Blarney Geocoin

The Blarney Geocoin was part of a subscription of geocoins in which I get a new coin once a month. This was the coin from this past March and is one of the nicest ones this particular compnay has produced.

Colorado 2008 Geocoins

The above Colorado 2008 geocoins are only two of the varieties of this new coin. These are even better looking than we expected and make great additions to our collection.

Monarch Butterfly Geocoin

This geocoin was found in a cache near Chatfield sometime last week. It has a nice butterfly design and is quite attractive. I will put this one in another cache soon.

Signal Geocoin

We found this geocoin in a cache in Fort Collins on July 4th. It will be placed in another cache very soon. This is the first of this particular type of coin that we have come across. It is part of a series of coins featuring Signal the Frog. Signal is the official geocaching mascot. This coin is part of a series of 19 coins that were released between January, 2006 and July, 2007 - one a month. You can still buy some of them from the people who put them out. This particular one has a Canada theme.

Talon Geocoin

This is a picture of the new Colorado State Park Talon Geocoin. We were lucky enough to get two of these at a state park recently. I suspect that they are relatively rare. I haven't decided for sure if I will put it in a cache for others to grab.

Ups and Downs in 90 Degrees

Yesterday, I went on an adventure with a couple of interesting misadventures along the way. I planned a geocaching bike ride in the area of Red Rocks park. There are 18 or so caches hidden in the area and I wanted to see how many I could get. The path would be about 6 miles long down and up some mountain bike trails that did not appear to be all that challenging. Well, it turned out differently and this bike ride turned out to be the most challenging bike ride I have ever been on.

Having left work early, I got home and got everything ready and headed out with the bike on the back of the car. I arrive at the trailhead near Alameda and C470 about 1:30 and 6065 feet in elevation. I put my camelback on loaded with water and stuffed my geocaching stuff in my bike shirt pockets. The GPS receiver went on the bike mount and off I went.

The first part of the trail is a switchback up the side of North Dinosaur Ridge. It's an elevation gain of about 400 feet to the first trail junction. Turning right and heading uphill another 50 feet on a rocky trail is where the first cache was. I also found a few other caches on this part of the ridge. From the car to the high point was a gain of about 550 feet altogether. I then continued down the hill to the parking lot at Metthews-Winters park where there is another bicycle trailhead and a number of additional geocaches. At this point, I was at 6338 feet.

The trail in Matthew-Winters park is lengthy with mostly a modest slope. It was not as steep overall as the switchback up Dinosaur Ridge but it did have its moments. The highpoint on this trail is at 6800 feet so that made another gain of almost 500 feet!

I rode with 4 teenagers on this part of the trail and they had been up there before. They advised me to lower my bike seat for the trip back down the other side of the trail. This was a very good idea due to the steepness and roughness of the trail. There are lots of exposed rocks and bumps and a lower center of gravity made this a good plan. By the time I reached a road crossing, I was at 6220 feet, an elevation loss of 580 feet and that was in about 1/4 of the trail length as the distance to get up to the high point.

On the way down this hill, there is a cache hidden hanging in a tree. When I approached the area, there was another biker resting in the shade of the tree. I stopped and chatted a while about the trail he was about to go up. He wasn't ready to leave so I told him all about geocaching. He said he would check out the geocaching.com website and he seemed genuinely interested. I showed him the cache when I found it.

At this point, I was in Red Rocks park. I found a couple of caches there. One of the ones I did not find was by a small cemetery that is in the park. It's the old Morrison cemetery. The cache is hidden inside of a hollow square pole. You have to stick your finger in the hole from underneath and the cache can be found there magnetically attached. When I was there, I was not willing to stick my finger in the hole so I did not find the cache. It was a good thing too since when I later read the logs on the cache, I discovered that there is a family of wasps who live in that very same hole! The last person who found the cache got stung on his finger. The cemetery is at 6000 feet.

The next cache I found was not too far away and it is a film canister hidden under a rock. After this find, I was facing the biggest climb of the day...

Did I mention how hot it was? It was well into the 90s. It was not too long after this point that I ran out of water with a couple of difficult miles to go. Not good. The high point on this next climb was 6575 feet - another gain of 575 feet, with no water, rubber legs, and a rocky trail so rough and steep that I walked and pushed the bike more than I rode. I took lots of breaks. When I finally reached the downhill switchbacks, the same ones I rode up at the beginning of the ride, I was quite relieved and really enjoyed that bit of downhill back to the car. I arrived at the car more than 2 hours after I expected to. The ride was almost 12 miles rather than the 6 that I expected.

I found 15 of the 18 geocaches that I went to find so it was a very good day in that respect. I was very exhausted when I got home but did sleep very well last night!

Who is the Last Cylon?

Thinking logically now. Consider the following:

The Xena Cylon said that the last Cylon is not in the fleet. How would she know that. Does she know what all 36,000 people in the fleet look like? Not likely.

So, I believe that she must know the wherabouts of this last Cylon.

Sometime in last season, a person excaped from the Cylons and found the fleet. Could there be others like him. Quite likely, I think.

There must be someone still on that very same Cylon base ship that is in captivity there. I believe that this is the last cylon.

But who is it?

One of the other Cylons once claimed that "Adama is a Cylon". There are three Adamas. One is dead - Zach, having been killed somehow before the series started. We have never met him. He was killed in some sort of accident or something in one of the vipers, I believe. We know that people can get blown up, yet live (Starbuck). Could this have happened to Zach as well? And, could he have come back to the Cylons and be captured by them?

I think Zach is the guy. He has "been with us since the beginning" (sortof). The only question is his origin. He would have to have been adopted by the Adama's or something.

Of course, Xena might just be going on some sort of vision she had. I hope it isn't that, though.

Piano Movers

For some reason, piano movers are funny. Why is that? I just saw a commercial on TV featuring two guys hoisting a baby grand piano up to an upper floor via a rope and pully system. Alas, the rope was not strong enough and the piano fell. But since pianos fall very slowly, the two were able to get below it to attempt catching it using some sort of fabric or plastic. That didn't work so the piano broke into a million pieces. They gathered up the pieces and stuffed them into a strong plastic bag (the subject of the commercial) and then delivered the bag of parts to the intended apartment.

This piano moving gag is not new at all. There was a silent Charlie Chaplin film from 1914 called "His Musical Career". You can watch the entire short film on YouTube. He has to deliver a piano up a single flight of stairs and he does so all by himself with the piano on his back!

In 1932, Laurel and Hardy made their classic film "The Music Box". They are piano movers who have to deliver a piano up a long flight of outdoor stairs. These stairs and their 131 steps still exist out in LA. Once they finally get the piano to the top, a postman informs them that they could have driven their horse-driven cart around the block to get to the same location. So, they heave ho the piano back down the stairs to do just that!

This L&H film was a remake of a similar film from 5 years earlier called "Hats Off". In this film, the boys have to lug a washing machine up the very same stairs. Unfortunately, this film is lost.

The Three Stooges made a film called "An Ache in Every Stake" in which they are ice men delivering blocks of ice on a very hot day. So hot, in fact, that they can't get the product up the 147 steps of a similar stariway in LA before the ice shrinks from a one foot block into a one inch cube.

Bonewop

You might be wondering about the name I chose for one of my geocaches - Bonewop. I believe there are only two people in the world who know the true significance of this word and of course I am one of them. I just googled the word and it came up with only 3 hits all referring to this geocache.

The description of the cache is below. It has nothing to do with the real significance of the word.

Bonewops were previously thought to be extinct but I saw long haired red one while placing this cache.

Bonewops were so named because of their strange clublike feet that were often used to konk predator animals on their head to fend them off. This was purely a defensive action since the bonewop is a grazing animal about the size of a beaver. Its favorite food is puncturevine. Perhaps the increase in the amount of puncturevine in Colorado is what has brought them back from the brink of extinction. Watch out for puncturevine, by the way. These are the plants that produce goathead thorns that are the bane of many bicycle tires.

For some really peculiar reason, it is common to see very unusual animals near this cache. Besides that red bonewop I saw, I have also seen a parfer, a floober and a grindleflick in the area as well. Please log what you "see" and describe in as much detail as you can. A photo would be great!

Caching Stats and Facts

On the left side of this page, I have added information about my hidden caches and travel bugs. The caches are listed in order of how many times they have been found. The bugs are ordered by last found first. You can keep track of them this way and see where the travel bugs are right now.

On the cache list, one of them has been archived because it disappeared. That's Count for Marcy.

Beeing a Cacher

Occasionally, geocachers run into hazards along the way. In my case, I have run into two problems recently. Today, I attempted to be the the first to find at a new cache called Desperate Measures. It is another cache along the Highline Canal. This one is a micro and is well camoed somewhere around a large cottonwood tree. I looked for it a little while all around the tree and then noticed a plethora of bees exiting from a large crack in the tree. So, that was enough for me at this one. I'll monitor the cache to see what others experience there. I did leave a note on the cache page about the bees.

A week or so ago, I was the first to find another cache in Chatfield State Park. A day or so later, I discovered that I had a rash in three spots on my legs and also on two fingers on my left hand. These spots have become worse over the week but I think they are finally turning around now. I read about poisin ivy and the fact that it does not spread but it might seem like it does because its effect might not appear in an exposed area right away. That seems to be the case with my current problem. I don't know if it's poisin ivy but maybe.

As a consolation, I was the first to find that cache last week and I got another one today a bit farther down the canal.

The Satisfaction of an FTF

I was FTF on a geocache yesterday morning. That's "First to Find" for all you muggles. This particular one is over in Chatfield State Park and is tucked away in a relatively remote corner of the park that hardly anyone visits. The cache was published Friday night and I rode my bike over there the next morning.

This part of the park has a number of old paved trails that are interesting to explore. Some of these trails are completely overgrown and some are even underwater! I rode my bike to with 30' of the cache but this is not necessarily a good way to get there since the area has a lot of punturevine and the goathead thorns will easily puncture bike tires. In fact, I pulled about 50 of them out of my tires but since I have puncture resistent tubes and flat-attack goo in my tires, none cause me any problems except for the time I spent pulling them out.

I discovered a travel bug in the cache and left a squeaky frog. I grabbed an interesting foreign coin (2 pence). The travel bug was a plastic bag full of wine bottle corks. I didn't take it since my pockets were not big enough to hold it. Each person who takes it is encouraged to add a new cork to the collection and then move it on. It originated in Wisconsin and has travelled over 5000 miles.

Interesting Old Cemeteries

Just got back from a little road trip to Texas. On the way down, I did some geocaching. In fact, I found 26 caches on this trip!

The first of the cemeteries in which I found a cache is called Ghost Watching. It is northwest of Amarillo, Texas near the Cal Farley Boys' Ranch which is a home and ranch for placement of children who have all sorts of different types of problems. The cache itself is located in a nearby genuine and authentic boot hill cemetery. The location was apparently known as Old Tascosa at one time and it had a colorful history. The Town's famous "cowboy strike" ended in gunfire, with some of the participants ending up buried at Boot Hill Cemetery which is actually on top of a hill that you can drive up on a rough rocky road. There is a historical marker that lists the people buried there with about half of the 50 people having been murdered. This was all back in the late 1800's. The cache is a magnetic key holder stuck on the back of this sign.

I found the area around Cal Farley's to be a bit strange. I noticed two police cars at the entrance to the ranch another 1/4 mile down the road. There were two other cemeteries nearby. One was a pet boot hill cemetery. The other was a cemetery for people (boys) who had died at the ranch. It was not small.

The second cemetery where I found a cache was called Calm and Windy just a little outside of Claude, Texas. This was a large old cemetery for the surrounding area. The cache was another magnetic key holder that was hidden on the good old fashioned windmill.

Finally, the last cemetery cache I found was in the cemetery by Goodnight, Texas. This cache is called Lonesome Dove - Charles Goodnight Cemetery. Charles Goodnight and family are buried there. This is another old cemetery not quite as large as the one in Claude. According to the cache page, Charles Goodnight is sort of the patron saint of all cowboys. He was instrumental in the development of the cattle industry. The chuckwagon (a cowboy's portable kitchen wagon used on the cattle trails) was invented by Charles Goodnight in 1866. Goodnight was a Texas Ranger and owned the first cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle. It was called the JA Ranch and was located in Palo Duro Canyon about nine miles south of Claude. Goodnight helped create one of the major cattle trails, the Goodnight-Loving Trail, which was a cattle drive route from Texas that led into eastern New Mexico and Colorado.

The monument for Goodnight is quite large and along with several other related monuments is surrounded by a 3 foot chain link fence. About 75 bandanas have been tied to the fence by people who have visited.

Thunder

Thunder is not that common around here like it was in Texas or Illinois. However, tonight there was some thunder. I even heard some in the distance during my bike ride tonight. It was over in the foothills. I could see it from the top of the hill I rode up on by Mountain Vista High School. I didn't see any lightning, though.

After I got home, there was some close-by thunder and light rain.

You Tell Me

Guvf vf n zrffntr gung unf orra rapelcgrq hfvat n ebg13 grpuavdhr. Vg vf gur fnzr grpuavdhr gung vf hfrq gb rapelcg uvagf ba gur trbpnpuvat jrocntr.

Galactica Predictions

1. Anders will somehow calm the tension on Starbuck's ship. That's why they will get to the Cylon Base Ship as shown in the previews.

2. The Deanna Cylon (Zena) will be unboxed in a future episode and she will reveal information about the final 5 cylons that she recognized in her last show last year.

3. My guess as to who the final Cylon is: Tom Zarek

Today's Extraordinary Bike Ride

I set out to find some geocaches via bicycle today and actually found all 9 that I looked for to get my total finds to 600 even. Four of the caches were part of a series called "Historic Highline Canal Series". There are 4 of them and at each one is some information about the highline canal.

Construction on the canal was started way back in 1879 and it is still used to some extent today for irrigation. It's mostly used to fill ponds and small lakes along its 70 mile length. There is a great hiking and biking trail along much of its length and it is along this path that I found the 4 caches today. I have hidden several caches of my own along the trail as well.

After finding the fourth and final cache in the series, I began contemplating what the area might have looked like when the canal was new or even "only" 50 years old. I was riding close to the C470 expressway along the paved trail when all of a sudden, the concrete was gone and the pathway was covered by weeds. C470 and County Line road disappeared along with all the traffic noise. The only thing that was the same was the sound of the frogs croaking in the nearby pond. The cottonwood trees that line the canal were very small. Water flowed through the canal just like it was today. I stopped and wondered what had just happened but then I heard someone say "on your left" and I was back to 2008.

Empire Builder Complete

I acquired the last three of Walthers Empire Builder cars to complete my train. The last three cars are two regular dome cars and one full dome car. All I have to do now is add the details. It'll probably take a week to get that done, maybe more.

Nothing Going On Here

I simply haven't been doing much railroad activity lately. The last thing I did was to get one more of the Empire Builder cars (see below). The latest one is the end of train observation car. All that is left are two regular dome cars and one full dome car. They are both supposed to arrive in May.

Empire Builder Coming Along

I acquired the latest Walthers Great Northern Empire Builder car today. The train I am putting together is abbreviated compared to the real thing. The real train might have been 18 cars and that is too long for my layout. The length of the 12 car train I am settling for is pushing it. This is the train I am doing:

1. Burlington E7A diesel

2. Burlington E8A diesel

3. baggage mail #42 (similar car photo)

4. Baggage-Dormitory #1205

5. 60-Seat Coach #1214 (similar car photo)

(6. 48-Seat Vista Dome Coach) (similar car photo)

(7. 48-Seat Vista Dome Coach lettered for Burlington rather than Great Northern) (similar car photo)

8. Ranch Coffee Shop Lounge #1245 Whitefish Lake (similar car photo in blue)

9. 7-4-3-1 Sleeper #1260 Skykomish River (similar car photo)

10. 6-5-2 Sleeper #1374 Park Creek Pass (similar car photo)

11. 36-Seat Diner #1250 Lake of the Woods (similar car photo)

(12. Full Length Great Dome Glacier View) (similar car photo)

13. 7-4-3-1 Sleeper #1269 Poplar River (similar car photo)

(14. 6-4-1 Observation #1390 Grand Coulee) (similar car photo)

The ones I don't have yet are in parentheses. The complete train will be out by June or so.

Here is a picture of the train as pulled by Great Northern engines.

The numbers by the sleepers refer to the different types of accommodations in the cars. The 7-4-3-1 sleeper had 7 duplex-roomettes, 4 upper and lower berths, 3 double-bedrooms and one compartment. The 6-5-2 sleeper had 6 roomettes, 5 double bedrooms and 2 compartments. The 6-4-1 observation car had 6 roomettes, 4 double bedrooms and one compartment.

The real train in its heyday might have had a couple of baggage cars, another coach and 2 or 3 more sleepers. The train ran between Chicago and St. Paul on the Burlington pulled by silver Burlington engines. From St. Paul to Seattle, the train was pull by Great Northern F units.

You can read my earlier post on this subject.