Geocache #267

Heading for Geocache #9 of 12 for the day!

Yet anaother one in Healdsberg that I had looked for before with no luck.

Nice SWAG

'Books and all that Jazz (A TB Hotel)'  I had one more TB that I defianately wanted to drop today so we had to find this one as it was labeled as a TB hotel!! 

Like before, I was all over the parking lot and the parking lot of the real estate office next door.  Guess I was only focusing on one of the clues - in the corner pocket and not the other that said it was within 3 feet of the paved area and no need to trample through the foliage.

the UMP TB

Good thing that some of us actually follow clues, hints and directions.  AllieBee found it without leaving the pavement while I was trampling the foliage to get to another corner pocket!!   LOL

Peace TB

Picked up another TB called 'UMP' and placed one that started near home called 'Peace'. I was hoping to get the 'Peace' one a bit further away from home, but felt that I had held on to it for far too long! 

Found some nice SWAG and replaced cache before moving on.  The last time I was here there were a lot of muggles around and I felt kind of silly wondering around in the library parking lot.  Today I only saw one muggle leaving the library, so not as suspicious looking!

Geocache #266

Decided that we were not going to go all the way to Santa Rosa today and would just find a few more in Healdsberg and catch a few more on teh way back home that we missed.

cache attached with magnet

Just a couple blocks further down the the same walkway of unique art was our next stop called 'Pony up a micro'  Another cache that Candace and I were all over last summer.  I tried to tell AllieBee that we couldn't find these last two cause it was getting too dark and they were micros when Candace I were looking.  She wasn't buying it!! 

So with our hint we knew that is was a micro that had recently been replaced with a new slightly larger container and that it was on the street side of the piece of art!!  Hmmm. . . lots of little nooks and cranies to look into on this piece.

Whoolly Boolly!!  I found this one!!  But I am sure that I looked there last time while here with Candace and I am sure with this one light does make a difference.  A small altoid box attached with magnets to hold it in place up under the 'ponys' back.

I noticed that a previous logger had logged at Christmas time someone had put a wreath around the 'pony's' neck. This time AllieBee and I noticed that there was fresh hay put out for it.  What a nice touch and a cool looking piece of art out of metal and wood.

We signed the log and replaced and meandered on our way through the streets of Healdsberg looking for a another cache to find!!

Geocache #265 and lunch



Bear Republic Brewing Co.



Drove on towards Healdsberg.  Upon arriving there we decided that we would stop at a BrewPub that we had eaten at before and enjoyed before doing anymore caching.  The Bear Republic!  It was a good thing we stopped, we didn't realize how popular this place was on a saturday afternoon - had to wait almost 30 minutes for a table.

Had a wonderful lunch of Burgers and garlic cheese fries with a couple of glasses of XP Pale Ale (AllieBee had raspberry ice tea as she was driving).  We then shared the perfect, not too sweet, not too tart Raspberry cobbler ala-mode before heading back out to find some more geocaches!!

Literally, right on the other side of the fence from the parking lot, although I had AllieBee take the long way around a few blocks to get there, was our next cache of the day -- #7 of 12 'Mark's Left Hook' We were wondering where the hook was till I went to log this find and was looking at other people's photos.  We had found the plaque that mentioned Mark and saw the bench, but after looking at the photos I see that the bench is shaped like a fish and with a lot of imagination a hook!!! 

nano-cache



AllieBee's braille method



My daughter Candace and I had been here last year and all over that bench trying to find this cache to no luck.   AllieBee with her luck today found this cache kinda by the braille method while feeling under the back edge of the seat. I had gotten down on my knees and looked under the bench but didn't see it. 

This cache is not considered a micro-cache, it's considered a nano-cache.  I have found a couple of similar caches and was pretty sure that what we found was what we were looking for.  Signed the log and replaced before heading on. 

Geocache #264 on 2/19/11, #6 of 12 for the day

On to the last geocache in Cloverdale for the day and on our way to Santa Rosa.

marker

It's called 'Schoolhouse 981'  and told us to look for the marker.  We found the marker all right and learned quite a bit about 'Icaria-Speranza Utopian colony' and that their schoolhouse had stood on the markers site.  It was very interesting, but on to what we were here for -- geocaching!! 

Not sure why, but I decied that after reading the previous logs and description and hint, that the cache was behind the marker.  Now looking back I'm not sure what made me think that hmmm. . . .so we looked behind on one side and decided that if that was where it was it was on the other side where some boards and rocks were next to the back of the marker.  We walked around to the other side and lifted up the boards - nada, then me moved the rocks - nada. Hmmm. . . I must have been wrong, so we expanded our search.

Upon expanding the search to the area behind the maker though a small walkway through the barbed wire fence we found an interesting site it a tree - antlers!!  LOL!!

what an evil little hide!!

We wondered around some more with no further luck and ended up back at our original destination.  Just when we were ready to give up I actually picked up the moderate sized rock and turned it over!!!  What a devious little hide that was. Embedded into the bottom of the rock was a small pill bottle!!  STL and headed out of Cloverdale with no site of the ferral kitty that was mentioned lived here - probably a good thing!!

Geocache #263 on 2/19/11 #5 of 12 for the day

Still in Cloverdale and still caching along the same road!!

AllieBee holding cache

Heading for cache #5 of 12 for the day!!  'Dino's Playground'  We decided it was called that because of all the big rocks/boulders laying around!! 
When it comes to these rock type hides it's just a matter of finding which loose rock or which pile of rocks looks a little bit more planned in its placement. 



SWAG

AllieBee made the find and moved just ther ight little rock to show us a hole under the bigger rock where it made a nice spot to place a small pill bottle size cache!! 
Had a bit of SWAG, I latched onto the squishy orange lizard and left one of Alexis's homemade SWAG magnets!! 

Notice AllieBee wearing her snatched SWAG sunglasses!!  We had fun with those!

Geocache $262

Geocache #4 of 12 for saturday 2/19/11 was along the same road in Cloverdale and yet another cache that I had looked for before.



what doesn't belong?

We looked along the guardrail, the trees along the road and further from the road, but keptcoming back to the guardrail. It was described as an easy park and grab and flat!!! That pretty much ruled out most everything that we could think of.

After finding the cache I couldn't figure out how the name of it fitted in 'Spellit #2'

yep - it's flat and evil

Just as we were about to give up I made the find. Such a sneaky, evil hide!! The camo was delightful, but enough to make you pull your hair out!! I love it!! Log only, so we signed the log and replaced the cache for the next unsuspecting cacher.

Geocache #261

Cache #3 of 12 was another cache in Cloverdale.

 

Had to take a little detour as we found out we were drving through Cloverdale right at the end of the Citrus Fair Parade.  The main street through town was closed off and we had to go through it on the back roads.  In our detour we passed quite a few horseback riders leading their mounts towards home!!  Even though we missed the parade we had an enjoyable time watching all the riders!! Even got a few pics through the windows of the car.



nestled among the needles

Train Station that never was

Once we made it to the cache site we parked at the train station and then took a turn reading the info regarding the 'The "Station" TB Stop.  Too bad this wonderful train station never was actually used as a train station, and the cache was across the street!

We wondered all around and kept coming back to this lone pine tree.  It had to be there as the hint was 'these needles would be hard to sew with'.  None of the other trees in the area had needles.  With a little shuffling of 'needles' we did make a find!!



SWAG

I picked up a TB here called 'Wholphin' a pretty 'Wholphin' coin from Hawaii.  ou can kinda see it in the SWAG photo.



Cowpi's State Traveler Bug



Placed a TB called 'Cowpi's State Traveler Bug' it was a tight fit, but we made it fit along with the nice SWAG already in the cache.



Wholphin Coin



There was a homeless looking type person laying on one of the benches at the train station. Sure hope she wasn't a muggling type person.  I would hate to see this cache and its TB's/Coins come up missing



Geocache #260

nestled cache

OK, onto our 2nd geocache for fun saturday caching!!  Still heading towards Santa Rosa with a stop or two in Cloverdale. 

Seed of a cache

Picked up another cache that I had been unable to find before. #2 of 12 for the day - called 'Seed'  Both this time and last I tried to make this cache a much harder find than it was.  AllieBee more-or-less walked right up to it as I was trying to figure out how the cache could be down there?!!! and still be considered a simple, easy park and grab.

AllieeBee put cache back

Needless say it wasn't down there and it was an easy park and grab cache Thanks to AllieBee.  Small cache with no real space for tradables so we just signed the log (STL), replaced and went on our merry way!!

Geocache #259



SWAG

Travel Fun cache

Alycia(AllieBee) and I decided to go geocaching today.  It was the perfect day for it, other than it has been raining for the past week or so and the ground was a bit soggy in places.  But not too bad if you were careful.#1 cache of 12 for the day was just this side of Hopland and a new known Travel Bug (TB) hotel.  I had been here before on a trip to pick up some wine at Jaxon Keyes, but decided then I wasn't properly dressed to be tracking in the bush!!  So here we are back to check it out.  AllieBee made a fairly quick find of this cache nestled in the bushes--I'm sure I was all over that bush both this time and last time as that is where my GPS kept taking me.  Guess you have to be at just the right angle to see it!!  Sometimes being short pays off and tall NOT!!  Can you see it nestled there? It is pretty well camoed too!

Loggerhead Turtle Geocoin

 

Christmas TB

 

Had a nice pick of SWAG and a few TB's and coins too!!  AllieBee nabbed the green sunglasses right off saying that she had forgot hers and she didn't care if they looked goofy or not, this was saving her money!  I picked up a TB called 'Christmas' a simple jingle bell attached to the tag, and a geocoin called 'Loggerheads Turtle Geocoin'. 



Our homemade magnets



Dropped off a TB called 'For my Rose' I forgot to take a picture of it as I thought there was already one at the TB site, but alas no!  It was a cute little stuffed tiger.  I, also, left a magnet that Alexis, my grand daughter, and I made last summer just for geocaching SWAG.  

All in all a good first cache of the day and my 259th cache found!!

 

Reading This week!!

OK, OK I am still reading 'Night of Many Dreams' by Gail Tsukiyama and IT IS an interesting book.  but I must say I did get a little distracted and read a couple of other books too!!  This book has been sitting in my work bag to read on my breaks at work.

I have a bad habit of reading more than one book at a time. 

I was needing a little something to read that was pure mindless reading and ended up reading a romance "For Kaitlyn's Sake'.  It was a pretty quick mindless read LOL!!  Sorry no picture and Amazon to show you!!

I then had a book that I had posted on one of my bookswap lists quite awhile ago (didn't think it would ever be asked for) that I hadn't read yet get requested.  I am so bad that I can't let a book go through my hands without reading it.  So instead of reading more of 'Night of Many Dreams' I then read "Merlin's Bones' by Fred Saberhagen before I sent it off to its new owner.  I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked his book.  It is described as an "offbeat Arthurian fantasy".  Liked it enough to list a few more of his books as wants on my bookswap list!!   One of our Dr's commented that he had read some of Saberhagan's books awhile back and had really enjoyed his writing too.

After finishing 'Merlin's Bones' at work I was without a book to read, I had left my bag at home with "Night of Many Dreams'.  So raided my locker which has plenty of books for just such an occasion.  Now I am almost finished reading 'Wife For Hire' by Janet Evanovich.  I really like her styly of writing.  She has a series out about an inept bounty hunter name Stephanie Plum that I have almost read all the books too.  I am sure a new one will be coming out soon.

I am sure afer this read I will be able to sit down and finish 'Night of Many Dreams' as I am about half way through with it!!

Update on Knit-A-Long

Finished the Back this week, even with working most of it!!  It's turning out pretty nice!!  I like the colors!!

Started the Left front!!  Interesting how the pockets are worked in. 

This is turning out to be a pretty kewl project!!

Saturday night potluck at work - again!!

Here it is saturday night at work again - Brenda decided a few years back that if we had to be working on a saturday night we needed to have some fun and started the potluck saturday night thing. 

I decided to make the 'Chicken Tortilla Soup' and found a nice easy recipe at http://www.cdkitchen.com/ lo-fat too!!  I made it like the recipe excpt that I baked the chicken when I got home from work this morning and let it cool while I slept for awhile.  When I woke up around 1'ish this afternoon I threw everything except the cilantro, lime juice and tortillas into the crockpot and let it simmer the rest of the afternoon.  I then made the tortilla strips (coated with olive oil flavored pam and baked) and let them cool.  Right before I unplugged the pot to head to work I added the lime juice, dished up a bowl to take a picture and to taste.  I think I need to stop by the store on the way to work and get a bit of sour cream.  Cause a dollup of cream in the middle would make it perfect!!

Hmmm, hmmm good if I say so myself!!

Here's to another good potluck saturday night -- hopefully it won't be as busy as it was last night and we can enjoy Brenda's 'Pot Stickers' and my 'Chicken Tortilla Soup'.

Off to work I go

Well its the weekend again . . . and my weekend to work!  So off to work I'll be heading in a few.  Tomorrow is our Saturday night potluck at work and not sure what to take . . . Guess we will all discuss it tonight and then make a firm decision.  I was thinking about making a chicken tortilla soup. . . we'll see.

Probably won't be working much on my Knit-A-Long over the next couple of days either, but will take it to work on during my lunch break if ime permits!!

Catch you'all later!!

Update: Yarn for my Knit-A-Long (KAL)

Yahoo!!!  Yarn came in for my Knit-A-Long(KAL) today!! 

Was headed out the door to a staff meeting when I noticed that the mailman had left my package by the door.  I tossed it in the kitchen and hoped that I could get back to it later --- We were really, really busy last night at work and it looked like they were going to need some extra help tonight and I volunteered to be available, I would find out at the staff meeting if I was staying and working or able to head back home and start fingering some yarn.

Well. . . I was able to head back home -- on call that is, but still able to start fingering that box of new yarn!!!

I got home and pulled open that box --- oh what nice bulky, soft yarn!!! 

But I really needed to get a few things done before I started working on that project. . .

I warmed up a bowl of soup and sat down to eat it and do some facebooking, but that box just kept pulling my attention.  I, finally, gave in to it and started my new project --- here's hoping that I finish it too!!!  Thus the reason for joining a Knit-A-Long, incentive to keep me on tract!!

I soon realized that, true to their word, it does work up fast since you use pretty large needles and a bulky yarn.  Within in a couple of hours I had a nice piece of the back done.  At this rate I should be able to catch up with the rest of the knitters pretty quick!!

Just a Pinch Kitchen Sister Swap!!

I belong to the Just-A-Pinch cooking site and joined a group called Kitchen Sisters -- A group of women (hmmm might be some men in there too, not sure) that share recipes and good times, just like you would with your neighbors around the kitchen table, but through the internet instead.

They started a monthly themed swap this year and I signed up for the February one!!  Was racking my brain trying to figure out what to get my new Kitchen Sister. . .not sure how many stores I browsed through looking at Valentine goodies, but nothing out there seemed to catch my interest.

 After making the first few Co-worker washcloths I decided that a wash/dishcloth was just the thing!!! I found a BRIGHT varigated yarn and whipped up another cloth -- pulled out some of the heart shaped lavender soap that I made last year, found a box of bath rose petals and some lotion . . .

 

 

. . .Viola!! The perfect Valentine Swap gift for my new kitchen sister in Florida!!

Co-worker Christmas project!!

I have, for the past three years, been saying that I was going to knit washcloths for each of my co-workers for Christmas. 

Well. . . .this year I, actually, started them.  Couldn't sleep the other night (side effects of working night shifts- can't sleep on your nights off!!) So I pulled out the cotton yarn that I bought a few years back and turned the TV on.

Can you believe it? I finished two that night!!  Yahoo!!

Made a varigated one and a purple heart one!!

Two down and upteen more to go!!  Guess I need to figure out how many women I work with.

What are you reading?

OK - I am going to watch 'House' at 8pm tonight.  In the meantime I think I'm going to take a warm bubble bath and read for awhile. 

Which brings me to my question - What are you reading right now?  I love to read, along with many other things. . . At the moment I am reading 'Night of Many Dreams' by Gail Tsukiyama.  This is the second Gail Tsukimama book for me.  I really enjoyed reading the first one and put all her books on my swap list.  This book arrived about two weeks ago and I'm finally getting to read it.  So far, I'm not disappointed.

I'd really like to know what other people out there are reading. 

So. . .What are you reading right now?

Who Loves 'House'?

Gonna watch the new episode of 'House' tonight.  Who else loves 'House' and is going to watch it tonight??

WOW!!  I have no life!!  Hahahaha

Gonna have to 'follow' it on facebook.

Red Wine Cozy

Sitting home alone. . .Again.


Decided to work on a knitting project that I started a couple of days ago. Its a pattern that I found at http://taras-knits.blogspot.com/ as I wait for my yarn for the Lion Brand Knit-Along Hoodie to come in, hopefully later this week.

I was able to finish the Wine Cozy, and if I may say so myself, did a pretty good job. Although my mind must have been elsewhere as I kept having to redo a number of the rows or it would have been done yesterday.

Decided to send it to a new friend for Valentine's Day - I hope it is liked as it comes from my heart and with a wonderful bottle of Jaxon Keyes Farmhouse Red

I guess I'd better get it in the mail if it'sgoing to make it there in time!!

Hoping everyone is planning on a wonderful Valentine's Day with the one they love - as for me: I will be working, and the one I love is far away - I hope he thinks of me as much as I think of him.
http://www.jaxonkeys.com/



Still Waiting on yarn for the Knit-Along

Recieved an email that my yarn had shipped!! Yahoo!!  Should be here by thursday!!

Just have to find other things to keep me busy till then.

Working on a knitted Wine Bottle Cozy -- should be done soon.  Will post when done!!

Watched the Superbowl with a couple of friends -- Yahoo!! for the Greenbay Packers!!

Blue Slipper socks

Started these for this past Christmas, but didn't get them finished in time!! Finished them last night, guess they will be for next Christmas instead!!!  Found the pattern at http://www.beartoes.com/patterns/tropicalpunch.html 

For my boys I decided to make them in the shorter style.  Another Christmas present done!!