Lizards and Spiders and Snakes! Oh My!

Today I went out on a hike and missed seeing the trifecta in my title by about 50 feet or so. I hiked the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park loop today, a little over 6 miles from my car back to my car. I decided today was a good day for a hike, since it's supposed to rain again later in the evening and on into tomorrow. We got rain on Wednesday, so the trail had dried out enough that footing wasn't an issue, but it was still damp in spots where you could make out deer tracks.

I think I got on the trail right around 9:30 or so. Being as it's sunny, but cool, it seemed like a perfect time for me to go hiking when most of the morning crowd have already left the park. Less people means there's a likelihood of seeing more animals out and about and I was able to spot all sorts of interesting things.

For one thing, there were still quite a few butterflies flitting about. I saw one tiger swallowtail and at least two different cabbage white butterflies. I saw several lizards running away from me along the trail or disappearing into the brush as the side of the trail. Lizards are interesting creatures in that they'll hold still for a very long time and then all of a sudden will make a mad dash. I think in reality if they were to hold still and just stay there, many people would miss them altogether. I, for one, have noticed many lizards only after they started moving away from me. They tend to blend in a little better into the dirt and stuff of the trail than do snakes, so I feel that they're not as easily spotted as are snakes.

The main attraction along the trail today however were the tarantulas. For the most part, this is about the only time of the year when you can really see tarantulas out and about. It's mating season and they're out prowling around for mates. This guy was about halfway across the trail/fire road when I encountered it. I took quite a few shots of it, but several of them came out blurry. I guess I'm still getting used to the camera on my new phone, but I got several good shots, this one being the best of the bunch. After taking this shot, I got back up and let the spider walk between my legs and continue to the other side of the trail.

Later on I encountered another tarantula walking along the side of the trail. I watched it for a little bit, even putting my shoe out in front of it to see if it would climb over my shoe. It touched my shoe with one foot and then decided to detour around it. Oh well, I tried. And I can already hear some of my friends and family thinking, "Geez Paul, why do you do some of the things you do?" Because I'm interested in things like that. Anyway, I left that tarantula alone, continued on my hike, but just around the corner, a maintenance truck was coming down the trail and so I became worried that it might run over the tarantula, so I walked back down and was relieved to see that it missed it by at least a foot or so.

I didn't see any snakes today, however as I noted above, it appears as if I missed seeing a rattlesnake by about fifty feet or so. I was on the downhill stretch of the trail, heading back to the car, but I still had about a mile and a half of walking to do when a guy came jogging up the hill. Instead of the normal wave or quick hi, he said, "There's a rattlesnake on trail." My response back to him was "Cool." He said it was about fifty feet further down the trail, so I walked down, but unfortunately (at least for me), I never spotted the snake, which means it had probably already slithered off into the brush along the side of the trail. No photo of a rattlesnake today, so you'll have to be satisfied with this photo of the gopher snake I spotted a couple of days ago along another part of the trail.

All in all, it was a good hike and workout today. I feel like I'm back to my old self once again and I even thought about hiking the loop a second time, but I knew that probably wouldn't be good for me since I could feel myself getting hungry. Another two hours on the trail without any kind of sustenance would not make a happy me. But the good thing was that my energy level seems to be back the way it was before all this health shenanigans started almost a year ago. The only thing that I have noticed is the my mileage times aren't quite there and I'm not sure they ever will be. I used to be able to do that loop averaging about 18 minute miles. Today, I averaged slightly over 20 minutes per mile, which I find acceptable. I'm getting older and it doesn't make sense to punish my body for the sake of fast miles. The whole purpose is to get some exercise and enjoy the scenery. I did both today.

Be Ever Vigilant

 

Every now and then we all make mistakes. Today, while out hiking, I was doing my usual thing, scanning the trail when I heard something off to my right, so I looked over there to see if I could see anything of interest. The problem with what I did is I usually stop and look. This time I didn't, but kept walking up the trail. And that's when everything went kind of sideways.

I turned my head back to the trail, took one more step and out of my peripheral vision, I saw something move right about where I was going to place my foot. This little guy now had my complete attention and apparently I had its complete attention too as it immediately coiled into strike position. And it's amazing how many thoughts went through my head in probably the one second or so it took to push off with my other foot and take an exaggerated jump over this snake.

Thought one, "Oh crap, I'm stepping on a baby rattlesnake."

Thought two, "Why isn't it rattling? Too small to have an active rattle?"

Thought three, "Where's its damn tail, oh there it is. Oh, it's a gopher snake."

As you can see from the photo, I really got way too close to this one. That's the first time I've ever seen a gopher snake go into strike mode. It was prepared to defend itself and it didn't really believe that I was friendly and wouldn't hurt it on purpose. And as you can see it remained in a semi-strike mode even after it took off into the bushes at the side of the trail.

The lesson is, if you hear a sound off trail, stop, look and listen. Then continue on with your hike. Had I done that, this encounter probably wouldn't have been less stressful for both of us. Also, be ever vigilant, even in the cooler months as they still could be active.

My First Full Day in Colorado

This is a continuation of my post from last week chronicling my road trip to Colorado and Utah. I pretty much took enough photos for each day, so from here on out, each day will be a different blog post to cover the entire road trip.

Usually, when I road trip and the day is primarily going to be sightseeing, it will still encompass some kind of geocaching, either earth caches or virtual caches and this was no exception. That third day, I woke up and headed off to a meet and greet coffee event that I was hosting in Grand Junction. I'd met two people the day before who were planning on attending but I wasn't sure what my turnout would be for a mid-week (Wednesday) meet and greet at 8:00 in the morning. I was pleasantly surprised when 11 people showed up for my coffee event. 

There were actually a couple of reasons why I decided to host an event mid-week. One, I enjoy meeting other geocaching people, putting names to faces of some of the caches that I'm probably going to find later during that trip. Two was a purely selfish reason. I wanted an extra cache type in Mesa County, Colorado to help me with that challenge I was working on for 6 different cache types in 20 different counties. We all had a good time at the event and then we said our goodbyes and I headed out to Colorado National Monument.

I've known about Colorado National Monument for as long as I can remember. My parents took us to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument back in the early 70s, so I'm at a loss as to why they didn't drive the extra hour north to visit Colorado National Monument. Needless to say, it's been on my list of places to visit ever since and it didn't disappoint. As I approached the entry point to the park, the ranger told me that there might not be a whole lot of parking at any of the pullouts or parking lots as there was a naturalization ceremony going on at the park's amphitheater. Glad I was told ahead of time, so I made do with what I could that day, but it wasn't much of a problem. Rangers were overlooking some sketchy parking that was happening on the sides of the main road, which was understandable given the circumstances.

As I drove up the road, I pulled out several times to enjoy the view and work on a couple of earth caches. Balanced Rock, in the second photo, was one of the formations I was able to see from below. Most of the park, you're looking downwards into the valley below, but I was still working my way to the mesa above. The wind and water erosion that created this formation and others in the park will eventually destroy them as well, but that's the geologic cycle at work. 

As I continued up, I saw birds circling in the distance to the east towards Grand Junction and the town of Fruita. I came around and found another viewpoint and stopped there. There was a man viewing the birds with binoculars and I asked him if he knew what they were and he stated Golden Eagles. About five minutes later, we both spotted a Bald Eagle soaring along the ridge line. I think that's the first time I've ever seen Golden Eagles anywhere outside of a zoo and only the second time I've seen a Bald Eagle. Later in the day, I saw another Golden Eagle as it flew over my head at another viewpoint. I inquired at the visitors center later on and learned that Golden Eagles nest in the park, but Bald Eagles are rare sightings as they live and nest down in the valley near the Colorado River. I thought I was rather fortunate to experience both within five minutes of each other.

While continuing my drive along the road, I stopped at another viewpoint and got to see one of the main features of the park, Independence Monument. One of the early explorers of the area climbed to the top of this particular rock and planted an American Flag on the summit, some 450 feet above the valley floor. It's become a tradition for rock climbers to ascend the formation on July 4th and fly the flag each year.

I decided on one short hike to get out to another viewpoint, then after that headed to the visitors center to gather more information about the park. By that time, there were all sorts of parking spots as many of the people who had attended the naturalization ceremony in the morning had left. I spent another hour or so in the park, then left to find some geocaches outside of the park as I'd done all of the earth caches inside the park.

To the north of the park, I found a road that had a series of challenge caches on it and I traversed the length of that road finding all of the challenges. This was actually of particular interest to me as most of the challenges were about finding different types of caches in a certain number of counties. One of the challenges wanted me to find a multi cache in 25 different counties. A multi cache is a cache that usually has at least two different spots you have to visit in order to find the cache. Before the trip, I'd found multi caches in 24 different counties and I'd literally found my 25th county earlier that day when I found a multi cache in Grand Junction on my way to visit Colorado National Monument. I'd say that was fortuitous.

All in all, it was a very good day. I'd enjoyed myself tremendously sightseeing in the monument and then had a good time geocaching later in the afternoon. As noted above, the monument didn't disappoint and I was thrilled with all of the geology and the spectacular scenery. Eventually, I got back to my hotel room, had dinner at a nearby restaurant and had a good night's sleep. The next day would also be a big day of sightseeing somewhere else.

Road Trip!

This post is primarily dealing with geocaching, so if you're not interested, then you can probably stop reading right here. Things have settled down tremendously over the early part of the year where everything seemed to be upside down. In my last post which I published back in the early first week of August, I mentioned that one of my happy places was in planning road trips. This post is the first of several detailing the road trip I took to Colorado and Utah in the month of September.

The first two days of the trip were mostly traveling, getting to my first destination in Colorado, so it was primarily driving and taking breaks here and there for geocaching. Most of the geocaches that I wanted to find on this trip were either going to be virtual or challenge caches as those two were my primary focus. I would also be working on several challenge caches, including one that wanted me to find at least 6 different types of geocaches in 20 different counties. Since I had already done that in 19 different counties, I only needed one more, so I had a focus on Iron, Salt Lake, and Washington Counties in Utah, as well as Grand County in Colorado. My first night's stop was going to be in Cedar City, UT, located in Iron County, so that's where I figured I'd be able to complete that challenge.

I didn't end up getting what I needed in Iron County, since I couldn't find a particular cache near my motel, so I settled on other things that first night. One of the last caches that I ended up finding on the first day was a virtual cache in Cedar City that focused on the history of a fort that had been built there. In the morning I tried for a couple of other cache types nearby, but it just wasn't meant to be for Iron County and so I took off for Grand Junction, CO which would be my next stop.

Once again it was a full day's drive to get to Grand Junction, so there wasn't a lot of sight seeing involved, but mostly driving and stops to find geocaches. One of the stops that day involved a virtual cache which highlighted the first Olympic gold medal athlete of Utah, Alma Richards. I'm pretty sure that something like this probably wouldn't get approved in California, but I was surprised with this one since it took me literally onto the high school campus that Richards attended, onto the track, during the school day, while a physical education class was finishing up their running activity near the monument seen in the photo. No one said anything to me, no one questioned me as I walked on to campus. It was a little on the weird side to say the least since I'm used to schools being a little bit more security conscious when it comes to strangers walking onto any school campus. Anyway, I got the information I needed for the virtual and then quickly got off of campus and back on the road.

Another goal for the trip was to find at least one cache in each county I traveled through on the trip. This was a success as I only failed to find a cache in one county that I traveled through and ended up finding caches in 14 new counties. Yes, you guess it. I'd signed a challenge cache that wanted me to find caches in at least 200 counties. At the beginning of the trip, I was at 199, so Paiute County just off I-70 became my 200th county cached in and the first new one on the trip.

At a rest stop along I-70 was a great viewpoint called Spotted Wolf Canyon. There was a virtual cache here which I completed and then it was just a matter of stretching the legs a little bit. This particular canyon was amazing as it highlighted not only the view, but the engineering that went on to wind I-70 down through the canyon at a rather steep price back in the day. This spot also highlighted one of the main reasons why I've really come to enjoy geocaching so much. I've said it many times in the past, but it bears repeating. I probably would have missed this spot entirely were it not for geocaching. This silly little game has taken me to several spots that I never would have visited were it not for the game and that included spots in places like Yosemite Valley, that I felt I had explored extensively and there was no possible way that there would be something new to see in Yosemite. Geocaching proved me wrong there and it has continued to take me to awe inspiring and interesting places.

Finally, sometime further down the road that day, I ended up finding a traditional geocache. I actually found several traditionals during the day, but this one was intriguing in that when I signed it, about five signatures above it was another cacher's stamp who lives in the same area that I do. This is not the first time I've encountered things like this, but just the latest. The last time was when I encountered another local geocacher's name in a cache that I found in New Mexico. For the most part, geocachers love to travel, so this shouldn't be that surprising, but it's always cool to see friends' names in the log sheet that you've just signed.

That evening, I stopped in Grand Junction, CO which would be my base camp for the next three days or so. I did some caching in the area, actually bumped into a couple of local Grand Junction cachers who were looking for the same cache I was. When I'm on a road trip like this, I usually try to host an event somewhere just so I can meet the local geocachers. Grand Junction was no exception, so I asked them whether they were planning on attending my coffee event the next morning. They said they'd be there and then we ended up finding that cache, plus another cache nearby that had eluded them before. After finding that second cache, we said our goodbyes with the promise of seeing each other the next morning and I headed back to my motel to log my caches for the day and to get a good night's sleep. The next day promised to be a good sightseeing day for me as I was going to tour a nearby national monument, but I'll write about that in a future blog entry.

Happy Place

It's the end of the month which means it's time for P.J.'s monthly photo blog challenge. I thought about this one, then figured that I have a bunch of happy places, things or actual places that I enjoy immensely, so I thought I could make this more about all of my happy places as opposed to just one happy place. I mean, why limit yourself? And I'm sure if I really tried, I could come up with some more, but these are the ones I've chosen for this month's photos and they are in no particular order of importance.

1. It's all about planning

Right now, I'm in the middle of my second round of immunotherapy for my cancer treatment. This is a maintenance round, primarily meant for preventive care, so that's a very good thing. I had my first treatment on Monday and I have two subsequent treatments on the 5th and 12th of next month and then it appears I'll get another 3 month break. What this means in the long run is I'm planning a road trip to Utah and Colorado.

One of the things that has been really frustrating about my illness is it's not really allowed me to plan any kind of trips because I've had appointments, surgeries, and procedures that have take top priority. I get that, but with more free time, I've been able to start planning for future trips again.

I love planning road trips. I love to look at maps and guidebooks and determine what route I will take in order to fully maximize the time I have for this specific trip. This time, the plan is to head to Grand Junction, Colorado and tour Colorado National Monument and Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. 

I've been to Black Canyon of the Gunnison way back when I was around 13. This was actually so far in the past, the park was a national monument at the time and has since been upgraded to national park status by an act of Congress. I've never been to Colorado National Monument, but I intend to spend a day at each park and make Grand Junction my base for the three days and two nights I'm in the region. 

And I will be the first to admit that I started planning this road trip too early. I've pretty much set up my itinerary, have my hotels books and know what I want to do each day and I WANT TO GO NOW! But I can't, because of my upcoming treatments. I should have waited until next week perhaps to start planning, but you'll see later in this post that waiting might not have been a really wise choice either, because next week is going to get busy.

2. Papa and Gaga time

We didn't do this very often last year, but once I got sick, time became a little bit more precious and my daughter and son-in-law started having regular video chats with us so we could see the little one. Usually these happen around dinner time, so in essence we get to eat dinner with our granddaughter on an almost daily basis and we live 300+ miles away from each other. This is just one of the many screenshots I grabbed a couple of weeks ago when we were having dinner together.

Just watching and listening to her babble about her day, what's she's eating, her insistence on seeing our two Pooh bears that she knows are at our house, and seeing her new developments that seemingly happen on a daily basis really takes me to a happy place.

I've heard it said that being a grandparent is the best and I've probably said this more than once on this platform, but it really is. And she's coming to visit in about a week. It will be a short visit, but we are both really looking forward to seeing her and her parents.

3. The Wonders of Nature

I will never be not astounded by the wonders of nature around us. It's probably why I love to travel, to experience new things in nature to me. It also allows me to practice my art of photography and although that's developed and evolved over the years, especially with my reliance more and more with my phone as opposed to my DSLR, I still love going out and hunting down that elusive butterfly, or taking a wonderful landscape photo from some place I've visited. This particular butterfly allowed me to get my phone about two inches away from it, almost as if it knew I wasn't going to try and capture it.

My parents instilled in me a love of nature and I fully want to enjoy it for as long as I possibly can. Already in my mind, I'm planning other trips that I can take in the future. 

4. Hiking

I realize this photo isn't the greatest photo, but it really encapsulates what I enjoy about getting out in nature. I've been asked why I never took up mountain biking as it appears as if I'd be a good candidate for that particular type of exercise and recreation and I think it's mainly because I feel that biking would intrude in some of the other happy places I also like to enjoy, like photography, nature and geocaching. I mean, if you're flying by something at 20 miles per hour, by the time you stop to "smell the roses" or pursue the butterfly, the butterfly has already flown away. And so I walk, and I walk, and I walk.

Before I was retired, I was pretty much limited to hiking on the weekends. Now, I just get up, look outside and if the day looks promising, I'll put on my hiking shoes and head out to a favorite trail and enjoy the day. And what's really funny about all this is, as a school teacher, we're used to loving our summers. Now, I would honestly say that summer is my least favorite season of all. It's so dang hot that unless you get up at the crack of dawn and get out on the trail, it's usually pretty miserable out there. It's so much nicer during the cooler months of fall, winter and spring, when you can go out just about any time of the day and get a good hike in without feeling like you've been on a summer death march. Plus, now that I'm retired, I can hike any day of the week, so I don't have to exclusively go on the weekends when the trails are crowded. Nice quiet trails where I can really enjoy nature take me to a happy place.

5. Geocaching

Did you really think I could get through an entire blog post talking about happy places and not talk, at least a little bit, about geocaching? I didn't think so.

So much of the past 22 years of my life has been intertwined by this silly game that I discovered. As one of my friends, who I later introduced to this game said, "Geocaching. It's hiking with a purpose!" Although I'm not sure I agree with this sentiment entirely, I did see where he was coming from with his explanation.

And yes, part of my next roadtrip will be geocaching related. I'm actually planning on hosting two event caches while out on the trip, one in Grand Junction, Colorado and another one in Salt Lake City, Utah. What better way to meet up with other geocachers in the area than by attending an event. I looked at my itinerary and then searched to see if there were already events planned (there weren't), so I decided to host my own morning coffee events. I usually do this when I'm on a road trip, but this is the first time I've hosted two events while out on a trip. It's kind of ambitious for a 7 day trip, but I'm up to the task.

It's always enjoyable to talk with other geocachers about the game. Who knows, I might end up going caching with one of the people who show up at one of my events.

The other goal of this trip is to get the webcam caches that are in the Salt Lake City area. A webcam cache is where there's a public webcam that you need to stand in front of the webcam and either have a friend back home get a screen shot of you, or you can alternately get a screen shot of yourself off of your phone.

I've signed several challenge caches for finding webcams and since there are four different webcams in this area, it's like a goldmine for cachers working on webcam challenges. To put things in perspective, there are approximately 203 active webcam caches, so they are exceedingly rare. Webcams are no longer recognized as "real" geocaches, so these are the ones that have been grandfathered into the system. They are not getting replaced, so when one gets archived, it's gone and there's not going to be one to replace it. That's why when geocachers see there's a webcam close by, they want to get their photo taken, because you never know if that particular webcam might disappear sometime in the future. Of the 10 that I've taken a photo at, only 4 of them are still active.

And there you have it, my take on the theme Happy Place. Please stop by P.J.'s page and see how other people interpreted the same theme.  And as always, please leave a comment. I won't bite.

The Week that Was

The photo is from my daughter's wedding when both of my parents were in their early 80s at the time, but it pretty much sums up the happiness of this past week. My mom turned 90 last week. That in amongst itself is an accomplishment, but it wasn't the only thing that happened in our family this past week. My parents also celebrated their 67th wedding anniversary. And if that weren't enough, my middle child and his partner both celebrated birthdays too.

I've also been meaning to write this for a couple of days, but to top the week off, I had an urology appointment and got a good report back from my urologist.  Everything looks very clean at this time. I will still be undergoing immunotherapy treatments as a preventative. Those will start back up on the 28th of this month for three weeks. I'll then get some time off and repeat the process for awhile. Overall, it looks very good and I'm very thankful for my urologist and all of the nurses who've I've interacted with over the last 8 months.

I don't think I'm going to be using that Rough Roads photo that I've been using for health updates anymore. I can't say I'm totally out of the woods as I think it's always in the back of anyone's mind who has gone through cancer treatment that there's always a possibility of it recurring, but my doctor was very confident and so am I. And as always, thank you for your kind words, thoughts and prayers. They have helped me through this stage of my life. 

Car 54, Where Are You?

I would have missed this it were it not for a plastic American flag I found lying on the ground just up the road on the right hand side of the shot. My wife and I were out on our after dinner walk when I spotted the flag on the ground, so I picked up the flag and took it to the community center which is behind me in this shot. There's a mailbox there designated for used flags to be discarded. I believe either the local Boy Scout troop or the American Legion picks up the flags and destroys them correctly.

Anyway, this old Buick was painted up like an old school Highway Patrol unit. I guess it proves that you also don't have to wander very far sometimes to see something very cool. I've always said that if someone were to give me a classic car of my choice, I'd probably choose an Edsel, but I think this one would probably rank right up there in the top five or so.

So I'm curious. What would your classic car be if you could have someone just give you anything?

Selfie

It's time once again for P.J.'s monthly photo blog challenge. The theme for this month is Selfie and although I'm very comfortable with taking selfies of myself, I'm having a hard time coming up with words to go along with each of the photos, as many of them are very similar in nature. But I will do my best to come up with enough words to cover each selfie that I took this month. And to be honest, most of them are going to center around either my granddaughter or geocaching, so be forewarned. You're either going to get excessive cuteness, or get bored reading about my favorite hobby. But it's what I have for you this month. 

1 & 2 Geocaching

This past month I went a variety of local places to find some geocaches, including a couple of virtual caches. The fact that I found a couple of virtual caches this month is actually kind of rare since I've pretty much tapped out the Southern California area of all of the possible virtual caches. 

There was a challenge cache in our area that wanted us to find 7 icons, ten each on a day. So you'd have to find 10 traditional caches on a day, then on another day, you'd have to find 10 virtual caches, or 10 multi caches. I completed that challenge years ago, but even back then I had to travel down to the San Diego area for a day of caching to get the 10 virtual caches that I needed for this challenge. So to say that I found two virtual caches this month in my local area is actually quite an achievement.

The first shot was taken near Griffith Park in Los Angeles at the L. A. Live Steamers Railroad Museum. The kicker for this particular shot is the museum is only open one day a month, the third Sunday of each month. Now why is this important? Inside the grounds is Walt Disney's old Carolwood barn which used to reside on his family's estate in the Holmby Hills area. It's the barn where he worked on all of his outdoor trains when he wasn't running them on his estate. Yes, you read that correctly. Disney was quite a train buff and he actually had a model railroad that people could ride on in his backyard. The family no longer owns the home and in fact, the barn is the only thing that remains of the house where Walt spent much of his time in the 30s and 40s thinking up, among other things, Disneyland. Since I once worked at Disneyland, I really wanted to visit this and get credit for a virtual geocache, which meant taking a selfie outside the barn.

The second shot is actually Disney related as well, because once we were done touring the museum and the Carolwood barn, we continued in the local area finding other geocaches. As we worked our way around finding caches, we ended up at the front entrance to the Walt Disney Studios which is where I took this shot. Disney Studios are located on Alameda. Myers St. is a side street almost directly across from the entrance and since that's my last name, I had to take a photo of it with me in it. For those of you interested, the geocache is located behind me in that parking lot. Can you see it?

3, 4, & 5 The Cutest Grandbaby in the Entire World

Yeah, I know I'm biased, but I really think she's wonderful. Within the last 6 months or so, we've started an almost daily tradition where my daughter or son-in-law will call us up at dinner time on FaceTime and we'll eat dinner with them, but 300 miles away. During the middle of last month, we didn't get to do that every often since they were on the east coast visiting her other set of grandparents. But I knew our time was coming since she was going to be spending over a week down here while my daughter went through some teacher training classes on-line and then had some bridal things to do because her friend is getting married next month.

We were the designated baby sitters and I'll take that job any day of the week. Last time they were down here, I got a really cute photo of her with my wife's two stuffed Pooh Bears plus her stuffed Pooh Bear. I called it the Council of Poohs and it looked like she was directing a major meeting between all of the Pooh Bears. I tried to get something like that this time, but it never worked out right. I did, however, get a couple of shots of her Pooh Bear in with the selfies as you can plainly see.

The second day they were there, she was fighting her nap and had a partial meltdown. We started to softly sing a round with her and I'm not sure if it was the singing or the vibration of my low voice, but eventually she drifted off clutching her Papa and her Pooh Bear. Nothing, I can tell you from firsthand experience, beats having a small child fall asleep on you, even if you are stuck in that position for several hours afterwards. It's worth it. 

One of the things we discovered while she was down here this time was that she loves to look at photos of herself. The second shot of her with Pooh Bear and me is of us sitting in front of my computer looking through our photo album of all of the shots we've been sent since she was born. This is one the absolute best benefits of photography these days. You don't have to worry about the price of the film since there isn't any. Take as many photos as you want and then cull them later. Or perhaps you won't cull them since they're all so great, because they're photos of your kids and your grandkid. 

I can tell you that she'd sit in my lap for hours if she wanted to see photos and eventually, she'd drift off to sleep for a nice nap if we needed it. This only backfired one time because she was right on the edge one day and I went through the photos and we got to a photo of her and her mom. Oops. That backfired spectacularly at that point because all she wanted was Mama from then on. Hey, you live and learn.

And finally, as I was looking over all of the shots I'd taken this past month, I realized that I only had four good selfies, and it's the 31st of July and it's already evening. Now I suppose I could fudge it and just take another selfie of myself with my grand daughter in the morning since they were leaving then, but then it wouldn't make the challenge parameters. Yeah, my OCD is kicking in here but there are certain principles at work here and I want this to be an honest challenge. So what's a Papa to do? Get a photo of her after she's taken a bath. She's nice and relaxed and happy and it worked out rather well. 

And so we have this last shot. I'm not sure what it is about this shot, but she really does look very relaxed. Maybe she was tired and would soon be dreaming in bed, or maybe the warm water of the bath just really relaxed her. If that's the case, then when she grows up, she really needs to get herself a hot tub.

And there you have it - my five photos for P.J.'s photo challenge theme of Selfie. Once again, please feel free to stop by the link and see what other bloggers have done with their selfies. Please leave comments below. I read each one and try to respond to all of them as soon as they get published on the blog. 

On a side note, if you do comment on something, I have to manually approve each comment. I was having a problem with spammers just randomly coming on my blog and blasting it with all sorts of junk comments and advertisements and so I changed the settings to moderator approval needed. So if it feels like your comment didn't come through, it probably did, it's just that I need to get the email and then approve it before it shows up on the site.

Thanks for making it all the way to the bottom of this. I get to see her again in just about a month when they all come down for my daughter's friend's wedding.

Where Will I Go?

Wow.  It's been over a month since my last post, which I guess in a way, that's a good thing. Most of my previous posts this year have been about my health, but since I'm feeling really good right now, it's allowed me to get out and about, which means that P.J.'s monthly photo theme of "Where Will You Go" worked really well for me. 

This past month, I was able to get two short road trips in.  One was totally geocaching related and though the wandering was just within the state of California, it gave me an idea of what my stamina might mean in the coming months should I decide to do some longer road trips out of state. The second road trip was a bit longer and it involved the granddaughter, so that's always a good thing. That trip near the end of the month was the first time we'd gone up there since my diagnosis back in December. So here's my monthly installment of the theme for this month.

1. I went where the wild things roam

A lot of my geocaching friends call me a snake whisperer. I take that as a badge of honor, but in reality, as I've noted in the past, I like to think that I'm just a little bit more observant around reptiles, especially snakes. I know of three people in my geocaching world who've been bitten by rattlesnakes and I don't want to become part of the club.

This being said, I found this guy crawling across the road that lead up to an old cemetery where I'd found a geocache. 5 minutes previously, he hadn't been there, but was halfway across the road when I came back down the hill from the cemetery. So naturally, I got out of my car, walked over and took several photos while it continued on its way across the road. I did that for two reasons, one of which was to obviously get some photos, and secondly to make sure that it got across the road without being run over by anyone coming up the road. Once it disappeared into the brush at the side of the road, I hopped back into the car and continued on my way.

2. I went where there are some "interesting" things to see

I've noted this several times in the past, but geocaching has taken me to spots that I would have just ignored previously. I'm not saying that Gum Alley was a prime tourist attraction, but it was quite different and something that I wouldn't have even known about were it not for geocaching, so that in itself is a good reason for me to continue this silly game I play.

I walked back and forth down the alley and was followed by another family of four. The older boy (about 5 or 6) had it right off the bat when I heard him whisper to his mom who was busily trying to keep younger brother from touching anything, "This is disgusting!" And yet people keep coming to sites like this, not only here in Atascadero, CA, but also other places around the world. I guess disgust breeds a kind of fascination.

3. I went into a child's imagination

My granddaughter is walking and talking and has a very vivid imagination. Her breakfast smoothies she makes have quite the list of ingredients and of course she expects you to eat them. This was the first time we were able to see her up there at her house since Christmas time and since there were other geocaching related things happening up in the Bay Area at the same time, I was able to kill two birds with one stone. It was a very fun trip and I wish we'd been able to stay longer, but we had a short window of time sandwiched between optometry appointments and dentist appointments. Fortunately, they're coming down here twice in the next couple of months so I'll still be able to get my Papa fix. We also FaceTime on almost a daily basis at dinner time, so I get to see her a lot. She fills my spirit.

4. I went hiking

This was so good. I like to hike a lot and with my health problems over the past half year, I haven't not been able to do that. But a couple of weeks ago, I went on a full fledged hike in the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park and hiked the loop trail which ended up being over 6 miles round trip from parking spot back to parking spot.

I was able to check up on a couple of my geocaches that were along the trail, four of which I'd noticed had problems since the last time I was up there. As it was, I ended up archiving two of them because they'd been buried by trail crews right before I wanted to get up there, but was able to confirm that two others were right where they were supposed to be. I also helped a couple other cachers out by checking up on their caches. 

When I got home, I was definitely gassed as my body was saying, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO ME?" Yeah, I know, I haven't done this in a while, but it's going to feel good once we get back into the rhythm of it again. My problem is I need to start getting up earlier in the morning as summer is definitely here and if I wait until 10:00 in the morning it's way too hot to hike the loop. What I need to do is get up at 6:00, hit the trail, then have breakfast, a cup of coffee and a shower afterwards. Yeah that's the ticket.

5. I went geocaching with 300 of my closest friends

Well, that's definitely an exaggeration, but I did attend a geocaching Mega Event up in the Bay Area when we were up visiting the granddaughter. For those of you who aren't geocachers, we have events all over the place. I host a monthly coffee event on the first Saturday of the month in my local area, usually drawing between 10 to 25 people. A Mega Event draws over 300 people! 

This was held in an historical park in San Jose, CA and geocachers from all over the country and possibly other countries as well converged here the last Saturday of June. There were all sorts of gadget caches (caches that are more difficult to open to sign the logbook) that we could work on at the event. The historical park gave us lots of interesting things to explore, plus there was a nice hiking trail that took us around the park to other newer geocaches that published that same day. This was the 6th Mega Event I've attended and it was a very enjoyable event. I look forward to my next event, probably next February in Yuma, AZ. 

When I go out geocaching, I always take my green ball point pen with me to sign the log in the geocache. Looking at the photo, I think I need to invest in a couple of green Sharpies so my name shows up better on the log sheet for Mega Events.

Well, there you have it, my interpretation of the theme "Where Will You Go?" Feel free to check out P.J.'s blog for his interpretation. There are links down at the bottom of that page to other people's interpretations as well. Feel free to leave your comments down below. I try to respond to all of them. Thanks for reading along.

A Brief Update

For those of you who have been following along on this journey of mine, you should recognize by now that the photo attached to this particular entry means that this entry is about my health. This is a brief update on what's been happening over the past couple of weeks.

Last week I had several procedures done.  Last Wednesday, my nephrostomy tube was removed and then Thursday of last week I had the stent removed. So for the first time since February 10th, I do not have any tubes sticking out of me or inside of me. 

Today, I received the last of 6 doses of my BCG immunotherapy. Now I'm taking a break from that as well, so the summer is free and clear for me.  BCG will probably start up again sometime in August, but for now, I'm done with surgeries and treatments for my condition.  Now it's time for my immune system to take over and wipe out the remaining cancer cells.

So, hopefully, the next post you read on here will be about geocaching.  I have a short little geocaching road trip planned for the first week in June.  The rest of the summer is going to be devoted to visits to our wonderful granddaughter.  I'm really looking forward to it.

Nicer Weather means Hiking and Geocaching.

This post is about geocaching, so if you're not into that, feel free to leave.  I won't be offended. 

Today, I went on a short hike today to test my stamina and also to scout out a spot for a hide that I've been working on. It was a short hike, but the views were worth the effort as seen by the shot I took from the trail.

One of my goals is to hide quality hides and to hide approximately 2 per month. For obvious health reasons plus weather related issues, I've only been able to hide 6 caches this calendar year, but now that the weather is better and my health is improved I can get back out and hide some more caches. Today was a start.

I found a spot that has a fairly nice view and with the type of camouflage I felt I did a pretty good job of hiding this one in plain sight. I haven't submitted it yet mainly because I want to hike back up there again to test the coordinates and to work on my stamina. Today, I walked about 500 feet further uphill before I turned around and headed back down for the day. I don't want to over do it on the first foray back into hiking.

So tomorrow, I'll head back up there to test the coordinates and see if I can get further up the hill. Oh, and as a public service announcement for those of you hitting the trail - be on the look out. I saw lizards today and unfortunately I found a two and a half foot dead rattlesnake. I much prefer the live variety to the dead one and I know some of you think I'm weird that way, but I'd much rather prefer a snake over any kind of rodent. Needless to say I was a little sad to see this guy at the side of the trail, but he was providing sustenance for other creatures, so it's all a part of the circle of life.

You Do You

Yesterday, I noticed that P.J.'s photo blogging challenge showed up in my Facebook feed and I thought to myself, "Self, this looks like another one where you're not going to have any content to post." I haven't really thought about the photo blogging challenge, or photography in general for several months, mainly because of my health issues, but this month looked particularly doable. I'd taken some shots, many of which I love and I think they all fit the theme of You Do You, since I've been concentrating on getting back to my old self, the one before the cancer diagnosis. 

I haven't got the hiking, camping or traveling parts back in place yet, but that will come, but I've been doing a lot more geocaching lately and fortunately have gotten several visits from my daughter, son-in-law, and of course the granddaughter who just lights up my life right now. So without further ado, I present to you my five shots for the theme You Do You.

1 - 4. Easter and family visits

This post in general is going to be heavy on the cutest little girl in the whole wide world. That's my unbiased opinion, and no matter what I'm sticking to it. My wife and I haven't been able to travel much over the last four or five months due to my health issues so it's been enjoyable to have the kids come to us, so to speak. By the way, if you're not up on what's been going on in my life, you can read about it starting here. There's about four posts in all detailing what's been happening. I'm in the middle of the immunotherapy treatments and I'm very optimistic about the long term prognosis. And as a friend of mine says, so I've got that going for me.

But anyway, the kids have come to us, visiting us for a whirlwind visit right after my birthday and then for a much longer visit before and after Easter. I've always been told that being a grandparent is even better than being a parent and I'm going to have to agree. It's such a joy to hear the pitter patter of little feet running around the house, to hear giggles again and just see the wonderment of a little one as she discovers the world and all there is to explore.

One of the days later in the week, we went down to visit my parents. They met their great granddaughter last summer, but she was very shy toward them. My dad just wanted to hold the baby and wasn't able to last summer, but this time the little one was a little less shy. It took awhile, but we finally got her to sit in his lap. Needless to say, he was in seventh heaven. All it took was a little screen time where they were looking at photos of herself on the phone and she just sat in his lap.

My mom ended up trading stuffed animals with her. The little one is very good about sharing just about anything with anyone, just as long as you give it back pretty quickly. This started over Christmas when I'd ask her for her pacifier. The first couple of times, I'd just take it from her and say, "Thank you!" in a high squeaky voice and then give it back to her. It became a game very quickly and now she'll give you all sorts of things, just as long you give it back fairly quickly afterwards. So that's what my mom was doing there, just playing the game.

One of the other things the little one has really glommed onto is the characters of Winnie the Pooh, particularly Pooh Bear and Tigger. We discovered this sometime in January I believe and so I went on-line and purchased a Pooh Bear for her, which has become her favorite stuffed animal. My wife and her sister had Pooh Bears when they were growing up and we have both of those bears.

As you can see, they were very much loved and have faded over time not nearly as vibrant as the newer Pooh Bear, but they were fun to have around. At one point, my granddaughter decided to have a Council of Pooh Bears. She had an entire meeting with the three of them, telling them in her own monosyllable words what she wanted each one of them to do. She was even dressed the part and I just love the way this particular shot turned out. On a side note, the Pooh Bear with the missing eye, got loved a little bit harder during the week and is now missing that bulbous nose it used to have. Things happen to stuffed animals if they're well loved, and these three will continue to be well loved for many years into the future.

And, as any self respecting grandfather will do, he will take a lot of photos of his grandchildren, particularly ones where he can get them to giggle and laugh in them. In my opinion, the best sound on earth is a tiny human giggling. It's good for the soul and what ails you and we got a lot of that during that week. If you look at this photo long enough, you can hear the giggle emanating from it.

5. Geocaching

And most of my posts would not be complete unless I mentioned geocaching in some form or another. Last week, I contacted my friend NotableFind and asked her if she wanted to go on a geocaching adventure. We decided to each take the train into downtown Los Angeles and meet at Union Station for a geocaching adventure. She's always said she's allergic to Los Angeles and because of the pandemic, I hadn't been there in about three years, so it was high time to take another walking tour of the area.

We walked down Olvera Street, then walked over to Chinatown and then back over to have lunch at Philippe's. She'd never eaten there before, so this was a must stop and the food didn't disappoint. After lunch we decided to walk over to the music center because there was a new virtual geocache that had been set up there in the past couple of months. One of the requirements was to post a photo of ourselves in front of one of the four buildings, so we decided on the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and called it good.

After that we headed back to Union Station to take our respective trains home. I think I overdid it that day because, according to my Fitbit, I walked almost 10 miles that day, way more than I've done in the last couple of months for obvious reasons. My wife and daughter have both said that I don't recognize my own limitations and I agree with them. I've come to be more aware of them. But the day was so fun and I kind of overdid it, because you know, it was fun.

And there you have it: my take on the theme You Do You. As always, please feel free to comment as I won't bite. Also, please check out P.J.'s blog to see how other people interpreted the same theme.

The Detours Seem to be Getting Shorter

Here's another quick update on my situation. A little over two weeks ago I went in for a second surgical procedure on my bladder. Coming out of surgery, I was greeted by my urologist/surgeon and he was very pleased with what he'd seen in there.  He did several deep biopsies in and around the area where the large tumor was and the pathology report came back with good news.  Not great news, but I'll take the good news at this point.

What they found was microscopic residual cancer cells around the edges of the tumor, but they found no cancer anywhere else. What this means is I'm not going to have any more surgeries for the foreseeable future.

Now comes the fun part. The big problem with cancer is the body's immune system doesn't recognize cancer cells as foreign entities, so the newest treatments have been designed around tricking the immune system to see that they really are foreign invaders.

So once a week for the next 6 weeks, I will have a type of weakened tuberculosis bacteria injected into my bladder. This treatment has proven highly successful against my kind of cancer.  After 6 weeks, I'll take a short break, then begin the regimen again. If all goes well, my immune system will take care of business and I can move on with my life.

As always, your notes of encouragement, support and love are totally appreciated. Thank you one and all.

 

Health Update

Over the course of the last couple of weeks, I've been asked a number of times how I'm feeling, what's up with my health and various other questions. Because of this, I thought I'd give you a brief update on my situation.

I didn't write about it here on Blogger, but did post about it in Facebook, so many of you already know what happened in the middle of February. My second surgery was February 10th,  and I had a third surgery scheduled for the 22nd. That surgery was postponed because 5 days after my second surgery I ended up in the emergency room and hospitalized for not one, but two pulmonary embolisms. Doctors put me on blood thinners right away and I have been steadily improving, but I'm not out of the woods yet. About a week ago, I developed a urinary tract infection (my second one since being diagnosed) and have been on a regimen of antibiotics to knock that out. I feel good overall, having gone on several four mile hikes over the last couple of days, so that's a good thing.

What it boils down to is my third surgery was rescheduled for six weeks down the road, because apparently I've been "stabilized" on my blood thinners. The surgery is still risky, but my urologist believes that he needs to get in and do some more work on the remaining tumor inside my bladder. And so I go in for surgery, tomorrow, the 29th of March. My doctor told me he didn't expect this surgery to last as long as the first one, which means my recovery should be quicker. Upshot of all of this is, this particular surgery will determine what the next line of treatment is for my cancer.

So if you don't hear from me in the next couple of days, that's the reason. As always, I have appreciated your kind words and support through all of this.

Collections and traditions

For those of you who know me well, you already know that I'm most comfortable in tee-shirts and shorts, unless it's the winter months and then it's tee-shirts and pants. Not really much difference, but at least it keeps my legs warm.

Anyway, most, if not all of my tee-shirts are ones that I've purchased when I travel. I started this way back in high school when the family would camp in Yosemite National Park almost every summer. And every time I was there, I would purchase a Go Climb a Rock tee-shirt. It sort of became a thing for a while there and I had a Go Climb a Street shirt that I bought in San Francisco and a Go Climb a Volcano shirt that I purchased in Lassen Volcanic National Park. I even had a gag tee-shirt that a friend of mine purchased for me that said Go Climb Mt. Fuji.  

After high school, I tended to drift away from the Climb shirts and just purchased ones that I liked. Most of these tee-shirts center around the national park experiences, but there's also novelty tee-shirts that some of my family and friends have purchased for me. So what does this have to do with anything?

Well, when I'm out and about I tend to wear a tee-shirt that fits the theme of the day.  If I'm geocaching, then of course, the likelihood is I'll be wearing a geocaching tee-shirt.  If I'm camping, more than likely, I'll be wearing a national park shirt. Family visits usually mean I'm wearing a shirt given to me by one of my kids.  You get the idea now.

After looking over some of my more recents shots I took at several national parks, it seems like I have a "Go to" shirt for when I enter a national park and get my photo taken at the entrance sign of said national park. I'm wondering if it's my subconscious telling me that I have to wear my Yellowstone National Park tee-shirt every time I enter a national park, or if it's just a coincidence? It's probably the latter, but no matter what, since this has become sort of a tradition, I obviously will be wearing that tee-shirt on my next excursion out into a national park, or at least when I get my photo taken at the entry point sign. And of course, because I noticed this, I'm going to either have to get back to Yellowstone to get a couple more tee-shirts, or order some on-line so I have a ready supply for future trips.