Geocaching: May 8th

We were in the park for a friends birthday get together and I threw on my canoe just in case we could get out on the water. After the singing and gift giving I offered rides in my canoe. One of our friends kids wanted a ride. It would have been her first canoe ride so we get all set to head out and I make about 5 strokes out into the little bay area there on the east side of the park when off in the distance I see lightning hit the hillside. Well I don't want to have my son and another persons kid out on the water in a lightning storm so I turn around and head back in with thunder rolling across the water from the distance pushing us along. Our friends little girl is apparently afraid.....very afraid of lightning and thunder and was begging me to hurry back to land. Her total canoe ride lasted less than a minute.

I got our kids in the car and waited out the rain story while many of the other kids and parents played Frisbee in the downpour. After some time all of our friends got cold and started packing up and soon we were the only ones left sitting in the parking lot. We were listing to a story on the radio so the kids were fine but finally we put a time limit on our stay. Amazingly it cleared off and in less than ten minutes after our last friend pulled out the rain stopped and glorious sunshine broke through the clouds. It was still a little choppy but The Bean Himself and I headed out to test the water. By the time we got around the point to the little bay where the marina is it was calm again. We paddled around a bit and then Mrs Bean and The Sprout walked over and brought my GPSr along. I knew about the cache around so took the opportunity to go looking for it.

Well we honed in on the basic area and The Bean Himself got out and walked over to where I thought the hide might be. First he picked up a yellow Pennzoil oil bottle. He asked "Could this be the cache"?, Uhm..nope. Then he found it right away. This is where it got interesting. I pulled the canoe up to rocks and he passed me the cache "Swimmer". I put my oar down and opened the container to find it half full of water. Paper and trinkets floating in lake water. So I can't leave it that way and put my hand over one side of the mouth then dump it out over the edge of the canoe using my hand as a strainer of sorts to keep the contents in.

This was only partially effective since a piece of paper and a trinket spilled into the water. "Dad you dropped a frog". Yes, a little frog of the stretchy plastic red variety had slipped past my fingers. So I reached over and grabbed the little guy and in so doing the canoe shifted. "Dad don't sink the canoe, Don't sink the canoe!" It wasn't my intention to sink the canoe but it seemed very likely that this is exactly what was going to happen. The canoe as it tipped within a fingers breadth (really a very small finger) of water pouring over the side had shifted onto some rocks. It was stuck there at an angle with me trying to get it righted with little luck. The canoe seemed determined to go wrong instead of right and I had a few moments of grave concern. Well I finally got my oar and pushed it back. Oh yeah I did get the frog too. Anyhow I made an attempt at signing the log. You'll have to trust me on this one as the marks on the paper don't look much like TheBeanTeam.

I handed the container back to The Bean Himself and he got back in and we headed out across the bay. Three quarters of the way across I asked. "Did you put anything on it to hold it down?" "No." came the reply.....so we turned around and found it again to make sure it was secure. Paddled back to the opposite shore and picked up The Sprout for the return trip around the little point.

We canoed well over a mile and a half. Not bad for a stormy day I guess. Left nothing.....took a weathered yellow Pennzoil bottle.

May Day Hike

The weather was perfect for an afternoon stroll so we headed to Mt Pisgah to get out of the house.

We decided since we were there we might as well do some Geocaching so headed out to We Love You Lane County Parks, a cache by Rain or Shine.

The hike out was wonderful. An abundance of wildflowers in bloom made every turn a wonder to see. The sprout saw a slug that she thought was "very cool" and both kids wanted to take it home to show at school. Uhmm...No.

The Bean Himself and Mr Bean headed up into the old quarry to make the find. The terrain was a bit much for The Sprout. We found the cache after a bit of searching with The Bean Himself actually making the find. While Mrs Bean and The Sprout were below still in the quarry they searched around for another way up and discovered instead an abandoned vehicle in the woods to the NW of the quarry.

A very old delivery truck from the 30's or 40's. Very cool to see it there. The Bean Himself was extremely interested in checking it out. After we hiked back out Mrs Bean found another cache by herself while we waited in the van. She had solved the puzzle for BeavTeam Sudoku 7 earlier and decided to try and locate it even though the kids were done in.

The Bean Himself and Mr. Bean went fishing with friends on opening day of fishing season up at Odell Lake. Wow it was cold. Snowed on us enough for us to have a snowball fight between boats and build a small snowman in the back of the boat. We didn't catch much. Our boat brought one in and another friend caught one that was to small to keep and from the reports we did better than anyone else on the lake. We did better than one guy though. We were at Shelter Cove warming up when the police officers who were checking folks took off. Turns out that a guy fishing alone parked his truck at the Shelter Cove boat ramp then ran around and began to load his boat only to have it roll back into the lake. He got in the water twice to try and hook a cable on the front of the truck and wound up with a trip to the hospital for hypothermia.


We still had a wonderful day out on the lake and then had to make a run back to town early for The Sprouts 4th Birthday party.

Mr. Bean Skydives

Sacramento Saunter

On our first morning in Sacramento The Sprout woke up early. Much to early for the rest of the team so I bundled her up and took her out for a walk. I decided to head over to the California State Capitol Mall. There were a bunch of waymarks in the area I wanted to visit and a benchmark that was historic in nature that I wanted to see as well. The Sacramento Longditude-Granite Meridian Stone-1888 is one of the original survey markers for a very early survey in The West.


The park is really beautiful and The Sprout had a blast walking about and looking at the different sites. I was able to place several waymarks in the area in addition to the many that were already there. My favorite surprise of the day was a El Camino Real Bell that I didn't know was there. When I had researched them before coming down it looked like the closest would have been out of my reach to visit or waymark.


After we had wandered through the park a while I got a call from Mrs. Bean. She and The Bean Himself were up and ready for some breakfast and the day.