wrong side of the tree.

Carrabelle Cache was in a park near picnic tables. Found at 4:21 PM.

Quickwood Microwood was quickly found at 4:50 PM. This was where I decided to turn around and retrace my path on the Alamitos Creek trail.

Just before getting back to the truck I found Ultimate Battleship: Shrinking Battlefield at 5:20 PM.

After all this I went to the Little Shop of Horrors: the Sequel event at Worker of Wood’s house. Met lots of friendly people with familiar geocaching names, but only a couple had I ever seen before. WoW had a drawing to give away a number of 2005 Jeep travelbugs, but I didn’t score one.

Today we biked the River Trail along the Columbia River and it was very windy. The Columbia Gorge Discovery Center is at the west end of the trail. Since Karen wanted to go through this museum, we drove up there after the bike ride together. She went to the museum, and I rode from there back along the river trail to find the caches.

Columbia River

I found The River Trail: La Puente at 12:10 PM in some rocks near one end of a pedestrian bridge.

Next I left the trail and walked up a small hill to find The River Trail: Trinkets at 12:18 PM. It was near a small drop off and overlooked the Columbia River. Appropriately, a high-voltage transmission line tower almost covered the whole top of the hill.

X marks the spot! Well, not quite, but the The River Trail: “X” is very close and I found it at 12:36 PM.

Took the geo-trail off through the grass to find The River Trail: The Lake at 12:44 PM.

A part of the trail parallels the busy railroad tracks. In fact, the trail goes through a small underpass. Apparently, there was a train derailment here a year or two ago. That fact gave me a funny feeling as a long freight rumbled by above me. I found The River Trail: The Discovery at 1:08 PM.