Leakage from a Cluttered Mind

Pleasanton History is a multi-cache that starts at a memorial in Veteran’s Plaza. I had looked a couple of times before, and couldn’t even find stage 1. So I asked Dan and Janet to add their eyes to the search.

That worked. Janet found stage 1 fairly quickly (and I felt dumb–I should have spotted it). So we went to the second stage, which stymied us for a while. Finally, Dan found it.

This one was hidden in a hedge, but not down low like I expected, but up high in the foliage.

I should have tried to get this one back when I found Bailey 8999, but I thought it was up a trail and well into the park. It is on the trail, but right at the entrance to Augustin Bernal park. Interestingly, there is no convenient parking for this trailhead, so we had to park down low on Long View and walk Up the steep hill–guess that’s why the title is A Long View Up.

We (Dan, Janet, and I) looked for a long time, but didn’t find it. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring the hint with me. We walked back down to the car, read the hint, and it was obvious what we had overlooked. Rather than walk back up, we drove up, parked in the cul-de-sac for the minute it took to find the cache and sign the log.

Erector Set is another bridge, but this one is very busy. I had looked a couple of times previously, but couldn’t spot it. Today, we looked in quite a few places (and just sort of ignored the traffice buzzing by) but didn’t see it. I finally found it.

This is one where I’m not sure you could ever actually SEE it. I found it by feel. It was inside a steel truss that indeed did look like an erector set piece.

Jolly Roger is at an old bridge that is closed to traffic. I had made a search earlier, but came up empty handed., as did many other searchers. With Dan along this time, he could look in places that I would be uncomfortable, and we found it after a while. I wonder if the the cache was moved to a slightly easier place to reach (see fizzymagic’s log entry).

The cache was an Altoids Tin size cache hidden under one of the large steel trusses. To see it or reach it you had a bit of exposure to a 15 foot drop. I was glad Dan was along.

I thought maybe I’d get away early for a few finds before taking Christmas Card pictures for Mark and Annmarie, but there were too many little details to take care of. After we got the pictures taken, Dan and Janet (geodanimal) and I headed off to Pleasanton.

It’s a Graveyard Cache was our first stop. I had looked for this one before and failed. Today I walked right up and spotted it. Maybe I’m learning the hiding techniques a bit better. I let Dan and Janet find it too.

It’s a waterproof match holder stuffed inside a broken top fence pipe. I probably looked right it my first time I was there.

I grabbed Beginner’s Health Nut Cache while Karen was taking off her boots in the parking lot. Didn’t take long, but I did know the hint.

Without the hint, it might have taken longer. This one is a good reminder to search vertically as well as horizontally. It would be easy to get involved in searching all the downed logs.

Don’t Be A Drip! is in the vicinity of a drinking fountain up on top of Pleasanton Ridge. The container is small, just large enough for a couple of log sheets wrapped tightly around a pencil stub. Still, it was a pretty quick find.

I expected it to be in or under the drinking fountain, judging from the name, but it wasn’t. It was very close by, however.

It’s hard to not find the lime green container of Log In. This was an easy find.

Karen found SuperGenius #7 — Speckles rather quickly. I think I was still taking my pack off.

Karen and I took time today to hike at Pleasanton Ridge and look for a few caches. Well, I know what Coprolite is, but finding this cache still took a little while. Tree cover kept my GPS from good accuracy, but did put me in the general area. My problem was my pre-conceived ideas kept me from seeing things.

The cache is hidden in some squirt can foam and painted like a light color rock. I kept looking at the natural rocks. At one point, I looked in the hole where the cache was hidden, just looking right past it. Finally spotted it on a second pass because the color and shape just didn’t fit the surroundings.