Hodgepodge 60/365 - Geocaching

I've written about geocaching many times: it's one of my favorite pastimes. Today we had a great day outside with a caching friend, "Mimring" (a.k.a. Alastair), hiking up hill and down dale, sniffing out forty-one caches—my biggest day ever. (My last "big day" was all of twenty-six finds, with a group at an event. The group included Alastair. He's a good motivator.)

Today's expedition was in Henry Coe State Park, about an hour's drive from home. (It was 32 degrees in the parking lot when we arrived. Plates of ice on the puddles in the dirt. Just saying.) We walked almost nine "horizontal" miles, but considering we were, as I said, going up a lot (as one wag commented in one of the cache logs, Henry Coe is 85 percent uphill and 15 percent down), I expect our horizontal-plus-vertical mileage was closer to twelve. My Fitbit tells me I walked 29,453 steps today, or, yes, 12.46 miles. I believe it.

So anyway, yes: geocaching can be excellent for getting one out and moving. Today was a splendid day, and we thoroughly enjoyed the camaraderie, the views, and all those finds—with only three DNFs ("did not find"s).

Here are some pictures I took. They are SOOC (straight out of the iPhone camera), but I'm too bushed to fuss with them. They'll have to do. (Click on the first photo to see them full screen.)

It was an excellent day!

Not much of a photo, but the glint in the middle is
Monterey Bay: it was amazing to see it so clearly
from so many miles away.

A frog pond: they serenaded us.

David and Alastair heading for that tree there (one of our three DNFs).

That tree (a black or blue oak) from a different perspective.