No scary cache containers this time, but a lot more contact with Border Patrol. Those guys seemed to be waiting for me at or near each cache site. Sometimes, two or three at a time. It was kind of sweet, actually – that they would devote that much energy to insuring that I could cache safely.

Anyway, on to the pics.

For those of you who’ve never seen The Fence before, here it is (click for bigger).

That’s Mexico there , on the other side.

And while I did say there were no scary cache containers, this hide made me a little nervous.

The cache is in that bag. That bag is behind a bunch of poison oak.

I think I was successful in retrieving it without touching the poison oak. If not, be looking for another post in a few days.

Only a couple of dozen more caches to go in the ETNAC Series. Stay tuned.

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Today, we found the remaining caches in the series.

We visited the desert planet, Tatooine,

Endor, the forest home of the Ewoks,

and, finally, the cloud city of Bespin.

All that remains now is to use the clues we found in each cache to figure out the coordinates of the final cache in the series.

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When we arrived at Señora Blanca’s casita, we were greeted by an arresting contrast between the work of Man and the work of Nature.

All that’s left are some cerebral calisthenics, and we’ll have the coordinates for the final cache in the series.

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From the cache descriptions:
“Why is it every time we pass a nice cache hiding spot we say “That spot needs a cache?” So today we decided to hide our own ET series and hide a cache at every safe turnout along SR-94 and Old Highway 80 from Jamul to Jacumba.”

There are around 120 caches in the series, and I wanted to see how many I could get. I also took a few pictures along the way.

As a warning, there are a few pictures that some of you might find…disturbing. I’ll put those pictures at the end of this post, and I’ll warn you again before we get there.

One of the caches was called “ETNAC – Bell-ieve It”. As I was searching through the brush, I heard a tinkling noise and followed the sound to this:

I think more caches should have a bell attached.

Along the route, I came across this sign:

Other than the sandwich shops, I wasn’t aware that we had subways anywhere in San Diego county, let alone near Jacumba. Turns out, the sign is a warning for tall vehicles.

The "Subway"

See where it says, Vertical Clearance 14′-3″? It’s hard to see in this picture, but right below that is the original (now obliterated) warning that says, Vertical Clearance 14′-5″. Makes me wonder if the change was inspired by a 14′-4″ tall vehicle.

I’d never heard of the San Diego Short Line, but I found some information about it here.

Speaking of bridges, one of the caches was hidden under a pretty cool walking bridge.

It was a pretty warm day. In fact, at around ten o’clock, I had to put the top up to keep from melting in the sun.

Eugene and I took advantage of the shade whenever we could.

Jahoadi and John used some unusual cache containers in this series. And, as promised, here’s your warning. There are seven images coming up. The last two (or three) are the ones that some of you might not appreciate. You have been warned.

Searching for one of the caches under a huge oak tree, I came upon this.

I figured these fake leaves had come loose from the cache container, which was probably hanging in the tree nearby. Sure enough, I found it and reassembled things as best I could.

Some of the containers were just silly. This one was called ETNAC – Like a Hole in the Head:

I don’t remember the name of this cache, but the container was sure cute.

I’m sure some cachers were startled by this next one. Not me, though.

This one, on the other hand, made me jump and set my heart to racing.

It was in an oak tree up a rise, and as I made the climb, all of a sudden I was eye-to-eye with this little feller.

Actually, not that little.

Stats for the day? Nine hours, about 100 miles round trip, and 71 finds. A good day.

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So I set up a little mini-orienteering course, based on the one they had at the last Roughneck Rendezvous. We had teams of two or three with a competition to see which team could finish first.

Then we set off on a three-mile hike, with a couple of cache hunts thrown in for spice.

The first was the Ponto Beach cache, which was located right in front of a lifeguard tower. As we approached (all 18 of us) and started looking, the lifeguard came out and asked if we were geocaching. One of the girls said that we were, and asked if he knew where the cache was. He said that he didn’t, so we were on our own.

Not to worry, though, as it wasn’t long before one of the girls asked, “Is this it?” And, indeed, it was.

(click to enlarge image)

Before we left, we got the lifeguard to come out and join us. Those of you who enjoy finding mistakes in movies and TV shows might want to look carefully at this image.

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We found another cache after this one, and I wish I had a picture to share. The sight of twelve girls looking for a micro cache in a 8′ x 10′ laundry room is one that I will never forget.

Near our campsite, a previous group had left the fruits of their labors for us to enjoy.

The work of a higher power was evident as well.

The girls (and adults) seemed to really enjoy the experience, and we may have inducted a few new members into the geocaching community.

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A few months ago, I started doing some research. I was nearing find #2000, and I wanted to mark the milestone with an appropriately worthy cache. After considering and discarding a *lot* of caches, I settled upon this one – and I’m quite glad that I did.

I picked up RCSpeaker and his nephew, and we made the hour-long trek north to begin our search at 8:30 pm. Ninety minutes later, we had our hands on the cache.

Words can’t do justice to this cache; suffice it to say that it’s put together like a Swiss watch.

Geodynamic, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. It was worth every gallon of gas and every drop of sweat.

We arrived at the parking coordinates and walked a few hundred feet to the starting point of our hunt.

This cache can only be found at night, as the path is marked by reflectors placed in bushes or trees along the trail. Finding the cache requires following the markers (for 2.4 miles, as it turns out) until you reach the cache. When we arrived at the posted coordinates, we saw that there were multiple paths we could take. So we shined our lights around until, about 50 feet away, we saw two brightly glowing dots that seemed to hover in the air. We followed that trail until we reached the markers.

That’s Rick and his nephew Seth. To the left of Rick’s head, and again to his upper right, you can see the reflections of the trail markers. That’s what we were looking for as we traversed Preserve Calavera – and there were plenty to find. At every spot where two trails met, there were markers to show us the way. Sometimes we had to go a few feet up the trail to spot them, but they were there. It’s a testimony to the work done by the cache owner that not once, with the scores of choices we had to make, did we have to backtrack because we’d been allowed to choose the wrong trail.

(I’ll take this opportunity to apologize for the poor quality of the images in this post. Small digital cameras and low-light situations do not make for prize-worthy photography. To those readers who have become accustomed to the high-quality images I strive to provide on the site, please forgive me. For those of you who think that most of my pictures look like grandma’s bad Polaroids, you should see the ones I don’t post. By the way, licensing issues aside, I think Bad Polaroid would be an awesome band name. If you use it, please give me credit in your liner notes – or whatever today’s digital equivalent may be.)

But I digress.

One thing I had neglected to do was check out the topography of the area, so I was a little surprised at how steep some of the trail sections were. I was glad I’d thought to bring my hiking staff. It helped a lot with all the upping and downing.

Speaking of remembering, when we pulled into the parking area and were making our preparations to hit the trail, I asked my compatriots if they’d thought to bring water. They hadn’t, but I had a couple of extra bottles to share.

About a thousand feet up the trail, I realized I’d left my water bottle in the Jeep. Arg.

The only sounds were the crickets and the bullfrogs, the shuffling of feet, and the occasional witty remark by a member of our party – oh, and the intermittent huffing and puffing noises. See the above “steep trail” reference.

We crossed streams using rocks and rickety bridges, we scrambled over rocks and roots. Then, finally, we saw a set of markers that were placed a little differently than the others.

Instead of leading us up yet another trail, it led us to a group of boulders about 20 feet off the trail. This had to be it!

Indeed it was. After a few minutes of searching, we had found the cache.

We spent a few minutes basking in the glow of accomplishment, then were left only with the task of finding our way back to the Jeep, which, as it turned out, was no more than a quarter mile away.

I had planned for that, though, by printing an aerial photo of the preserve that included the locations of the nearby caches. We determined our approximate location by noting the direction and distance to nearby caches. We found the nearest cache that was on the trail that would lead us back to our starting point. Then we navigated to that cache (and found it, thank you very much). From that point, it was a cheerful jaunt back to the Jeep, and a pleasant drive home.

I did have to get one more picture, though. How could I have a blog post this momentous without at least one picture of my constant companion Eugene?

Now. Where shall we go for #3000?

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After placing the Munzee at the entrance to one of our local hiking/biking/horseback riding trails, I went for a walk and came upon this.

That pile of rocks is about as tall as I am. I can’t imagine how long it took, especially considering the amount of time it took to find and transport the rocks.

Rather poignant.

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“Let me explain. No there is too much. Let me sum up.” (And a QDman Bonus Point to the first to identify that quote)

You go to this website and register:

http://www.munzee.com/

You search the map for a “Munzee” near you.

You go to where the Munzee is.

You look for one of these (that’s a Munzee):

You scan it with your Android/iPhone.

It automagically logs your find on the Munzee website.

It’s still in its infancy, as the first Munzee was only placed about 3 weeks ago. In fact, there are only 7 in all of San Diego county. But there will be 10 tomorrow.

The first one I found was on this lovely flower.

The interesting thing about Munzees is that, since there’s no log book, there’s no need for a container. You can print it out, laminate it, and hang it from a pole, or stick it in a window, or tape it to the bottom of a brick.

Since there are so few, don’t expect to see many Munzees here – especially after I clear out the meager crop that currently exists nearby. But if this thing takes off, who knows?

Here’s an article that came out a couple of weeks ago:

‘M’ Marks the Spot

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Yesterday, I got a similar call. And sure enough, there was a cache within walking distance.

Since we all know that correlation doesn’t equal causation, I won’t go as far as saying that geocaches cause flat tires, but make sure your spare is ready for action – cause there’s a lot of caches out there.

I grabbed a pic of the tire in question.

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