December 18, 2004, 8:51 pm I had the morning available—the wedding we needed to go to was in the late afternoon. A Bridge Too Far is the cache closest to my boyhood home, where my Mom still lives. It was foggy and there was hardly anyone on the roads early in the morning. However, some guy was parked in his pickup right at the cache site.
So, I drove out to the Shafter Airport for Human Powered Flight—a virtual commemorating the first human powered aircraft (Gossamer Condor) flight over a closed course. This airport was chosen because of the consistent early morning stillness in August.
I drove back to A Bridge Too Far, but the pickup was still there, so I headed out to Buttonwillow. I didn’t particularly care for any of these caches.
The first one I came to was This Old House, an abandoned house that has been completely vandalized. I didn’t pay attention to the description which clearly said you don’t need to go into the house. I did and, after using the hint, actually recovered the cache from inside, but it’s really a dump, and I probably could have fallen through the floor. I don’t think it would have been a hard find if accessed from outside.
Are we there yet? is not too far off of I5. The challenge is to find the right roads.
Next I found a virtual, This Is My Town which is at a plaque which describes how Buttonwillow got its name. Even though I grew up not far away, this was not a piece of information that I knew.
The final one in Buttonwillow was Dude, I Think I Found Your Car. It’s a wrecked car in a very junky place. The cache was not in or on the car, but close by hidden under a wheel/tire.
I came back to A Bridge Too Far and got it. While I was searching under the bridge, I notice that some of the pilings were completely rotted out, and just then a vehicle drove over the bridge. Scary feeling.
December 17, 2004, 2:39 pm Having driven down this morning to Wasco in order to go to a niece’s wedding tomorrow, I took the afternoon to hunt for some caches in Bakersfield. I had a list of about a dozen.
Simulate This! is just south of Shafter. The most difficult part is finding the access point to the cache location. The dirt road I used was to the west of the cache. The cache itself was a buried can, with just the lid showing.
Then I had designs on a few caches in the Rosedale area. I DNF’d on Liberty Park Cache: it was pretty busy. I’m pretty sure I found the right location, but was feeling too conspicuous to do a thorough search. Then I spent far too long looking for Pin Oak Park Cache. I couldn’t find it and neither could most searchers before me. It may or may not still be there. Kern River Bed was another one I DNF’d. Couldn’t find an access point to the river. Drove within 400 feet, but came up against a No Trespassing fence. Probably have to walk in a ways from the east. Finally, I looked for A Cache for Travelin’ Sam, but traffic was so heavy that I missed the appropriate parking spot and didn’t want to try to come back for it. I was pretty discouraged, so I decided to go get a couple of virtuals in downtown Bakersfield.
Outlaw Jim’s Last Stand is a virtual cache at the site of the Joss House (destroyed by the Bakersfield earthquake) where bad guy Jim McKinney had a shootout with the law in 1903.
Bakersfield Station is a virtual cache at the Bakersfield Train Depot. The cache is pretty eye catching. It is one of the best kinetic sculptures I’ve seen. It’s a sphere of granite (about 4 ft diameter) resting on (apparently) a water bearing and slowly turning.
Follow the Arrow is a regular size cache in a non-descript part of Bakersfield (unless Buck Owens Drive is significant). It’s a mess kit hanging from a Juniper Tree branch.
December 15, 2004, 8:47 pm 15 Dec 2004 12:05 PM Like An Extra Virgin (Pleasanton, CA)
I tried this one before, but the coordinates changed the day before, and I didn’t notice. Like An Extra Virgin is near an old olive grove in Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park. This time it was pretty quick to find the ammo can. 15 Dec 2004 12:26 PM Alien Godparents (Pleasanton, CA)
Alien Godparents is an anagram of Pleasanton Ridge. I think this cache is the farthest south in the park, and it looks down over Sunol. The cache is an ammo can and I found it almost immediately.
15 Dec 2004 2:12 PM SuperGenius #15–Why Not? (Pleasanton, CA)
SuperGenius #15–Why Not? is an ammo can cache in Pleasanton Ridge. It was an easy find.
This one was up at eye level in a tree.
15 Dec 2004 2:36 PM The Big Valley (Pleasanton, CA)
The title of this cache made me think I’d find a great view to the east and be able to see the Central Valley. Not so–can’t see much to the east at all. But The Big Valley is right on the edge of a steep drop into Kilkare Canyon. This is a micro cache in a big pile of rocks. Ugh! I finally deciphered the hint.
The cache is hidden in the middle of what looks to be an old fire pit under a rock. It’s a key holder. I turned over a lot of rocks before I found it. 15 Dec 2004 3:01 PM Life Should be a Picnic… (Pleasanton, CA)
I suppose I was at about the 6 mile mark in my hiking, so the picnic tables at Life Should be a Picnic… were welcome, but I didn’t sit for very long. It was windy and cool being right on the top of the ridge. I searched the obvious hiding spots, but didn’t find it until about the third round of looking.
The micro was hidden under an angled fence post brace with a lot of grass growing up around it. It had to be done by feel, and I just wasn’t getting my fingers far enough under the brace. Finally put on a glove and found it. Note: I ought to get a pair of pigskin gloves so I don’t worry so much about splinters, thorns, and biting spiders (although I don’t think they’d protect against a rattlesnake). 15 Dec 2004 3:15 PM Antzzz—A DNF by Choice (Pleasanton, CA)
From Life Should be a Picnic…, Antzz was just a quarter mile north. I started the process of recovering this one, and then decided, in the interests of safety, to stop and try again when someone was with me. The Difficulty and Terrain ratings were both 3.5.
15 Dec 2004 4:00 PM Sycamore’s N’ Logs (Pleasanton, CA)
Returning from Antzzz towards Life Should be a Picnic, I noticed that Sycamore’s N’ Logs was only about 0.25 miles away (as the crow flies) and there was a convenient break in the fence. So I made the fateful decision to head down the steep, east facing hill, mostly following deer trails. Bad decision! The east side of the hills have the most brush, which means lots of poison oak. I got down quite a ways, and then got boxed in. Since I was running out of daylight, and it was going to be incredibly difficult to backtrack (the hillside was very steep), I just bit the bullet and went through the lightest areas of poison oak. I think I pretty well avoided touching it with my hands or getting it drug across my neck and face, but my clothes sure got it.
I finally broke out of the brush just about 400 feet from the cache. While logs indicate that this has been a hard cache to find, it was not for me at this time of year. Thistles and nettles just weren’t a problem.
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