Reviewing accomplishments

This post is all about geocaching, so if you're not interested in geocaching, you can leave.  No, really, I won't be offended.

Last year at this time, I posted my goals that I wanted to accomplish with regards to geocaching in 2020. Just looking back on them, I didn't hit many of the goals, but then again, we all know what hit last year and I'm sure most people who made geocaching goals had the same out come over the course of the year. Still, I wanted to go back and review them to see how close I came and what I want to do in this upcoming year. Obviously, goals are works in progress, so as I reach goals, I'll probably add more goals to the list in the future. I didn't do that last year, mainly because last year was just a plain, weird year.

Goals for last year were:

1. Have fun

2. Find at least 100 caches a month, average 125 a month

3. Hide good quality caches

4. Hide more non-traditional caches

5. Host 12 to 15 geocaching events

6. Attend as many Community Celebration Events as possible

7. Complete the Jasmer Challenge

8. Have fun

So, let's look and see what happened. As you can see, my goals were bookended by the two words, Have Fun. If I'm going to do this, I want it to be fun. And, when I went out it was fun, but it was also different. I've always enjoyed caching with other individuals and outside of the first two months of the year, geocaching was pretty much a solitary event this past year, as it should have been expected.

The second goal was to find 100 caches a month and average 125 per month. Well, you can look at the graph on the right and see that didn't happen. I would be willing to bet that most people's geocaching habits went out the window once the pandemic hit and we went into shelter in place mode, but once we got more information as to how this particular disease works, it became apparent that it was fairly safe to go out and geocache by yourself. I'm not going to keep this goal in place as I have other goals that I want to accomplish that might get in the way of this particular goal. So I guess I'll be playing this one by ear.

Lumping the next three goals together, I partially accomplished that one. Last year, I hid 30 caches, of which only 5 were traditional cache hides. I hosted 5 events before the pandemic hit, so I would have reached that goal easily, and technically, I really did hit that goal, although it won't show on the stat sheet since I've been hosting virtual geocaching coffee events every two weeks since the middle of June.

I also hid 6 multi-caches, 4 Wherigo caches, 8 mystery caches, 2 letterbox hybrids and 2 Adventure Labs. As far as quality, I'll have to leave that up to the finders, but I seem to have seen an uptick in the number of favorite points my caches have been receiving, so I guess that's a good thing.

There literally was only 1 Community Celebration event that I could have attended before everything got shut down (event-wise) at geocaching, and I wasn't comfortable attending at that time, so that goal went by the wayside. I'm sure, eventually, we'll be able to attend events again, once vaccinations take hold and things start to open up again, but I would willing to bet that it probably won't happen until this summer. I'm taking the "Let's be patient" attitude towards events, but once it's safe, I'm hoping that we can have events again. It's fun to get together with other geocachers and just talk about geocaching without having people give you that glazed eye look.

The last goal was to complete my Jasmer Challenge. I feel this one would have been accomplished this year, were it not for the pandemic. For those of you who are still reading along and are not geocachers, the Jasmer Challenge is to find at least one geocache that has been hidden in every month that geocaching has been around, meaning I need to find a geocaching that was hidden in May 2000, June 2000, etc., etc., ad nauseam all the way to the present day. As of this time, the only two months that are still eluding me are June and July 2000. The graph hasn't totally updated as I have already found a cache hidden in January of this year. The plan last year was for a road trip to Oregon. There are caches that were hidden in both those months as well as a cache hidden in May 2000 which I planned to get this past summer. Once again, the pandemic did a number on this goal, but eventually, that goal will fall too, if not this year, then it will become a priority in 2022.

So there you have it. It was fun, some goals were accomplished, while others weren't. In retrospect, I think that because I didn't go out and cache as much, I was able to concentrate more on some of my hides and that, in itself, might have contributed to higher quality caches. I'll need to remember that in the future. I think I'll create a new goal post in the next couple of days. I think if I did it here, the entry would become too large, so it will be better to break it up into two different parts. 

The Magic of the Season

This one is a couple of days late, but it's because of the season. Yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking with it. Anyway, this is for P.J.'s Photo Blogging Challenge and the theme for last month was The Magic of the Season. Here's my take on this theme from Southern California.

1. Santa Bank

I have no idea how old this bank is, but if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say it's close to 80 years old, possibly older. I do know, however, that it sat under our family Christmas tree every year while I was growing up and it also sat under the family Christmas tree while my dad was growing up. About 20 years ago, my parents gifted it to me and it's held the same position of honor under our tree ever since. Eventually, I'll gift this to one of our children and hopefully, they'll continue the tradition.

2. The Christmas "Star"

This year we were able to be witness a "once in a lifetime" convergence of Jupiter and Saturn. My youngest has had an interest in astronomy since a very young age. I brought home a videotape about astronomy when they were 5 and they watched it over and over again. The quote I'll remember from that was at one point, they called me in and said, "Dad! This guy's an astronomer! And he gets paid to do it!"

Career choices change over time, but my youngest has had a large scale telescope since they were 5 or 6, so we hauled that out into the back yard to take a look at Jupiter and Saturn. The photo is exceedingly poor because we didn't have the right set up. I was aiming my iPhone through the eyepiece in the hopes of getting a decent shot and this was as good as it got.

What the photo doesn't show was the magnificence of the rings of Saturn, nor does it show three of the four large Jovian moon we could see as we gazed through the eyepiece. It was an amazing show from the heavens and definitely part of the magic of the season, at least this year.

3. Christmas Tree

The weather was good for a good portion of the month of December which afforded multiple opportunities for hikes in the foothills  north of my house. Apparently, it's a tradition by some of the locals who live close to the trailhead to decorate a tree near the trail.

This was new to me, but I found this Christmas tree to be quite festive. It's not often you stumble across a decorated pine tree on a trail away from suburbia.

4. Nativity Scene

The Claremont United Methodist Church has a nativity scene that fronts Route 66 in our town every year. But it's never a traditional nativity scene. It's always thought provoking, and meant to bring awareness to injustice of some kind. This year, the theme was "Black Lives Matter." You can read their 2020 Nativity Theological Statement here.

5. Snow, like clockwork

Every year, it's always the same thing. Right around Christmas Day, usually a couple of days afterwards, Southern California gets its first winter storm, which always blankets the local mountains. Then, after that storm, everything clears out and it's always gorgeous. ALWAYS! January 1st rings in the new year and we have sunny, mid 60s weather, with the mountains as our background.

And of course, the Rose Parade (with the exception of this year) broadcasts that weather to the entire nation. Only twice in the past 70 years, has it rained on the Rose Parade - both times coincidentally, when the Grand Marshal of the parade was a U.S. Supreme Court Justice (Earl Warren in 1955, and Sandra Day O'Connor in 2006). Usually, it's "sunny and mild" on New Year's Day.

And I blame the Rose Parade for the population in California. And I first have to place a disclaimer here because I'm not a native born Californian, having been born in Indiana. So I'm a transplant as well, but I had no control over that, since I've lived here since I was 3. But I still blame the Rose Parade. Every year, the great weather gets broadcast to the rest of the country and the conversation goes something like this:

"MARTHA! Come look! They're wearing shorts again in Southern California!"

"That's it George. It's time to move to California."

And there's my take on the Magic of the Season. Check out P.J.'s page and read how other people interpreted the theme this past month.

Curbside Appeal

The title of this blog is Webfoot Wanderings, but it seems like I haven't been wandering very much outside of my own town. So, I guess I'll take what I can get. 

On my Instagram account (@webfoot55), I posted a photo of an imprint that I used to see all the time growing up in Santa Ana, CA. This photo was actually taken in Claremont, CA, but it reminded me of the neighborhood where I grew up, so I took a photo of it. I also liked the fact that this particular imprint, designating when the cement for the sidewalk or curb in this case, was poured. Contractors would get some free advertising and the city would get some nice curbs and sidewalks, plus an additional bonus of some historical perspective. Kind of nice to realize this particular curb has been around since before my parents were born.

Most of these imprints seem to come in two different varieties, either stamped into the face of the curb, or stamped at the junction between two pieces of the sidewalk. I seem to remember that most of these in Santa Ana tended to be in the sidewalks as opposed to the curbs. Claremont seems to have both. It's probably more of the contractor's preference more than anything else. The one posted above is the oldest I've seen, but there's one on a sidewalk north of my house that is dated 2002, so they've been used at least in the last two decades.

As I wandered around town today, I did notice that the sidewalk version of these imprints tended to be more worn than the curbside imprints. That's pretty obvious since there's a lot more foot traffic and so erosion is going to take its toll over the course of the years. I found one in a sidewalk today dated 1947 that was very difficult to read, almost looking like 1997. That was highly improbable however, due to the age of the houses and the look of the rest of the sidewalk on either side of that particular imprint. But hopefully you can see the difference between the first two images, the first being on the side of the curb, while the second is in the sidewalk. The curb imprint appears to be in much better shape than the sidewalk imprint, which is 27 years younger. Between these two imprints were other imprints dated 1943, 1946, and 1947, showing the progress of the streets, curbs and sidewalks northward leading to Route 66 which is Foothill Blvd., in Claremont. That's a nice historical record there.

However, the historical record is slowly being wiped away by progress and government laws. Not that this is a bad thing, it's just happening. Tree roots uplift the sidewalk and sidewalks need to be replaced, or shave down. If the tree happens to uplift a section of sidewalk that the imprint is on, the imprint will either be shaved away as the city attempts to even out the pavement, or be replaced entirely by another section of pavement.

The American with Disabilities Act (ADA) has also taken a toll on these historical artifacts. This law, passed in 1990, is a civil rights law which prevents discrimination against individuals with disabilities. It's the reason we have ramps now at street corners so people in wheel chairs can traverse throughout the city in which they live without having to bump off a curb, or go down the street to the nearest driveway so they can cross the street. As you can see in the third shot, what is likely a 1926 vintage imprint was wiped out because the curbing at this point had to be lowered to accommodate wheelchair access. 

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining about the ADA, I'm just noting that the law has some unintended consequences. Stuff happens. Some of these will hang around for a longer time frame, while others will disappear due to where they were placed.

Which brings me to my final thought. I seem to remember that most of the imprints in my Santa Ana neighborhood tended to be in sidewalks, but I also seem to remember them being on corners. I wonder if most of them have been wiped out because newer wheelchair accessible sidewalks have had to be built? I guess I need to head back to the old neighborhood sometime to see if those are still there.

The Great Outdoors

For those of you who follow me on Facebook, you've already seen this, but I thought this was rather apropos for P.J.'s photo blogging challenge for this week, The Great Outdoors. So yeah, I'm cheating a little bit since this is actually a collection of 10 photos that I took on a hike this past week, but they work for the theme. 

The hike is an extended hike in a park up in the foothills above my house called the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park. It has a nice 5 mile loop that I extended to make it almost 7 miles. The trails up in the foothills intersect at various locations and the first photo is the sign where the parking lot for the park is located. From there, the trail then splits into either Burbank or Cobol Canyon and those two trails meet on the back side up in the hills. I went up the Cobol Canyon side and then extended it into Johnson's Pasture, which is a large portion not really part of the loop, but has several trails that run through. The hike then continues through Johnson's Pasture and back into the neighborhood where I parked my Jeep.

In June of 2019, I wrote for another photo challenge about encountering a bear on this trail near the back side up at a higher elevation. I've encountered a variety of wildlife on this trail, but it was relatively quiet on this hike.

I found a new app called Relive, which takes your data as you walk and then puts into satellite images to give you a 3D video of your hike. This video is the second video I've created. Neither one is perfect. The first one, I forgot about the aspect ratio and so the edges were cut off so you couldn't see the data. This one has all of the photos interspersed on the hike, but I think it breaks up the hike aspect of it too much. I'll be working with this app in the future as I go on more and more hikes now that the weather has finally started to cool down again.

So here's my interpretation of The Great Outdoors. Please stop by the link at the top of the page to see how others interpreted this them for this month.

It's that time of year

For those of you who don't live in Southern California, this is wildfire season, because this is the time our Santa Ana winds kick into high gear. A massive high pressure system is sitting over the desert and the mountain passes are acting like huge funnels sending high winds (70 mph or higher is some cases) through the passes and into the coastal areas. Everything is tinder dry and there are already reports of brush fires in Orange County south of us.

We moved into our current house in 2003 in June and in October of that year the Grand Prix fire swept across the foothills just north of our house. The fire was 15 miles to the east of us when we went to bed that night and the next morning it was probably 5 miles beyond us to the west. Almost 70,000 acres were consumed and 194 house destroyed. Fortunately, no loss of life happened, but many people's lives were permanently disrupted.

I took this photo this afternoon of my front parkway. This would have been a major nuisance in my mind in my younger days. However, these lost limbs are a minor inconvenience compared to some people who are at this very moment preparing to evacuate on a moment's notice. I need to remember that.

Snap Away!

I haven't participated in P.J.'s photo blogging challenge in a couple of months, mainly because I don't like to force my photography, rather I like to let my photography happen and see if anything might fit the theme for that particular month. Needless to say, nothing in my photography in the last couple of months has really fit recent themes, but this month's theme was Snap Away! and I figured anything I took this month would probably work and I've got a few nice shots that I can write about. 

Hopefully, this will get me blogging again as it's been almost two months since I've written anything here too. Got into the doldrums with not being able to do much of anything and just didn't really feel like writing anything. I have a variety of subjects I still have in the back of my mind that I want to write about, most notably I'd like to finish up my 2017 road trip. When last we left our intrepid explorers, they were in Abilene, Kansas. But that's for another entry. This is for the photo blogging challenge.

So here we go.

Bobcat Fire

As anyone knows who follow the news at all, the west coast of the United States has pretty much been burning out of control. This shot, which was taken on September 9th, is looking over my garage. The Bobcat fire started on September 6th, so it was relatively new at the time I took that shot, but it just exploded over the past three weeks. As of this writing, it has burned 114,000+ acres and is now only 63% contained. And this is just one such fire in California, let alone the rest of the western states. If you click on the link and back out of the map a little bit, you can get an idea of what the fire situation is like in the western United States. It's brutal and we really have just started fire season now!

Mushrooms

Mushrooms don't seem to last very long in an urban area. People like to kick them over as soon as they come up. These particular mushrooms are actually creating a lopsided fairy ring. Unfortunately, the groundskeepers at our local park mow the grass on a regular basis, so the mushrooms don't last very long. The day after I took this shot, most had been kicked over, probably by kids, but they wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway because the grass was mown about two days later. Still it's interesting to see how the grass to the right, and inside the fairy ring, is slightly greener and always taller than the grass on the outside. I'm not sure if this is a product of the mushrooms providing extra nutrients to the soil or not, but I enjoy watching them pop up.

Watch where you walk

Last week, I went on an extended hike for the first time in awhile, due to the excessive heat we've been having here in California. We're having more right now, but this is sort of a "last gasp" of summer before it really gets cooler. Earlier, it was just damn hot, triple digit type of heat.

The reason for this shot, is more of a public service announcement more than anything. I've already posted this shot on Facebook for my friends and hiking buddies, but everyone should consider this shot. First, if you look closely, you will see that this is a baby rattler. How can you tell? First, there is little to no rattle, but it has a nice triangular shaped head, so I knew is was a rattler right away. Second, if you look at the footprints, you can see the snake is very small, compared to the footprints. Adults will get several feet in length. This one was no more than a foot long, just sunning itself in the middle of the trail.

When I hike, I usually scan several paces ahead of me, just in case I encounter something like this, so I was aware of it and stopped short. People not paying attention might have stepped right on this one. Once I got my shot, it decided that I was bigger than it was and it turned tail and headed back into the bushes and I made a wide berth around it on the other side of the trail. Thing to note is, not more than 100 yards (meters) to the right of this shot are residential houses. We live in their homes, so we should not be surprised if they show up in our back yards.

Embrace the shaggy

My last haircut was on February 12th. For those of you keeping track at home, that's 7 and a half months, for a guy who usually keeps his hair closely cropped, it's pretty much out of control at this point. I haven't felt comfortable going back to my barber to get it cut and so it continues to grow. This shot was taken on September 1st, so it's had another month to grow since then and it's almost as long as it was when I was in college, when it was "fashionable" to have long hair. I've been told to embrace the shaggy and I have done that, but my wife still likes a clean shave as opposed to a "Grizzly Adams" type of look, and so I still keep my face shaved for her sake.

I have had a beard from time to time, but the last time was the year before I retired. I shaved it off on the last day of school 2018 and haven't had one since. A co-worker said I reminded her of the movie character Benjamin Button, because it appeared that I was aging in reverse as I approached my retirement. Whatever works I guess. I wonder if it still looks like that however?

My better half

I took this photo when we were celebrating my youngest's birthday. My daughter ordered Ding Ding Dongs from a local bakery. We used to live right next door to the owners, so we're trying to support our friends and some local businesses at the came time. Cucamonga Cakery has a Facebook order form where you can order and then pick up on Saturdays, so if you live in our local area consider supporting a local business. Now after my shameless promotion, back to my better half.

She has become harder and harder to photograph over the years. I'm not sure what it is, but I used to be able to get, what I considered really good photos of her, but recently, I haven't, which is why I'm very pleased with this shot as it's one of the best photos I've taken of her in probably five years or so.

And there you have it. This is my five shots for P.J.'s photo blogging challenge for the month of September. Please stop by his site and check out how others interpreted the same theme. I hope you enjoyed my shots and I have to admit, I really enjoyed going through the shots I took this month to come up with five that I could really write stories about. Here's looking forward to writing more about more of my wanderings.

Abilene

This entry is another trip back in time to the 2017 road trip my youngest and I took that summer. After touring Harry Truman's library in Independence, MO, we crossed over into Kansa for a short trip to Abilene. Why Abilene? Well, we had some geocaching to do, plus some more history, since Abilene is where Dwight D. Eisenhower's Presidential Library is located. It's also the northern terminus for the Texas Cattle Trail. We learned that while finding a virtual geocache at the boulder that marked the terminus of the trail in the middle of town. After checking in to our motel, we just sat around as we were going to visit the library the next day. My youngest hung out in the room and I found some nearby geocaches and then we called it a night.

The next morning we drove south a couple of miles to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Museum and toured both his boyhood home and then later in the morning the library and museum dedicated to his presidency. Eisenhower's house was enjoyable, but unfortunately, due to safety standards we weren't able to go upstairs to visit the upper rooms as the foundation established originally didn't want to have to alter the house in any way. Fire codes would have necessitated adding an outside fire escape on the upper floor and that was out of the question, so no one was allowed upstairs. It was still interesting as to what we saw. The family bible was on display and it had the birth record of Eisenhower displayed.

Following our tour, we headed over to the museum to learn about the life of our 34th president. It should be noted that this museum was originally operated by the Friends of Eisenhower and so did not have any Government influence at first. Eventually, the National Archives and Records Administration took over the library. Because of its origins, the library had a certain slant and there didn't seem to be a balance approach to the coverage of Eisenhower. Everything we saw was hued in a way to put Eisenhower in a positive light, contrary to what we had seen the day before at the Truman museum. Truman's was operated by the National Archives from the get go and presented, in my opinion, a much more balanced approach to Truman.

I was very pleased with the amount of artifacts from Eisenhower's life, including the Emmy he won for his extensive use of television during his presidency (thus far, he's the only president to win an Emmy). We were able to see his cars, his military uniforms, his cadet hat from West Point, plus a golf card for a round of golf with Ben Hogan, Paul Helms and George Allen. Hogan won the round straight up, but when you calculate the handicaps in, the president actually won the round.

The only thing I found curious about the library in general was the almost total lack of any mention of his wife Mamie at the library. One room had some artifacts, but for the most part, it was almost as if she was just a footnote on his historical journey through life. Maybe that's the way it was, but the other presidential libraries I've toured, the First Ladies were definitely a part of the history. Mamie didn't seem to be much of an influence in his life at all.

Once we'd toured the museum proper, we then walked across the ground and paid our respects at the graves of the President and First Lady. From there, it was time to drive the length of Kansas, heading to the Mecca of all geocachers, the oldest active geocache in the world.