Coyote Hills Regional Park

Today I went geocaching at Coyote Hills Regional Park in Fremont with Zuleika. The circumstances that brought us to the area was sad, as my uncle (my mom's brother) passed away on Friday after suffering a heart attack a week ago, so I came down to Fremont to spend some time with my mom. First Molly, now my uncle, ugh...I'm ready for this holiday season to be over!

Zucchini was going a bit stir-crazy as on Saturday it was raining so we couldn't really go outside to let her get her yah-yah's out (and boy does she get the yah-yahs!) So this morning, even though it was slightly cloudy and looked like it might rain, I scoped out a hike we could take that was close to my mom's house.

In my younger days (which is long time ago!!!) and still living at home with mom & dad, I used to ride to Coyote Hills on my bike, it was about a 20-mile ride up and back. It's probably been almost 20 years since I've been out here and this was the first time I was here without a bike. The one thing I've discovered about geocaching...it brings you to places you never even knew about. I was missing out on a lot of cool places and great views as the bike trails are located on the outskirts of the park without a lot of the great views that the hiking trails have.

I wished I would have had my Rebel to take pictures today, it was great black dog lighting and the views were great! But, alas, the Rebel and geocaching do not get along (too heavy/bulky for me to carry). Note to self...check the memory card before leaving, I ran out of space on my card, so I missed a lot of great shots today of some herons in flight, nice views, a hawk perched on top of a tree, etc. Just an excuse to come back I guess.

This was my funny shot of the day, I wanted to try to get a shot of Zuleika under the rock as if the rock were going to roll right on top of her (picture her about 3-4 feet over to the right of where she is standing), but it was too wet, slick and steep and she just kept sliding, so this is the best we could do. Its too bad people have defaced the rock by spraying graffiti on it.

I found a series of caches called "Indian Montage" 1-6 today. Unfortunately, I didn't do my homework before leaving as inside each of the six caches were clues to find a seventh cache that was also hidden in the park. Oh well, it will just give me an excuse to get out here again as there are a few more caches hidden in an area that we didn't even get to today. Luckily, I took pictures of the clues and will try to piece together the solution to the final cache so we can come out again to find it.

We hiked a total of 6 miles today, and climbed up and down many hills today. Since I'm trying to break in a pair of hiking boots, I was glad that I also ended the day without a blister on either foot! It was a great place to hike with a dog too! We were able to stay on fairly wide trails for the most part. After our bushwhacking trek in Folsom the other day, Zucchini was a happy girl today, it was dog-feet heaven. Here is a shot of Zuleika that I took from the third cache we found, and yes, we huffed and puffed up and down that switchback that you can see in the background.

This was the last picture of the day before I filled up my memory card. It's a little faint in the picture, but San Mateo Bridge is visible in the background. Good thing we had to stop to look for geocaches every once in a while, after climbing up and down those hills today, I needed an excuse to rest and this was one of them!

So that brings us to 833 caches...and counting!