10 miles for a cache?

Well, I only found one geocache today, but boy did we (as in me and Zuleika) ever work for this one! This one was called "The Outing of Patrick Star" (GC189K3), it is what is called a Mystery Cache. You have to solve a puzzle in order to get the coordinates to where the cache is located. This one involved answering some questions about Patrick Star from the Spongebob cartoon series in order to get the coordinates. The frustrating thing about these types of caches are that you solve the puzzle and figure out the wrong coordinates and you never find the cache...I would have been disappointed if I couldn't find this one! This cache was rated 3.5/4.5; meaning 3.5 out of 5 for difficulty and 4.5 out of 5 for terrain. I certainly agree with the terrain rating, it was a long, uphill hike to the top of a hill, Flagstaff Hill, according to the topo map on my GPS. This was in the Salmon Falls area; this week there were no cows/bulls blocking our way. This was up the trail where we wanted to go a few weeks ago.

Here's a pic of Z near the start of the trail:

About halfway there! This was before the trail got really rocky and steep. I let Zucchini off leash for most of the hike up/down the hill as nobody was around. She actually managed to stay right next to me or behind me; I thought for sure the little wigglebutt would go running off, but she behaved herself the whole time and didn't run off even once. I was very proud of her.
Here's a pic of Z with the cache itself....as you can see, it had Patrick Star themed stuff in it. Zucchini thought we found a container of dog toys!

There was one other cache I wanted to look for today which was only(!) 1/2 mile further at the top of the hill from the one we found; well that 1/2 mile was steep and rocky. This was a multi-cache, meaning it had a few stages that gave you coordinates to the next stage, before you could find the final cache. I found the first stage, but Zucchini kept holding her front paw up in the air when we stopped. I looked at it and didn't see any cuts or anything and pressed it all over and she didn't seem bothered, but she was definitely limping the more we walked. Since we were already 5 miles out on top of the hill, I figured it was best to get us back down the hill before she got any worse. Heck, even my feet are killing me, most of the trail was really broken up rock so you really had to walk carefully or else you could easily twist an ankle or something. This was what the view was like from the top of the hill, you could actually see Folsom Lake on one side, the river on the other.

According to my GPS, we hiked a total of 10.1 miles in 4 hours 29 minutes, climbed a total of 1,860 feet to a maximum elevation of 1,398. Whew, its no wonder I'm tired and Zucchini was limping! That terrain rating of 4.5 was certainly earned. Here's a picture of Zucchini with the hill we climbed behind her with still another mile to go before we got to the car. She's holding up her right paw, but still managing to smile anyway!
Her paw seems to be ok tonight...I put her in the crate to nap when we got home (because Hope was trying to play with her, poor girl didn't get a walk today!) and she's no longer holding it up like she was doing out there today. I left the crate door open for her (she likes to nap in it) and she hasn't moved, so hopefully she will be ok tomorrow. Heck, the way my feet feel tonight, I can't blame her for limping...walking on that rough trail was tough on my feet and I had hiking boots on!