Well, it's the first of the month again and once again, it's time for P.J.'s monthly photo blog. This time the theme is "Explore the World" and while I didn't leave the country or even the state, I did get around, so I have lots of shots to choose from for this month's theme. Without further ago, here's my take on the theme, Explore the World.
1. Reaching milestones
Part of the fun of geocaching are the goals that we attain as we play this silly game. I keep a number of goals in the back of my mind all the time just in case. Sometime back in February, someone told me that they were going to make one of their number milestones the Block Party in Elysian Park near Dodger Stadium. Geocaching has given any Mega Event (Events over 300 people attending) the chance to be a Block Party this year since it's Geocaching's 25th year of existence. The Block Party icon is different than the normal Mega event icon, which got me to thinking. I wonder if I could get my numbers to such a point that I could make the Block Party a major milestone?
I looked at my numbers and I was in a dilemma as I would either have to really slow my amount of geocaching down in order to make my 26,000th geocache find the Block Party which I plan on attending in late June up in San Jose, or pick up the pace of my geocaching and make my 26,000th fall at the Block Party happening at the beginning of May. Well, as you can see, I picked up the pace considerable, and made the Spring Fling Block Party my 26,000th find since I started back in March of 2001. In reality, it's just a number and I have many of my friends that have bigger numbers in less years and others who have less numbers in about the same number of years as I have been geocaching, but it's kind of cool to look at my geocaching profile and see the icon as 26,000. WARNING! If you click on that link, you'll be inundated by more maps and statistics that you probably thought were possible, but it'll give you a little bit of a glance into some of the things that interests me when I'm geocaching.
2. Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
Another thing that interests me is walking around in cemeteries. Yeah, that might sound kind of morbid, but usually I'm there for a purpose. In this case, I was up visiting my tiny human just before Memorial Day weekend and on one of the days when she was at pre-school, I decided to visit the town of Colma, California. Colma has the distinction of most of its land being dedicated to cemeteries and the dead in town number around 1.5 million, which outnumbers the living by about 1000 to 1. This has led to Colma being called "the City of the Silent" and has given rise to a humorous motto that was featured on the city's website in the past: "It's great to be alive in Colma." I actually visited a couple of cemeteries in Colma as there were earth caches to discover and a virtual cache as well. Sometimes people will place Adventure Labs at cemeteries to allow people to discover some of the interesting aspects of that particular cemetery. I was actually doing research at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in order to create my own Adventure for others to discover.
When I wander around cemeteries, it's also intriguing to figure out why people ended up there as opposed to somewhere else. I know that most of the San Francisco politicians end up being buried in Colma, because there isn't any land available in San Francisco proper to be buried unless you have a plot in one of the military cemeteries there. But others make you think a little bit, for example Joltin' Joe. He was born in Martinez, California, but spent most of his adult life in New York and later Florida. Why did he choose to be buried in this particular Catholic cemetery in Colma? And it's especially intriguing since none of the rest of his family are buried there. His brother Dom is buried in Massachusetts and his other brother Vince is buried at Ft. Bragg National Cemetery in California. But after a little digging, I figured out that both of his parents are buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in the Mausoleum, so now it makes sense.
3. Always watch where you put your feet
Coming home from Colma, I stopped in several locations to find some geocaches and I stopped in a Park n Ride just off the freeway. I pulled into the parking lot, parked the car, then got out and walked through the lot over to where the geocache was hidden. The cache wasn't hidden very well, as I could see it as I walked up and I was focused on it as I took my first step off of the pavement into the surrounding terrain. Something in the back of my mind said, "Self, have you looked to see where your feet are going to land?" So I glanced down and then pulled my foot back as I was about to step on this nice 3 foot gopher snake. Curious, it didn't seem to be the least bit interested in me and didn't flee right away, which allowed me to get several shots off, before it decided to head down a hole which was right in front of it.
So I circled around the snake, went over and found the geocache, signed the log sheet, replaced the geocache, turned around and was surprised to see the snake in the same spot, about a third of the way down the hole. What the heck? About the time I got close, I saw the snake jerk a little bit and then I could see its body tense up. Then I understood. It had been silently waiting for that squirrel or gopher to come out of the hole and I kind of interrupted its lunch. So it went after the rodent instead. I believe it had a hold of the rodent in the hole and was slowly tensing its body in order for the rodent to expire so it could have lunch. Lots of constrictor snakes don't need to wrap their bodies around their food, they just have to maneuver them into an area where they can press against it and basically accomplish the same thing as constricting around the animal.
At that point in time, I could hear my own lunch calling my name, so I left the snake go and walked back over to the car. As I drove out of the Park n Ride, I could see the snake still partway in the hole, so I'm pretty sure that's what it was doing.
4. Zoo and Museum with the tiny human
Friday of Memorial Day weekend was a "Day with Daddy and Papa." The tiny human didn't have pre-school that day, so we decided to go down to Palo Alto to a children's museum and zoo. Meercats, giant tortoises, flamingoes, rabbits were all on display.
There were several areas that were designed for children to view the animals in a different way, including this very large tank of African Cichlids. Of all the photos that I took of my tiny human this weekend, I believe this is my favorite of them all. She just loved looking at the fish and we stayed there quite a while until other aspects of the zoo and museum beckoned.
5. David in pieces
On the last day of the month I went geocaching with a friend of mine down in the Fullerton area. On the campus of Cal State Fullerton was a new Adventure Lab that highlighted some of the pieces of artwork that dotted the campus. One of the places the Adventure took us to was this life size replica of the statue of David, although it was in pieces, with just the feet still in the upright position. The statue was originally installed at the Forest Lawn cemetery in Cypress, California, but fell over and was damaged beyond repair during the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake.
Donated to the CSUF campus, it was installed in pretty much the way the statue was laying when it fell. The Adventure also went on to say that campus legend states that you will receive good luck on your finals if you rub a certain area of David. Hmmm. I wonder what that could be?
And there you have it, my take on the theme for this month of Explore the World. Please feel free to comment. I will not bite and I read each and every comment and try to comment back on each one. Click on the link to P.J.'s page in order to see how others dealt with the same theme.