Comp I/O

Comp I/O is a puzzle cache. The puzzle is very straightforward. Derive the coordinates from this:

001101000011001000101110001100000011000100110110

001101010011010000101110001101000011000100110110

Drove right up to the cache location and made the grab this morning. It’s easy when there aren’t a lot of people around, like my last visit on a Friday night. It was very clever how the title of the cache fit the location.

Tracy caches

15 Nov 2004 12:30 PM Still can’t find these (Tracy, CA)

After a quick stop at the LLNL badge office, I headed east over Patterson Pass Road. I thought there were five caches I could check on without needing a GPSr.

The general location of Oh Grate! is easy to find. However, the general area is fairly large. I looked around the grate but nothing was obvious. I’ll try again with the GPSr to narrow the search (I hope).

I went back to Trust Me and double checked where the cache owner said it should be. I had emailed him that I thought it was missing. I believe my double check verifies the cache is missing.

I also went back to Car vs Train because I had an idea of something I had overlooked. Unfortunately, I still couldn’t find it. I still have this nagging feeling that things in the cache area have been moved around (I know weeds have been recently knocked down by a scraper) and the cache has been knocked loose and lost.

15 Nov 2004 1:30 PM Juan Bautista de Anza (Tracy, CA)

I had visited Juan Bautista de Anza on November 5, but couldn’t get to the cache because there were numerous SBC workers right next to it. Today I found it easily. All of the land around belongs to the state for development of a future vehicle recreation area.

15 Nov 2004 4:34 PM El Camino Viejo Cache (Tracy, CA)

El Camino Viejo is a puzzle cache. The puzzle is:

Solve the following multiplication puzzle:

… F O U N D

x ………… A

__________

= S K I L L

[Note: It turns out there are three possible answers so… I will insist that F may not equal zero. Insignificant numbers are never used in figuring math equations. Bill of Green Achers 12/20/02]

Where:

Like letters equal each other. (L=L)

No number is repeated. (N does not equal D)

There are 10 letters and so each must value 0-9.

Next, use the answer to get the real coordinates…

N37° 38.SFI
W121° 35.LUO

Well, I poked at figuring this out by hand, and luckily chose A correctly so I didn’t have to try too many solutions. Plotting the coordinates on a topo map zeroed it right in for me. Didn’t need a GPSr at all.

Viewpoint

13 Nov 2004 9:00 AM Viewpoint (Livermore, CA)

Back on October 23 Karen and I made an exhaustive search of Viewpoint and came up with a DNF. Turns out the cache was gone and the cache owner replaced it on November 1. This morning I made a quick trip (2 hours door to door) up and found it easily, without turning the GPSr on. I took some pictures. As you can see, it was cloudy and threatening rain (but never did).

Cliff near Viewpoint cache

Cliff near Viewpoint cache

Challenging place to hide a cache, huh? Luckily, it’s not hidden there, but the first time I searched this was within the error circle of the GPSr, and I’d looked everywhere else. It was kind of fun to hang my head over the edge to look in some of those holes.