Another Day of Geocaching

The following will likely not be of interest to anyone but myself, but I wanted to save a record of a delightful day. 

Some travelbugs I hoped to drop,
as well as a couple of replacement
containers "just in case"

Yesterday, David (aka FifiBonacci) and I (annevoi) went out with our geocaching friend Alastair (Mimring) for a day of adventure. It started out straightforwardly: we had our sights set on a 6.2-mile hiking loop in Santa Clara County, at the recently opened Bear Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve—the reason being a new challenge posted by one Ullii (Julie): the 100-Mile Hike. This challenge involves finding ten caches, on ten hikes, and ultimately putting together keywords to find the "prize" final. (Yeah, yeah, yeah: geocachers are silly.) We chose this loop because it's the shortest—Mimring claiming he's out of shape (so are we all, what with Covid-19, sadly)—and because of its subtitle: "The Albino Redwood." Mimring "collects" albino redwoods; this was his eleventh.

It is, granted, difficult to discern
the albino redwood; it's just
above the middle of the shot

And yes, we did find the albino redwood! It was high in the air, growing out of an impressively gnarly branch. We also found the cache, launching us on the 100-Mile Hike. And we found sixteen other caches on our loop. We were suitably chuffed.

But then it was only noon, and we had no plan. I pointed out a couple of puzzle caches I'd solved by a certain (now deceased) cacher, 50sumtin, over near the UC Santa Cruz campus. The three of us are trying to find all of 50sumtin's caches—which amounts to 157, though many of those have been archived (fortunately!). We decided to go for those, and any nearby caches.

Okay! Off we set! But when we neared Highway 17, which would take us back over the Santa Cruz Mountains to the UC campus, it was crawling. I was driving, and I don't like sitting in traffic. So instead I set off along a twisty road that (I hoped!) paralleled the highway. And of course there were geocaches along the way, as Fifi and Mimring started announcing as they scanned the map (though too often, the announcement came when we were already past the spot. "Give me a little advance warning!" I grumbled).

At one twist of the road, David, reading the map, uttered the words "Holy City" just as, on the left, I spotted a long, low, empty building and, on the right, a sign: "Holy City Road." "Hey!" I yelled. "There's a cache here!" "No there isn't," two voices in unison assured me. "Yes there is!" I pulled over, and explained.

I had studied the puzzle cache "Green, Green Wall" a couple of weeks before, but was unable to determine the exact coordinates and so forgot about it. While considering the problem, though, I had summoned up Google Street View and seen the building mentioned in the cache description. It was that building: the long, low, empty one we had just passed. (Fifi and Mimring didn't see the cache on the map because a puzzle cache uses false coordinates. The symbol for this one is on the other side of the highway.)

If you know what you're looking for
(kind of like with the albino redwood)
you can make out just a bit of one
of those green, green bricks—really!

To make a long story short, there was much wandering around. We found dilapidated walls. We found a telephone pole to which a strange set-up involving compressed nitrogen was attached. We found an apparent contemplative sanctuary featuring the Virgin Mary on a bench (and more walls, these in good shape). We finally went to the building in question, took a bearing, and started pacing off—as instructed to do in the cache description. Eventually we actually saw some green, green bricks (per cache title and the photo above)—but they are now very much covered by berry vines ➶. While the boys tiptoed through the thorns, finding more and more green bricks, pointing over there—I followed their directives (and my geosense) and poked around "over there." And voilà! There it was!

This sort of adventure is what I love about geocaching. Chalk another one up for the excellent-memories album. As Mimring commented in his log for the cache, he learned a few things from this one, among them: serendipity is a good thing; and finding a cache collectively when each contributes a vital piece makes for a really fun adventure. Also, "I really do like geocaching."

Found a traveler! And its offspring!
(Actually, there was nothing but a
bloodshot eyeball in the egg. I left it.)

We finally made our way over to the UC, but there every single turnout along the road from which we might have accessed the two puzzle caches we had in mind was signed NO PARKING. Grrrrr. We were (reluctantly) heading slowly home when David commented that a cache was coming up, right on the road. So I pulled over and, minding the No Parking signs, sat in the car while they searched.

I watched as a couple of young women walked through the large dry-grassy field nearby, dressed in cycling clothes; two helmets, but only one bike. As one of the women climbed over the stile, she held her arm awkwardly, gingerly; her shorts were covered in dirt. An accident? They waited a short while, and then a large white pickup pulled up and took the injured cyclist off; the other one jumped on her bike and rode away.

Historical marker for the
"town" of Patchen,
named after a race horse

And then when Fifi and Mimring got back (empty-handed) and I turned the key: nothing. Or rather, a brief flash of every light on the dashboard. But no engine. Tried a few more times, until all I got was literally nothing.

Turns out, I'd left the key in the ignition, turned on. And I'd been told at my last service that the battery needed replacing. It didn't take much to drain it completely. 

So we called AAA. After an aggravating interaction with their automated system, and failure to locate ourselves on an uninteractable-with map, we got shunted to an actual person (yay), a pleasant young woman who took down all my info and then said, “A technician will be with you within 90 minutes.” Oh. Oy!

So the boys went back out to look for the darned cache some more while I sat in the car. Soon, the fit cyclist reappeared, in a car, the bike on a rack. We chatted. She said her friend was at urgent care, and she needed to go fetch her bike, which was a good distance away and had a flat tire—so no riding it. It would take her quite a while. Given that there's NO PARKING there, she was worried about getting ticketed, but saw no options. I wished her luck.

Just as she took off, I got a text message from Rossi’s Garage: help was on the way! And then I received the URL to a map, and I could actually watch help coming, in the form of a big yellow truck navigating the streets of Santa Cruz. Once it turned onto High Street, I knew he was close. I looked up, and there he was! I waved! He waved! It was like a miracle.

"Bear-ly Hidden," a local landmark
along a narrow little road

He jumped the car—offered to sell me a battery, but we figured the long drive to Monterey would be enough to charge it, so no, just a jump, thanks. He was very pleasant. His name was Kendrick. He wore a blue mask. He was yesterday’s superhero.

Before we drove off, we tucked a note under the cyclist's windshield wiper, explaining her predicament to anyone who might stop to investigate. I hope she didn't get a ticket. It was the last thing she needed.

All in all, it was a day of delights. Even including the flat battery, since it turned out just fine—and only took 20 minutes out of our day. Though the boys never did find that cache…

The day recharged me and my personal flat battery.

It's good to get out. And have adventures. With good friends.