San Francisco (Day 10) - 20 Days of Chill

As I stood there on the roof of the Franklin Institute, my mind wandered back to those trees in California and then it went to one of my favorite cities in the entire country, San Francisco.

I remembered the trip I'd taken there in July of the previous year.  Someone had told me that I needed to go there, just to enjoy the weather.  The weather?  In San Francisco?  It's cold and blustery there all the time.  What's to enjoy?  "Just go," the voice said. So I went.

Something compelled me to go to the Golden Gate Bridge.  

"Walk across it."

So I found a place to park on the southern side and walked with all of the tourists all the way across the bridge.  Now, the fear of heights has always been strong in me, but for some reason, I wasn't worried, even as I felt the bridge sway in the strong breeze.

I walked to the north side, took many photos, and then explored a couple of areas over there.  People were taking selfies with the bridge in the background.  People were getting in each other's ways.  I was trying to get the best spot possible for that shot of a lifetime.  The fog was starting to roll in and I wanted to get the clouds as they passed over the bridge.

I waited patiently, probably irritating many of the people around me who wanted my spot for their own photo.  I wasn't budging.  There, I got it.  I started to pack up my equipment, when I felt someone bump into me.

As always, my immediate response is to check for my wallet.  Nope, it was still there.  But, as I felt my wallet in my back pocket, I also felt the round end of something hard pressing into my right kidney.

"Listen.  If you want to see Herman alive again, you're going to take this ticket to the airport and get on the plane.  DON'T LOOK AROUND!  Just take the ticket and get back over to your car and drive to the airport."

Whoever it was pressed something into my hand.  Then, he was gone as quickly as he'd snuck up behind me.  I didn't even have a chance to turn around and get a good glimpse of him because of the crowds.  So I looked into my hand and there was the airline ticket...IN MY NAME!  Who was this guy, and how did he know Herman?  I guess I'd have to get on that plane and find out.

But wait, I don't have my passport with me.  This is an overseas flight.  I started to panic, but I knew that I needed to get on that plane.  So I packed up the rest of my equipment and started that long walk back across the bridge.  When I got back to the other side, I hiked down to my car, opened the trunk of the car and got another surprise.  There, in the trunk, was my suitcase, packed and ready to go.  Curious.  I reached into the front zippered pocket, knowing full well what I'd find there.  If whoever was behind this, had been able to break into my house and break into my car, I knew I'd find my passport where I always kept it. 

I reached in and felt around smiling slowly.  This guy was good.

Looks like I was going to Zurich.

To be continued.......

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Miracles do happen

In 2002, which was early in my geocaching, I got into travel bugs big time.  One of the travel bugs I created was the Cucamonga Railroad Cacher - The Travel Bug Limited.  It was a caboose from my collection of HO scale model trains that I have stored in my garage.  I attached a travel bug tag to it and let it go, hoping that it would meet its goal of traveling on scenic railroads around the country.

Back then, most caches were fairly good sized and would accommodate this size of bug.  But as the hobby has evolved, the caches have gotten smaller and so it's more difficult to put this traveler in a geocache.  There were periods of inactivity, due to the cacher having it for a period of time until they found a large enough cache in which to place it.

But the caboose did travel throughout California.  It got to ride on the Napa Wine train and the Skunk train in Northern California.  Eventually, however, the travel bug disappeared.  For the most part, I'm resigned to that happening anyway.  Once you release something from your possession, you're at the whims of whoever next picks it up.  If it's someone new, they might keep it, or not know how to log it, or the person just might be spiteful and decide to throw it away.  There are a variety of reasons why the travel bug disappears, including the cache gets washed away in a flood.  Yeah, that's happened to a cache that one of my travel bugs was in.

So, in July 2005, the travel bug was listed as missing.  Someone actually took it in April 2005, but never logged it out of the cache it was in and when the cache was archived, the travel bug got listed as missing and I'd lost another one.  Or so I thought.

This afternoon, I received an email from geocaching.com telling me that my travel bug had been found by a cacher named cdbass who found it along an abandoned railroad in Ithaca, New York.  As you can see from the small photo cdbass posted, it's the original caboose that I let loose almost 13 years ago.  Oh, the stories this little caboose could tell.  Where has it been all this time?  Who took it and when and how did it get to New York?

As far as I'm concerned, it's just cool that it's resurfaced after almost 10 years of being missing.  Let's hope it gets to travel long and far in the future and eventually return safely back to California.