Back in the saddle again...

After what seems like days of rainy, windy weather and a sick puppy, I finally got a chance to get out and find some geocaches today. The great thing about caching is no matter where you are, there are usually caches hidden nearby. Today was no exception. I hit three areas and found a total of 7 caches.

I took Hope with me in the morning while Zucchini stayed home in her crate. I was planning on finding two caches in Folsom, but only got to one as I couldn't figure out what street to take for the other one. The one we found in Folsom was called "County Line" (GCNPVJ). I had been intentionally saving this for the winter as there was a report of a large rattlesnake near this one that I read about in the cache description. Hope and I bushwhacked up a steep grassy hill as I didn't see any other approach to get to the cache. About halfway up, we hit a paved bike trail...oops, if I had parked one street over I would have seen it. The area was beautiful now that things are green, but there's no way I would have come up here in the summertime as there were huge granite rocks, perfect places for snakes to be hiding! It took me a long time to find this one, it was a small micro container (35mm film cannister) with just a log to sign. I finally spotted it after expanding my search area from where my GPS was telling me it was. Maybe it was the tree cover or the clouds, but that's what is tricky about this game, the cache isn't always where your GPS tells you it is. This is a picture of Hope in the area where the cache was hidden. Can you imagine finding a container the size of a 35mm film cannister here? Not so easy, eh? We decided to take the easier way down the hill on the way back, Hope was probably happy about that. Yay, our first cache find in over a week....

After running an errand in El Dorado Hills, I drove down Salmon Falls Road to see what the area was like. My GPS showed there was a couple of caches near a trailhead sign I was passing, so I stopped and Hope and I made a few finds along this trail. It was fairly muddy from all the recent rains and we had to wade through a little creek that crossed the trail, but it was nice and near an area I want to check out tomorrow when I have more time. In all, we hiked maybe a mile or so. We didn't see anybody the whole time we were out there, so I let Hope off leash, she was happy about that.

I went home and switched dogs since I was planning on taking Zucchini with me to Roseville for a doctor's appointment. We hit a bike trail off of Roseville Parkway and found four more caches on the way home. We probably hiked another mile or so. This is a picture of Zucchini near one of the caches we found in Roseville. Can you see it? See the HINT below if you don't...try not to cheat, its not that hard.


So the final tally of the day was 7 geocaches, 2 tired dogs, and no ticks (that I can find anyway). Zucchini was much easier to check since her belly is shaved from the ultrasound she had while she was hospitalized! :-)

(HINT: see it yet? it's the same color as she is..under the rock)