Dogz and horses on walkz

Every now and then when you're out geocaching, you see some pretty interesting sites.  The nice thing about where I live is it's only a 30 minute drive to get to the desert, or the beach.  For this shot, it was obviously, the desert.  And the nice thing about the desert is the wide open spaces.  Once you get out of any town, you have some pretty scenic vistas.

Several years ago, I was out taking some shots of the mountains with Joshua Trees in the foreground, when I heard these two guys conversing on horseback.  One of their dogs came up to greet me, giving my hand a lick. We exchanged pleasantries and then they rode off and I took some photos of them as they rode away from me.

It literally wasn't until I looked at the shot on my computer screen that I realized the guy on the right was packing.  The way this scene played out, I just felt this one needed a slight sepia treatment to it to give it an "Old West" feel to it.  And the only thing that really gives this away is the guy on the left is wearing sneakers.  Otherwise, it could be something form the 1800s.

Comments would be appreciated.  Thanks for stopping by.

Stalking Geocachers

Yesterday, I went on a hike and found 3 geocaches.  Here's a YouTube video I created for one of the caches I found yesterday.  Enjoy.

Goals for the year

This post, as are most things in my life it seems, is just a little bit late.  I got caught up in the 20 days of Chill challenge and really didn't think about posting something along this line for the month of January and here's now almost halfway through February.  But as one of my students said last year, "Better late than never."

Goals that I have for myself are as follows and they fall into two main categories:  Hobbies and Personal.  Interestingly, the main personal goal is tied up with my hobbies.  If I work on that one, the others will fall into place.

First off, let me talk about hobbies.  I went out geocaching today.  Big deal most of you will say, but what you don't realize is I've only  gone out geocaching four days in the entire month of February.  In other words, I've taken a step back, slightly.  Many of you might not know is I just completed a 601 consecutive day streak where I either found a cache or attended an event.  It stretched from June 1st, 2015 until January 21st of this year.  Sunday, the 22nd felt weird not to go caching, but it rained hard all day and I was able to use the rain as justification for me not going out and finding a cache that day.

I have other geocaching goals in mind, many of them most of you will probably find quite silly, but those particular goals keep me interested in the game.  My current goal is to get every date on the calendar filled in with 11 finds each.  Since I've been geocaching since 2001, you would think that I'd found at least 11 caches on every day of the year.  Not so.  There are certain time periods, notably the months of September and December, where I am busy doing other things and geocaching takes a back seat.  Since the consecutive day streak has ended however, I can now concentrate on filling in those dates.  This won't happen by the end of the year, since I already have a couple of dates in January and February that still need to be filled in 2018.  But, at least I can put a dent in that particular goal.

Since taking a step back, I've decided that I want to find more quality caches.  If I have to walk or hike to a cache, then I rate that higher quality-wise than if I just walk up to something and find it there.  That doesn't mean I'll change my entire caching habit, but I would like to work on that aspect.  Today was a perfect example of both aspects.  I went over to Whittier today to cache along a trail in the Arroyo Pescadero.  No such luck since the trails were closed due to the weather we've been having.  So I found some nearby caches in parks and along some streets and ended up over near another large park where the trails were open and I was able to find some good quality hiking caches.  It was like the best of both worlds.  The only thing that would have made it better would have been if I'd had a caching partner, but that doesn't always work out and I'd rather do a solo hike then sit at home because I don't have someone to go caching with.

Today also made me realize why I need to step back slightly from geocaching.  On the trail today, I saw two swallowtail butterflies flitting around each other, most likely in some kind of mating or territorial ritual.  And I didn't have my camera with me.  Two years ago, I always took my camera with me.  Now, it very rarely comes out of the camera bag.  I take photos with my iPhone, but those don't compare to the ones I post here.  That's also probably one of the reasons that I don't post as often here on my blog.  The blog's title is "A Photo a Day."  I really need to get out more and take photos again.  I discovered today, that I have missed taking photos. I think the consecutive day streak had something to do with that as well.  I was pretty much consumed with making sure I found at least one geocache, that I wasn't concerned about other things that I enjoyed doing and so photography fell by the wayside.  That's going to change this year.  I just need to strike a better balance between the two.  And a better balance between the two means, more photos and thus more posts here as well.  It's a win/win all the way around.

And lastly, but probably most importantly, is my personal goal:  Lose another 15 pounds by the end of the year.  I have been diagnosed as pre-diabetic.  This is not a good thing and I don't want to slide down that slippery slope and so losing weight is a very good option for me to help me avoid becoming diabetic.  In the past two years, I've lost 30 pounds.  Another 15 to 20 pounds will put me back at my college weight, which will be much healthier for me in the long run.  Hiking, and thus geocaching will help with this.  But if I can't find a geocache, then I can always walk the Thompson Creek Trail or the Claremont Wilderness loop.  A five mile hike is always good for the body and good for the soul.

Thanks for reading this. As always, I look forward to your comments.  

Stress (Day 12) - 20 Days of Chill

Stress.  We all have it and it affects our lives, mostly adversely.  So I guess the point of this post, is to not so much talk about stress, or what kinds of stress there are, but how I deal with it.  And you will probably deal with it in a variety of ways, most of which are probably different than mine.  And if it works for you, that's great.

I've always used this blog as a way to advertise my photos. I'm not into making money, but I do like to show off my work.  As I was looking through some photos today for one that I thought would work with what I thought I was going to write about, it hit me.  Most of the shots that I had in that particular album are stress relievers for me, because they pretty much capture what it is that I do to relieve my stress.

These are the things that I love to do, in no particular order.  Geocaching. Travel.  Photography.  They get me to start thinking about other things, they get me to reorder my priorities and they pretty much de-stress me.  

This particular photo is pretty much emblematic of all three of those things.  This was taken while finding either a virtual geocache or an earth cache in Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. I've been geocaching for almost 16 years.  If I didn't like it, I would have stopped a long time ago.  I enjoy the hunt for those hidden treasures and I especially like the hunt when I'm in different areas than my own.  I get to experience hides by different people.  It gives me a new perspective on the hobby.  

Travel is something that I've always done, starting at age 4 when my parents took us on a week long camping trip to Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks.  We tent camped then, but sometime shortly after that, my parents bought a 14 foot trailer to haul all of our gear and family around the country.  Whenever I can get on a road trip, I'll take it.  It's a great stress reliever for me.

I've been a photographer for as long as I can remember.  I used to beg my parents to let me take the Kodak Instamatic when we'd go camping.  Many of the photos that were taken on those trips were taken by me.  My parents bought me my first camera when I was in third grade.  I don't know whatever happened to that camera and it would be nice to have it again, just for old time's sake, but I took many photos with that cheap little thing.

When you're doing something you really love to do, it's pretty much impossible to be stressed.  I think stress just melts away.  As one of my friends said to me one time, "You're not going to be bored when you retire.  You have too many things that you're going to want to do."  Yep.  The less stress, the better it will be.

For more stories on Stress, click here.

Selfie nation (Day 11) - 20 Days of Chill

The selfie photo has become ubiquitous over the last couple of years.  I know I'm as guilty as the next person for posting selfies, but I've also found that I've been looking at my selfies recently, I've found that I like what I see.

For the most part, I see a person who's out and about, not making duck faces at the camera in my bathroom.  If I look at them chronologically, I see a person who has lost weight over the last couple of years, yet still needs to lose some more.  That's a motivating factor.  If I don't like what I see, then my job is to fix it, which is what I've been trying to do over the past couple of year.  I've been using my Fitbit religiously, making sure I get my 10,000 daily steps.  Some days, which are usually few and far between, I'm unsuccessful in that goal, but I'm a work in progress.  

I feel I'm in better shape now, so I keep doing it.  I hiked over 3 miles yesterday and wasn't even winded when I was done.  That's a good thing.  My goal is to lose another 15 to 20 pounds.  I think if I lose half of that the next year, that will also be a good thing.

In my mind, most selfies seem to be pretty silly.  My selfies have a different purpose, at least for me.

For more stories about selfies, click here.

Blue (Day 8) - 20 Days of Chill

Plain and simple, Old Guys Rule.  It says so right there on the wall.  

I can't really call this a selfie, since my son took the photo, although I set it up.  I love this photo for a number of reasons.  One, I think it captures my personality pretty well.  And two, it's me from two years ago and 30 pounds heavier.  I think I would be feeling blue if I still weighed that much.  I'm not done yet, as I believe I still have at least 15 more pounds to shed, but I think I'm heading in the right direction.

And that's not feeling blue at all, although my shirt certainly is.

For more stories about Blue, click here.

Nicknames (Day 6) - 20 Days of Chill

Nicknames.  I haven't had many nicknames growing up.  My brother-in-law used to call me PJ, because I was a junior as opposed to that being my middle name, but I haven't really gotten any nicknames growing up.

Now, as an adult, I've accumulated quite a few nicknames.  Probably from people on the road calling me idiot or asshole.  Hey, you don't like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalk buddy.  Funny thing is, I'm not a fan of nicknames, and yet two of our three children growing up had nicknames.  Go figure that one out.

Now, for many of you, you'll know that I use the screen name Webfoot a lot.  I've already created a nickname for myself.  I don't need a nickname for my nickname.  I'm Webfoot, not Webster, not Webby, but Webfoot. I don't understand why some people insist on shortening someone's name, even if it's an avatar name.  And I know, the photo has nothing to do with this post, outside it shows Webfoot and Tadpole95 right after they found a geocache up near Pt. Reyes, California.

About your blog (Day 1) - 20 Days of Chill

Well, here we are again.  It's January and time for P.J.'s annual 20 Day of Chill blogging challenge.  Today's theme is "About your blog."  

The title of the blog is a Photo a Day, but I think the real deal with this blog is "Best Intentions not Realized."  Last year is a perfect example of what I mean.  I posted 23 times with this blog, but 20 of those posts were done in January (Can you Say 20 Days of Chill?  Very good.  I knew you could.).  My last post of 2016 was in June.  You'd think that I could have posted more since I was in the middle of summer vacation.  But as I've stated above, this blog is all about best intentions but there's no follow through.  And yes, I could say, it's going to change this year.  Maybe, maybe not.

So here we go again.  My photo for the day is one I took on the 1st at a memorial while I was out geocaching.  I have been at this particular memorial more than once, mainly because there have been more than one geocache to find here over the past 15 years.  I think the photo serves as a reminder that we need to remember that the freedoms we enjoy have always come at a price.

Now, back to the blog at hand.  I always cross post this to my Facebook page.  I tend to get more comments there than I ever get here, although I think I'd like to have people comment on the actual blog.  I think that would give me a sense of who are actually reading it.  I pretty much know who's reading it on Facebook.  I think that might be part of my problem.  I like to read other's comments and will usually respond back.  Sometimes those comments prompt me to write about other things down the road.  When people comment on Facebook, I'll end up commenting there, but that's about where it ends.

So who knows where this goes?  I'm not sure, but I now I'll probably do this for the 20 days in January and then we'll see where it goes from there.  Thanks for reading and as always comments are always welcome.  I won't bite.

Point Reyes

There are many places around California that I have visited more than once, Point Reyes National Seashore is one such place.  One of the interesting things about this particular area is it has a lot of visual evidence for the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.  If you look at a map you can see Tomales Bay separating the northern part of the seashore from the mainland of California.  Tamales Bay is the San Andreas Fault submerged under water.  Point Reyes is moving northward, relative to the rest of California to its east which is moving southward.  Needless to say, there is a lot of tectonic activity that is responsible for this entire area.

My son and I visited here about 10 days ago with the intention of visiting the lighthouse at the point.  There is a virtual geocache out there.  You can read about what virtual geocaches are here.  The first time we went out there, we were stopped by illness and the second time we were stopped by weather.  It can get rather cold, windy and foggy out there.  Many times, during bad weather, the point is closed for safety.  The day we were out there last week it was cold because it was mid-week.  Budget cuts only allow them to be open on the weekends when there are the most visitors.

We went out anyway, hiked out to the observation point and looked down the 308 steps to the lighthouse.  We were able to get the virtual cache, because we were able to find all of the answers either here, or elsewhere.  It would be very tough to do without getting help from someone else unless you actually visited the site, which is really the purpose.

It would have been nice to have walked all the way down to the lighthouse, but it would have been very cold too.  The wind was gusting to about 25 mph on that day.  It was very brisk.  The walk out with my son was enjoyable and we enjoyed ourselves even though we weren't able to get to everything, which we knew was going to happen anyway, because of our itinerary.  I'll talk about that in my next post.

Slim Pickings

This is a geocaching story so if you're not interested in geocaching, you can stop reading right now and move on with your life.  I only say that as a public service announcement since I know many people are probably tired of listening to me go on and on and on about geocaching.

At first, I was at a loss for words on what to write about with this prompt today of slim pickings.  But then I thought about what I have been trying to accomplish this year as one of my geocaching goals.  Last year, I started a consecutive day streak, mainly because there was a challenge cache to find a month of non-traditional finds.  For you geocaching muggles, a non-traditional cache would be any cache that doesn't have that green box icon on the map.

Challenge caches are pretty straightforward in their approach.  They challenge you to do certain geocaching things before you can find the cache, or at least log it on line.  As I noted above, the non-traditional challenge cache was for a month, so I found at least one non-traditional cache for each day of June.  Then, I thought about trying to extend my streak a little bit further.  I'd never gotten a streak beyond 56 days in the past, mainly because it became tedious to go out and find a cache every day.  But I got through July, then worked my way through August, getting at least one cache per day.

The problem is in my area I've found all the nearby ones.  The second map shows all the caches I've found near where I live.  That's the big donut hole in the top map that only shows the caches that I haven't found.  To keep my streak alive I have to keep going a little further out each day, mainly because I've already found almost all of the caches around my house.  I was talking to my son about this a couple of days ago and I told him that if someone wanted to do a one year consecutive day streak (which is what I'm attempting to do for a challenge), then they should start it early in their caching career before they find all the caches near them.  If I had just started geocaching, the lower map would represent almost 70 caches that I could find within a half hour walking distance from my house.

I'm pretty sure I'll be able to keep this streak up, but I really need to plan out my after school days carefully, because of the slim pickings.

A dose of vitamin N

This was an interesting prompt.  What the heck?  There is no Vitamin N.  But then, when I googled it, it all made sense.  Nature.

Yeah, I believe I get a good dose of Vitamin N on the weekends and an even bigger dose of it during my breaks, but I don't think I get enough of it on a daily basis.  But then again, who has the time, except for those who are independently wealthy, or those who are retired?

I'm getting out on a daily basis for a little bit.  I did a short walk today to find a geocache.  It was the 227th consecutive day I've found a geocache.  The goal is to get to at least 366 days.  Finding geocaches gets me outside, but it's no necessarily nature like going to Bryce Canyon and hiking down in the canyon.  Then again, very few places can compete with Bryce Canyon.

So that's why I get out on the weekends for my hikes.  It fulfills me and keeps me fairly fresh for the upcoming week.  It's one of the reasons I really love my spring break the most.  Christmas break is a cruel holiday, especially if you're an adult.  You see two weeks off and you think, "Yeah, two weeks off."  But you spend the first week dealing with everything leading up to Christmas and you spend the second week with everything leading up to New Year and in reality you only have about two or three days to do what you really want to do.

My school district has taken two weeks at spring break for the longest time. I love it.  Think about it.  Spring break.  No commitments, nothing really to do except you have two weeks off to do what you want to do.  And if the weather is bad, it's only for a day, so you can curl up with a good book at home for that day.  At Christmas, if the weather is bad, you still have to go out in that crap, because things have to get done.

So yeah, I don't get enough of it, but I try to make the most of my Vitamin N any chance I can get.

Pen and Paper

When I first started to geocache 15 years ago, I had a new GPS unit, but you couldn't input cache pages into the unit because it had not computer cord to connect it up to the computer.  Nowadays, that almost seems like standard equipment, although I recently went to a Geocaching Event where someone gave away as a white elephant gift a GPS unit exactly like my original.

Back in those days, if we wanted to go out geocaching, we'd print out the cache pages and carry them with us, often times writing notes about the caching experience on them and then hopefully, keeping them in order so when we got home, we could then write our log write ups on the computer to lay claim to the find we'd found out in the field.

Now, the only pen and paper you see while geocaching is usually the paper log book inside the geocache and the pen that all good geocachers carry with them because most geocaches are so small that they don't have room for a pen.  You have to be able to sign the log book to claim the find.  

And so it goes with technology.  We've pretty much eliminated the need for pen and paper, yet we still use it.  Some things are hard to change.  It would be fun to see all geocaches go totally electronically.  Find the geocache, then once you have the geocache in your hand, input your electronic signal access code given to you from the website and you automatically get credit for a geocache find.  As with anything, I can see people hacking the system to cheat, but we see that all the time no matter what.  I guess it's a challenge.  For me, the challenge is the find.  I'm not going to lie about how many geocaches I've found, just to inflate my numbers and impress someone else.  The only one I'm in this for is me.

But I digress a little.  Totally electronic geocaching would be fun, but I really do like the pen and paper.  With the total electronic version, you'd have no need to look through all the stuff in the cache.  Even though I don't usually take anything, it's still fun to see what's in there.

Who am I?

I have to say, I'm a man who has strong convictions, but not a whole lot of follow through.  I've made resolutions in the past, especially with regard to blogging, but usually have fallen through.

Just last year, I participated in P.J.'s 20 days of Chill Writing blog challenge and swore I was going to do better with my blogging.  I posted 23 blog posts in January of last year, but only 34 overall.  Needless to say, January was the high water mark of my blogging last year.  So I'm not going to make any promises this year.  All I know is I had a lot of fun with this writing challenge last year, so I'm going to participate in it again this year.  

Today's prompt is "Who am I?"  

I'm a teacher.  I've taught in the same school for 32 years, plus one additional year at another school.  Interestingly, I've taught at my school longer than four other teachers at the school have been alive.

I'm a husband.  I've been married for 27 and a half years.  As in every marriage, it's not perfect, but I know for sure I got the better end of that deal.  Why my wife would want to put up with some of my antics and shenanigans for the past 27+ years is beyond me, but I'm glad that she has.

I'm a father.  I have three children, all beyond their teenage years.  My daughter, my oldest, is a teacher up north.  She is a fifth generation teacher in my family.  My son, my middle child, is in between jobs right now, but just moved back down here to Southern California.  I hope that means I'll bee able to see more of him in the coming year.  My younger son is still at home with us.  He's attending community college and looks like he's going to major in Psychology once he gets to a four year institution.  We will be making the rounds to different colleges this spring.

I'm an outdoorsman.  I enjoy being in the outdoors.  If it's hiking, or camping, or geocaching, I'm probably doing it and doing it for much of my off time when I'm not working.

I'm a photographer.  Believe it or not, my parents bought me my first real camera when I was in 3rd grade.  I wish I still had that old camera that took roll film, but somewhere when I graduated to better cameras, that one went by the wayside.  I still enjoy taking photos and you'll see many of them in this blog and on other sites as well.

Day one done.  I'm looking forward to the next day of this challenge.

Photo Blogging Challenge (June 2015): Anything goes

So this is a little late this month, but I've been waiting until the photos publish in the Sharpshooters International Photography Club's weekly album.  Surprisingly, June was majorly busy, since usually it's less busy, being my first month of summer vacation.  I had things planned, most of which got done and that just kept me from a lot of things, but the one thing that I really wanted to do, I got done.  P.J. has his monthly photo challenge, so here's the story of how I checked off something off of my Bucket List.

Because my daughter is getting married in July, I figured the best time for me to get out on my annual camping trip would be to go in June before it got really busy.  My wife doesn't camp, my older two aren't around anymore and my youngest had school and Jury duty about the only time I could go camping, so I emailed a geocaching friend of mine and talked with him about a geocaching road trip.  The trip had several purposes.  Get as many different caches as possible while having fun, get a couple of specific caches for challenges that I was working on and climb to the top of Mt. Lassen in Northern California.

Several of the geocaching challenges I've been working on involve finding caches on each page of a particular atlas.  The DeLorme atlases are really detailed maps and people have put together specific state atlas challenges for almost every state in the country.  California actually has three challenges because there's a state atlas, a Northern California atlas and a Southern California atlas.  Living in Southern California, I'm closest to completing that one, but I'm getting very close to the other two as well due to my extensive traveling within the state over the last fifteen years.

So my friend Craig and I worked out a plan to travel up the eastern corridor of California up to Lassen Volcanic National Park and then come down through the great valley of California and home.  Highway 395 runs up through Owens Valley on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.  It's pretty hot in the summer, but it was early June, so it wasn't really bad.  We actually ended up partially in Death Valley National Park for a part of the run, but we didn't stay, just sort of traveled through.  

One particular geocache we ended up finding was Have You Found What You're Looking For?  And yes, go ahead and start humming or singing along, because this took us to THE Joshua Tree featured on the cover of the U2 album.  Unfortunately, the Joshua Tree is dead as evidenced in the first shot, but it's become a shrine to U2 out in the middle of the desert just outside the boundaries of Death Valley National Park.  Yeah, the song's going through my head right now as I'm writing this.

Eventually, we got up to Lassen about day four of the trip.  Before Mt. St. Helens blew its top in 1980, Mt. Lassen was the last volcano in the contiguous United States to have erupted.  It began erupting in 1914 and continued off and on for the next three or four years.  During that time span, it also became a national park.  These if a lot to see there and a lot of great hiking opportunities.  

One of the hikes we took was a hike out to Bumpass Hell, a thermal area that looks very much like the thermal areas in Yellowstone.  The only thing that Lassen doesn't have that Yellowstone does are geysers.  Bumpass Hell is named after Kendall Vanhook Bumpass, a local miner, who, in 1865 had the misfortune of breaking through the thin crust of one of the boiling mud pots.  He ended up losing one of his legs due to the scalding mud.  Bumpass Hell is not very pleasant to be in if you have a sensitive nose since it has a sulfur smell to it, but it's an interesting feature.  

But the first hike of the day was the one I really wanted to do.   We got up had breakfast our first full day in Lassen and got ready for a hike to the top of Mt. Lassen, the centerpiece of the park.  This hike has been on my Bucket List, probably since before the term Bucket List was coined.  My first adventure in Lassen happened when I was 8 years old on a camping trip with my family.  Because we did mostly things together, the hike didn't happen that year, but I decided then that I wanted to climb the mountain.  When I graduated from high school, two of my buddies and I traveled all around the state during that summer.  We ended up in Lassen, but couldn't climb to the top because of extensive snow cover.  We ended up hiking through five foot drifts of snow just to get to Bumpass Hell.

Five years ago, my youngest and I went up there on a camping trip, but this was after an incredibly wet winter, the last wet winter we've had in the state.  The road through the park still hadn't been plowed and so to even get to the trailhead, we had to exit the park and drive all the way around the outside and come back in through the southern entrance.  The trail to Bumpass Hell was even closed that year.  There were ten foot drifts above the bathroom's room in the Lassen trailhead parking lot.  That's right, you read that right - ten feet above the roof of the building.  And this was in July.  Apparently, the mountain did not want me to climb it.

This year was different.  One thing that actually helped us immensely was the drought we've been suffering through in California.  We caught a tremendous break with that, because the snowfall has been minimal for so many years that the trailhead opened up early.  As you can see from the fourth shot, the snow field my friend Craig is walking through was about the extent of the snow on the trail.  We had about 6 or 7 of those crossings, but none of them were very treacherous.  

The trip to the top was fairly easy, but the elevation gain of over 2000 feet in just about 2.5 miles of hiking can cause problems.  There were two people we encountered on our way up who never made it to the summit because of altitude sickness.  One was smart enough to rest and head back down while the young girl was prodded by her family to continue on.  She made it almost to the summit, but never quite to the top.

As you can see, the views from up there were phenomenal.  If you look closely, on the left hand side of the last photo, along the cloud line, you can see Mt. Shasta about 100 miles away.  We probably lingered up there for about an hour, eating lunch and just taking in the views.  I ended up taking about two other group's photos and one of those groups we employed one of their party to take our shot at the summit.

Elevation gain? - 2000+ feet
Miles of hiking? - 5 miles round trip
Checking off something on your Bucket List? - Priceless

There's my five photos for the Anything Goes theme for the month of June.  Check out P.J.'s page to see his interpretation of the theme and then scroll down to the bottom to see the link for others who have participated in this month's challenge.

PB Challenge (April 2015): Friends and Family

When I saw the prompt for this month's Photo Blogging challenge, I thought it might be difficult, but then I remembered that Easter was right at the beginning of the month and I knew we'd be with family, plus I also hosted a geocaching event at the beginning of the month, so then it actually became even tougher as I ended up with quite an assortment of photos for the theme.

That being stated, I decided to go a little bit different route with this month's theme.  And so without further ado, I give you my five photos for the theme Friends and Family.

1.  Handprints in cement

I think these handprints are from when I was about eight or nine years old.  Mine is the one on the right.  Sometime during that period, my dad poured some concrete at our house in Santa Ana, CA where we grew up and had all three of us put our hands in the wet cement.  When they finally moved out of that house about 15 years ago or so, my dad pried up that piece of cement and brought it with them to their new house where it now sits on an island in the front yard.  It's definitely a reminder of when we were a lot younger and smaller and it's fun to look at.  You can see I really relished squishing my hands into the cement, whereas my sisters were much more dainty in their approach to the gooey stuff.  Boys will be boys I guess.

2.  The Calendar

I'd say close to 20 years ago, my two sisters and I decided to start a family tradition by giving my parents a photo calendar.  The past 6 years or so, I've coordinated the effort, collected the photos from various people and put the entire thing together on my computer.  It's worked out rather well and my parents cherish this gift each year and it proudly hangs on their refrigerator in the kitchen.  The first year, my dad wanted to actually use it to write calendar reminders in it, but my mom put the kibosh on that very quickly.  They also don't throw them away and my mom says she goes out in the garage where they are stored and looks through them from time to time.  She gets to see her grandkids grow up every time she does that.

When we started this endeavor, it was a lot easier because there was only three sources that the photos came from since the kids were small and the adults, my sisters and me were the ones who took the photos.  Now, with four of the grandchildren on their own, we have to really on photos from seven different sources.  That just means we have to start the process earlier each year.  Before, I used to send the "all call" for photos sometime just before Thanksgiving and I'd have the photos soon afterwards and it would be a done deal.  This year, we were slightly late getting the calendar to my parents, but they did get it before New Year's Day, so it's all good.  April of this year was my niece's and her husband's month, so they're featured on that page.

3.  University of Notre Dame

Some of you might not be aware of this, but I was born in South Bend, Indiana, home of Notre Dame.  This all came about, because my grandfather taught at Notre Dame back in the early 1930s.  Because of this, my dad and two of his brothers also went to Notre Dame.  Some of my cousins went to Notre Dame and I also had a cousin who was a priest who taught at Notre Dame.  This cousin also married my parents and married my sister and her husband.  Notre Dame is a family affair with us and although I didn't attend there, mainly because it was out of my price range when it came my turn to attend college, I follow the college quite closely, especially for football.

Growing up in Southern California, that was sometimes very tough to do, mainly because many of my friends in junior high and high school were USC fans.  My best friend attended USC and during the 70s and early 80s, it was tough being a Notre Dame fan when they played each other because usually USC came out on top.  Yes, I was there in 1974 when Notre Dame was ahead 24-7 at halftime and I watched Anthony Davis run back the second half kick off directly toward the Notre Dame section at the closed end of the Colosseum in Los Angeles, which started an avalanche of points, eventually leading to a 55-24 loss to USC.  That was just ugly.

I was also there in 1988 with our entire family to watch #1 Notre Dame battle #2 USC.  Both teams were exceptionally good that year and my dad and I surmised that the winner of this game would become the national champion that year.  My dad took no chances that year as he was decked out in full Irish regalia, including his blue and gold Notre Dame tam-o-shanter.  That's when I finally realized that my dad was one of "those" people.  Those crazy alumni you always see.  I'd never seen him like that before, but he really wanted a win that day.  I don't believe he'd seen Notre Dame win in Los Angeles since 1966 when the Irish shellacked the Trojans 51-0 enroute to a national championship that year as well.  Anyway, to make a long story short, Notre Dame came out on top that year and our family went home very happy.  I haven't been back to see a Notre Dame/USC game in Los Angeles since that game.  I want that memory to last forever.  It was very satisfying.

4.  Father of the Bride

About a year and a half ago, I was up visiting my daughter.  I'm an early riser and my daughter isn't so I'd usually get up early, find some local geocaches and then hang out with her later in the day.  This particular day, my daughter's boyfriend asked me if he could tag along and go geocaching with me.  Sure, why not?  But I had a suspicion that he had ulterior motives, after all he'd been dating my daughter for four years at the time and we were pretty sure they were serious about settling down.

Eventually that day he asked for our blessing to marry my daughter.  I don't think my daughter could have picked a finer young man to spend the rest of her life and my wife and I were both thrilled that he was going to be joining the family.  As you can see, all of this will be coming to fruition in the middle of July up in the Bay Area. I will fully admit that I will probably be very emotional about this and will probably be the one crying as we walk down the aisle.  But I know if I start to cry, so will she and it will just be a mess, so I will restrain myself and think of happy things.  Maybe I'll even crack a joke as we walk down the aisle.  I think part of me is sad, after all, I loved her first, but most of me is very happy.  He makes her happy and I like that.  I'm looking forward to when I can call him my son-in-law.

5.  Geocaching friends

Most of these photos have been about family, so I knew this last one had to be about friends.  Another part of geocaching that I don't always talk about is the number of friendships that have developed for me over the years since I started this crazy game.  Outside of my wife, I can say most assuredly, that most of my best friends are fellow geocachers.

This is Craig who I've known for three years, possibly more.  I don't think I can pinpoint the exact time I met Craig, as it's more of a gradual thing as opposed to a specific day.  Either way, Craig is a very good friend of mine and although this isn't the best photo of him, the only other one I had was of his backside carrying a tire while we were cleaning up a trailhead last weekend during a Geocaching earth day weekend event.  I'm sure he's probably glad that I didn't post that one.

Craig is the friend that I helped last summer hike the John Muir Trail.  He needed a ride to get up to the starting point in Yosemite Valley and I readily jumped at that opportunity.  In fact, I credit Craig with helping me get into better shape.  When he decided to do this hike, I was invited to come along.  I knew I wasn't in any kind of physical shape to do that kind of hike, but over the past year, I've lost weight, gotten into biking more and am just more physically fit.  If he'd been doing this trek this year, I probably would have gone on the hike.  As it is, there was a time in the last couple of years when I thought my hiking and backpacking days were behind me, but I don't think that anymore and I thank Craig for being that inspiration.  This year, he and I have another road trip planned for June just because we like to geocache and it's fun to go out on the road and explore new territory.  

And that about does it for this month's photo blogging challenge. I hope you have enjoyed this month's selection.  It's not my usual type of shots, but I wanted to do something a little bit different this time around.  To see other people's interpretation of this month's theme, stop by P.J.'s blog and click on the links at the bottom of that page.

Photo Blogging Challenge (March 2015): Two

Once again, P.J. has posted his blogging challenge.  This month, the theme was two, in honor of this challenge going on for two years.  Last year, I thought I did fairly well when the theme was one.  This year, I felt like I scrambled, which is usually the case, but here, once again, I'm posting March's theme on the first day of April, apparently a day late and a dollar short.  For whatever reason, I kept thinking that I still had another day, but that wasn't the case as March has already disappeared and it is indeed April.  So, without further ado, I give you the month of March's Twos.

1.  Two antennae
Although, you'll have to look closely at this one to see the second one.  Look at the nose of the butterfly and you'll see what looks like a yellow bulb, the second antenna slightly out of focus.  I love taking photos of butterflies and have been known to stalk them for hours trying to get a decent shot of any that come in range.  Several years ago, I learned the main differences between moths and butterflies.  Most people will say butterflies are colorful and moths aren't, but that's not necessarily the case.  The big differences are two-fold.  One, butterflies are out during the day while moths are out at night.  Second deals with their antennae.  A butterfly's antenna is smooth with a round bulb at the end, while a moth's antenna tends to look feathery.

2.   Two butterflies
Oh boy, here we go with an entire series of butterfly shots.  No, but I like this photo for a variety of reasons.  First off, it was taken with my iPhone.  While not the greatest photo in the work, I've been fairly impressed with the lens on this phone and I understand the lens on the iPhone6 is even better.  The second reason I like this shot is this is a new butterfly species for me.  These are Pacific Orange Tips.  I would suspect the one in the upper left hand corner is probably a male since it was pestering the other one to no end.  Either that, or it was defending its territory for some reason.  I took this shot, while geocaching, up in the newly created San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.

The national monument is still being administered by the U.S. Forest Service, and thus, geocaching is still allowed in the monument.  I can imagine sometime in the future, if the National Park Service (NPS) takes over administration of this park, the geocaches will have to be removed.  I understand why the NPS takes the stand that it does, since it views geocaches as litter, but they also seem to be more open to geocaching, which I think is a good thing.  Time will tell on this one.  And ironically, I was out hiking a couple of weeks later in the Simi Valley area and spotted another Orange Tip there.  I guess, once, you see one, they decide they don't have to hide from you any more.

3.  Two peaks

I'm in the middle of my second week of Spring Break.  At the beginning of the first week, I went camping with my friend in Death Valley National Park, where this shot was taken.  We were actually geocaching all three days.  "But wait a minute," you say.  "I thought geocaching wasn't allowed in national parks?"  This is true, but there are certain types of caches, virtual caches and earth caches that are allowed, because they don't have any physical container, to litter up the landscape.  Virtual caches take you to a place and you have to answer a couple of questions about the particular place.  Earth caches are geology based virtual caches where you also have to answer some questions based upon the geology found in that spot.  It's a more specialized type of virtual in a way.

These two peaks, of which I have no names for them, are in the Greenwater range in the southern part of Death Valley.  The wildflowers were pretty much spent down at the lower elevations, but here at around 2500 feet or so above sea level, there was still a profusion of blooms.  Desert mallow, mesquite and five spot mallow were all to be seen in abundance at this site and others as we traveled into the park.  Once we got further down in elevation, we stopped see a whole lot of any kind of vegetation, as the park is pretty stark.  

4.  Two states
Part of the allure of geocaching has always been that it takes me places I might not go just because.  Just over that rise is Pahrump, Nevada and just down to the right off the edge of the photo there is a geocache that hidden out there.  That particular cache was the first cache I've ever found in Nye County, Nevada.  It might not mean much to you, but I think it's kind of cool when I find caches in new places I've never been before.  I can guarantee you that unless I had family living in Pahrump, I would have never visited there.

I've found geocaches in 8 different states.  I've found a geocache in every county in California.  Am I nuts?  Probably.  But, the silly game keeps me out of trouble for the most part and I've made some very good friends who have a like-minded interest in being outdoors and using billion dollar satellites to find pieces of Tupperware hiding in the wilderness.

5.  Two different systems

I can remember way back in the 70s when there was a push for the United States to go metric.  Everything started getting printed in both feet and meters or miles and kilometers.  That's where we went wrong.  If we are ever going to convert to the metric system, which by the way, is one of the most logical systems there is, then we have to jump in with both feet and don't turn back.  And the government is going to have to lead the way.

All the government would have to do is to stop posting signs in two different systems.  Why do we need to know that Badwater is 282 feet below sea level?  Isn't it enough that we know that it's the lowest point in the western hemisphere?  If the sign just read 85.5 meters below sea level, people would get the point.  Eventually, the "Old Schoolers," the ones who complain about anything and everything would eventually die out and everyone who has ever lived wouldn't know any better and we'd all just use the metric system.  Do you need to know the temperature in Fahrenheit?  No, not really.  Celsius is actually pretty easy to use.  If it's in the 10s, it's cold.  If it's in the 20s, it's pretty mild, while the 30s is getting pretty warm.  40s?  Yeah, that's where Death Valley is in the summertime, most of the time.  Death Valley is also a big draw in the summertime, especially for Europeans.  Why?  It's one of the few places that can hit 50 degrees.  That would be 122 for us non metric people.

So there you have it.  Another month of photos dedicated to the number 2.  Please stop by P.J.'s page here to view other's interpretations of the theme Two.

Photo Blogging Challenge (February 2015): Winter

So after blogging 23 times in January, I've fallen into my same old habit again, as this is only my fourth post of the month.  And the first three were written in the first two weeks of the month.  So much for good intentions.

P.J.'s Photo blogging challenge for this month was winter.  Quite a few people have participated this month as I note 11 other links, plus P.J.'s own contribution to the challenge.  I guess I'll be lucky number 13.

As always, winter in Southern California means something different than the rest of the country.  Snow, maybe at higher elevations, but nothing here.  We got a couple of days of rain in February, the latest being yesterday.  It's been cold all day today, but nothing like people back east have been having.  50 degrees here would probably be a nice spring day back east.

With the nice weather, I don't have a bunch of "wintery" shots to show you.  I went on a couple of nice hikes this month while out geocaching.  Found some interesting abandoned buildings while out on the hike and so I thought I'd show you those.

Usually, when I write this particular blog piece, I write about individual photos, but this time, I may just keep a string of consciousness going on this one as most of the shots are very similar.   The first two shots were taken while I went on a hike out in the desert north of where I live.  These are included in here, mainly because both of them were accepted into the Project Weather Flickr page.  Project Weather is linked up with the Yahoo Weather App.  The photos that are accepted into Project Weather are then featured on the Yahoo Weather App.  The first one is linked to Wilsona, CA, which means the next time it's cloudy in Wilsona, my shot could shoe up in someone's feed who happens to be looking at the weather in Wilsona.  I currently have 29 of my shots in Project Weather.  I see mine occasionally show up when I look at the weather for my local area since most of the shots were taken around here.  I do have some that show up in other areas, particularly Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon National Parks.  The nice thing is if someone sees the shot, they can click on a small link at the bottom of the shot and the app will take the user back to my Flickr page.  A little exposure never hurt anyone I guess.

Last weekend, the weather was cool, but there wasn't a threat of rain, so I went out geocaching again.  I picked an area that looked fairly isolated, someplace that I hadn't been to before.  What that usually means is there quite a few caches I haven't found.  At one point, while searching out sites on Google maps, I spotted this area that was a paved road that turned into a dirt road.  I could have driven to every one of these caches along this road, but chose to walk to them.  Just seemed like it would be a waste of gas and a waste of a fairly nice cool day to spend the entire time in the car.  I've been doing that a lot the last couple of months.  I don't get as many caches, but I've been really enjoying the times out that I have been caching and that's what it's really all about in my opinion.

I found the sign intriguing and pretty typical of rural signs in California, perhaps elsewhere as well.  They all seem to end up as targets by gun enthusiasts.  Not sure why that has to happen, but it just seems like it happens more frequently than not.  The cache, which was found at the base of that broken structure in the lower left hand corner of the photo was one of the ones that needed help as it was broken.  I did not have an extra container with me, otherwise I might have exchanged it out.  I did the best I could to keep it dry from the rain, but hopefully, the cache owner will remedy the situation so the cache continues to be viable.

While hiking along that same road, I came upon some sunflowers in full bloom.  Although it's technically winter out here, earlier in the month we were getting temperatures in the 80s.  The flowers in the desert and other rural areas started blooming all over the place.  This particular bloom had been picked by someone several days before I happened along the same area.  It was pretty much withered up at this point, but I thought it made for an interesting photo.  I've done that a couple of times, trying to make dead things look interesting.  I think I succeeded with this one.

Finally, the last shot of my winter theme goes back to the first weekend in the month when I took the top two shots.  I was about halfway done with my hike when I came upon this abandoned building and so I stopped to take some shots as it was a natural stopping point.

I ended up posting a full black and white version of this shot for the Sharpshooters International Photography Club weekly photo album on Facebook this past week.  Someone said it probably would look even better with some selective coloring of the American Flag that was attached to the side of the building, so I decided to try it that way too.  Interestingly, the flag was almost brand new, so someone had just attached it recently to the corner of the building.  After looking at the two images, I think I like this one even better than the original.

And so there you have it, five photos depicting winter.  Probably not the winter you have, but it's my winter and what I experienced this month.  Please stop my P.J.'s page and view his shots and interpretation of winter from the state of New York.  At the bottom is a link to other blogger's post on the same challenge.  Thanks for stopping by.

Hey Butthead

Today's prompt for blogging today was: "Take a quote from your favorite movie — there’s the title of your post. Now, write!" After looking at some of the photos I took on Saturday, this particular quote from the movie Back to the Future, stood out above all the others in that movie.

Unfortunately, the desert has become for many people a dumping ground, a place to throw their unwanted crap so they can avoid paying a fee to legally dump it in a landfill.  There are few times when I'm hiking and geocaching out in the desert when I can walk more than a tenth of a mile and not see some kind of refuse strewn out there.  

Granted, there was nothing that could be done for this one as this was a permanent structure, but if you could have seen the inside.  This particular house will not surprise me in the least if sometime in the future it becomes part of an arsonist's ritual.  Looking through this window, there was probably close to a foot of debris inside.  I went around to the right of this shot and looked in another window and there was even more stuff in there, perfect kindling.

And if it were to happen, the house would go up and not much else.  But on my hike Saturday, I also passed several other abandoned houses, plus a jacuzzi.  Broken, with the insulation hanging out, someone didn't want it anymore, so instead of taking it to a landfill where it could have been disposed of properly, the owner decided to take it out and dump it in the desert.

And it goes on and on.  I saw at least four chairs, two mattresses and one couch out there as well.  It's interesting in a morbid sort of way too as things tend to clump together, as if they migrate to like minded junk.  The chairs were all in one spot, the television and computer monitors were in a different spot out there.  Oh, and let's not forget the entire load of about 25 or 30 used diapers I came upon.

And unfortunately, the title character of this blog piece just won't get it.

And there was one - Day 20 of the Chill

And then there was one, the final entry of the 20 days of Chill Writing Challenge.  This is post #22 for the entire month of January, only three behind all of 2014.  I guess it's safe to say I'm going to have more blog posts this year than last year.  But perhaps a bigger question is, what can I do in the future to keep this going?

One thing I've learned about this is it's not that difficult to write about something on an almost daily basis.  This challenge was set up for success, which most challenges should be, otherwise who would do them?  I believe that I've had fairly good success with this particular challenge because I took some advice and wrote each post the night before.

I think this worked out well, because it really took the pressure off of me to write something.  As opposed to coming home and have nothing prepared, I already knew that my post for the day had already posted in the morning when I woke up.  Now, all I had to worry about was the next day's post and psychologically, I knew I had that night, or if worse came to worse, then I could always write something up on the day it was due.  And it just worked.

The only other thing that I can think of as to why it worked, is because Old Guys Rule.  

Thanks for everyone who came along for this ride.  I hope you've been entertained and I hope I didn't bore you too much with too many geocaching stories.  Thanks to P.J. for putting this entire challenge together.  Here's hoping that some of this will keep me more active as I move about the blogosphere.  Now that you're at the end of this, then there was none.

Ten years ago, I was probably..... - Day 16 of the Chill

Today's prompt is Ten years ago, I was probably.... 

And the answer is obviously, Geocaching!  I've actually been geocaching for almost 14 years, but my interest in it really took off about ten years ago.

A lot of people always wonder why I go out and geocache.  One of my sons just calls it "the weird thing Dad does."  He has geocached with me in the past and will tolerate his old man finding a cache or two when we're out and about, but it's not really his thing, and that's OK.  It's not for everyone.

I first learned about geocaching from a Where's George? chat room.  Where's George? is something else I could say I've been doing for the last 10 years or more, but that's an entirely different story which I'll probably save for another time.  Anyway, a friend of mine was talking about finding this hidden treasure on a hike he'd been on in Maryland and I asked him about it.  He said it was Geocaching.  

He led me to the site and I checked it out.  At the time, the closest geocache to my house was 7 miles away and a half mile hike.  I told my wife I'd discovered something cool and I knew what I wanted to spend my birthday money on.  Two days later, I purchased my first GPS unit and two or three days after that, I took my two sons with me and we drove over to the Claremont Wilderness Park, and hiked the half mile in on the trail there and found the geocache.

To be honest, as we were hiking up the trail, I kept thinking to myself, that this just couldn't be real.  It has to be a joke.  Who's going to hide something out in the wilderness and then who else is going to be crazy enough to go out and find that thing that has been hidden out in the wilderness?  I fully expected to see Allen Funt from Candid Camera come out of the bushes and say I'd been hoodwinked and that this was all a Candid Camera stunt.

But no, it was for real.  We found a large plastic bucket full of all sorts of things in it.  I know one of the things we brought home was a happy meals whistle that my youngest really wanted to have.  Let's just say we made that an outdoor toy and it kind of conveniently disappeared after a week or so.

But once we'd gotten back home, I was hooked.  I love the outdoors aspect of geocaching.  Back then, the caches were few and far between and you drove to a trailhead and hiked two, three, possibly five miles to find one cache.  I discovered all sorts of new trails in the foothills just north of where we lived.  Before that day, I'd never even knew the Claremont Wilderness Park even existed and there were all these trails to explore and caches to find.

Every so often, not nearly as often as today, I'd gather up the boy, or the boys and just go by myself and hike a trail to find a cache.  I'd get some good exercise along the way.  It has probably kept me a little bit thinner than I might be if I'd never learned about geocaching.

The hobby has changed over time.  Where there used to be one cache on a trail, now there might be half a dozen or more.  That first hike, we found one.  In fact, had we hiked the entire loop of that trail, we'd only have found that one cache.  Now that loop has 12 caches hidden on it, four of them by me.

No one really thought about hiding caches in urban areas.  Now that's mostly what you see is a lot of urban caching.  Not as much exercise involved there, but you can still get quite the workout if you pick and choose where you go.  It's something that you can do where ever you go.  I found that it was another nice diversion whenever we were camping.  Instead of just a hike, now it was a hike with a purpose.

I have over 160 photos in my Flickr album dedicated to photos taken while geocaching.  And yes, every one of these on this page was taken while geocaching.  The first photo is a shot I took in Waterman Canyon which leads up to my in-law's house in Lake Arrowhead, California.  I'm standing on a slight rise above the road, with the geocache directly behind me.

There's a geocache out on that island with the lighthouse in Crescent City, California.  The trick is you have to wait for the tide to go out so it's only available during certain periods of the day.  We got very lucky with that one as we had been hiking in the Redwoods and got back into Crescent City and discovered the tide was out, so we walked out over the rocks to get to the island.  Most of the time, you can't do that.

We spotted the snake at a rest area along Interstate 80 in Montana.  We'd been visiting my Dad up at my parent's summer house on Lake Couer d' Alene and decided to find some caches in the panhandle of Idaho.  Not one to miss out on a chance, since we were so close, we decided we might as well find at least one over the border in Montana.  We drove into Montana, pulled off at the first exit which was the rest area and found the cache and the snake.  Since we had to go down to the next exit to turn around on the freeway, we found the cache hidden at the next exit and for good measure we also found the cache hidden on the westbound rest area on the other side of the freeway.

The last shot was taken in July when I walked across the Golden Gate Bridge to find the geocache on the northern side of the bridge.  As you can see, geocaching has taken me to a lot of place, many of which, I don't think I would have visited were it not for geocaching.  I've actually found caches in every county in California (for those of you keeping count, there's 58 counties).  It has allowed me to explore various parts of the state I might have missed and it has also allowed me to explore my own back yard, those trails in the foothills.  Unless something drastic happens, I can see myself 10 years from now still writing about geocaching.