I Spy with my Eye

I got a grace period on writing this blog entry since P.J. posted his photo challenge for the month of February a little bit late this month. I'd checked it out and I had taken enough photos last month to get something together, so here goes. Last month's challenge was, I Spy with my Eye, a pretty broad theme, so just about anything goes.

1. Sunset

While I can't control what the power companies hang in the back yard easement, I can enjoy a beautiful sunset. I was standing in the kitchen looking to the east thinking, what the heck is that glow outside? I decided to check out the view to the west and was greeted with this. I called to everyone in the house to get out and check this out and then took a couple of shots. Should have taken the shot first, then called to everyone, but it still turned out nice even though it was already fading by the time I took the shot.

2. Covid Hair

Most of my friends are well aware that I've been growing my hair out since the pandemic started, not because I thought I'd start a different look, but more that I didn't feel like walking into a place with lots of other people while a disease was possibly about. More than likely, I'll get my hair cut once I've received my vaccinations, but until then, my hair continues to grow. This shot was taken on my birthday last month, 4 days after I'd passed one year without getting my haircut. Once I'd started embracing a short hair look, I figured my "long hair" days were gone and never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that the longest my hair would ever be would be after I turned 63.

3. You Make Me Happy

For those of you following along, one of the pleasures I've gotten this past year is viewing some of the artwork of talented people and the randomness of finding painted rocks out and about. I spotted this rock along a loop trail in the wilderness park north of my house while I was out cleaning up the trail. In reality, I probably should have picked this one up, but decided to leave it for others to enjoy. I also knew that eventually, it would disappear and I was correct. The next time I hiked that particular section of trail, the rock was gone, either picked up by rangers who would have considered it trash, or by another collector of painted rocks. 

4. Strengthening mind and body

This shot was taken on one of the many trails in the foothills north of my house. I love to hike on these trails just to clear my thoughts, get in shape and think about possible spots where I could hide a new geocache. Right down that fire road to the right about 200 feet or so is an old geocache, hidden by another person, that I found many moons ago, so I can't hide anything here, but that's not the point. I got out, got some good exercise and had a great view. And for those of you who are curious, the mountain on the right is the taller of the two peaks. Cucamonga Peak tops out at slightly over 8,800 feet above sea level.

5. It's too early

This photo was taken on February 23rd. It's the middle of winter, for crying out loud, and snakes should not be out and about at this time. But as climate change happens, we can expect to see this more and more unless we wake up and realize that there are things we can do to mitigate what could be a global crisis. I guess this is also a public service announcement, especially for people who live in Southern California, that you should always be careful when you're out on a hike or looking for geocaches, since we know these creatures could be active at any time. This gopher snake is pretty harmless, but I've seen rattlesnakes out and about this winter too.

And there you have it, my take on the theme I Spy with my Eye for P.J.'s photo challenge for this month. Click on the link to see his and other people's interpretation of this month's theme.

Mingo

This entry is another trip back in time to the road trip I took with my youngest in 2017. It's a continuation of the journey that took us to Beloit, Wisconsin and back again. When last I wrote about this trip here, we were in Abilene, Kansas touring the Eisenhower Presidential Library.

After the tour, we had some lunch and then took off to drive west across Kansas geocaching every so often along the way. It gives me an excuse every now and then to stop and stretch our legs as well, so the drivers don't get too tired along the way. Yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Actually, the purpose of this leg of the trip was to get to Colby, Kansas and find Mingo, which is the oldest, active geocache in the world. Mingo was hidden on May 11th, 2000, just days after President Clinton signed an executive order descrambling GPS signals so they could be used for civilian purposes. That order basically was the birth of geocaching. One of the challenge caches I've been working on for quite awhile is the Jasmer challenge - to find a cache that was hidden in every month since geocaching started. Mingo helped me get a little bit closer to that goal, getting me May 2000. On a road trip two years later I found a cache in Utah that was hidden in August 2000 giving me that month. As of this moment, I just need June and July of 2000, which is why sometime after I'm vaccinated, I want to go on a road trip to Oregon, since the two nearest caches that fill those two months are hidden up there.

Mingo is sort of a Mecca in the geocaching world. Everyone seemingly wants to find it and it's quite famous in the geocaching world. It's literally located off of an on ramp to the freeway that passes by. As we approached Mingo, I said, "There's supposedly a geo-trail leading to the cache and it's not that difficult to locate." My youngest quipped back, "That's not a geo-trail, that's a freeway."

As noted above, lots of people come and find this cache. One of my good caching friends was visiting her sister in Colorado just days earlier and had taken a road trip out to Mingo. In most cases, if you knew that another cache from your area had been to a particular cache that you were going to find, you'd make a note of it and try to find their signature on the logbook. We arrived only two days after my friend, yet a dozen signatures separated our two signatures. Like I said, it's a popular destination for geocachers.

It also changes form from time to tie. As you can see from the photo, the cache, when we found it, was a very large PVC pipe. Two weeks later it was a black container. I have no idea why people keep taking the container, mainly because it's not the original container, but it's constantly changing. Sigh.

We spent the night in Colby, Kansas and then took off for New Mexico in the morning, traveling through 5 states in a day. It was probably not the most efficient driving day, but from a geocaching standpoint, it was a lot of fun. Stay tuned to find out.

Rating the Libraries

I've been ruminating this post in my head for months and finally decided that I needed to write it out and today, President's Day, felt like the perfect day to get this one out to the public. As an aside, I have three calendars on my wall over my computer monitor and all three of them have a different way of noting today.  The Yosemite Conservancy calendar lists it as President's Day. The Nature Conservancy calendar lists it as Presidents Day. The National Park Foundation calendar lists it as Presidents' Day, so I guess, the choice is yours as to which you prefer.  

In my wanderings, I've been able to visit 5 Presidential libraries. Obviously, the California libraries (Nixon and Reagan), I've been to more than once, while the other three, I've only the opportunity to see once, however, I've been to the Lincoln Home National Historical Site more than once. Please understand these ratings are totally subjective and my opinion alone. Your mileage may vary depending upon your own preconceived notions about each man as well as your own perceptions after visiting each library. If I visit other Presidential libraries in the future, I will update these ratings including if I revisit any of the ones that are listed here. I will however note, that when I asked my youngest which ones they favored, they came up with the exact same ratings as I did, so either I've influenced them greatly, or great minds think alike. More than likely, it's a combination of the two. Also, I've chosen to write about each library in order of preference, from my least liked to what I felt was the best of the five. I will put links to all of the libraries and the associated historical sites in each rating as I get to them.

#5

Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum

18001 Yorba Linda Blvd.

Yorba Linda, CA 92886

The library, which is the closest to where I live and also the one that I've visited the most has a very good depiction of the 37th President's life with plenty of artifacts of the president as well as several interactive exhibits. There is a small piece of the Berlin Wall on display and the last time we visited, there was a huge flag created out of nothing but LEGO Blocks. For my 12 year old at the time, this was very cool.

One of the neatest exhibits I enjoyed was the World Leaders area where the museum had life sized representations of all of the world leaders of the time that you could walk amongst to get a perspective as to how tall or short some were. Preconceived notions about some world leaders definitely came into play in this exhibit and I was incredibly surprised to see how short Nikita Khrushchev was. When you read about powerful world leaders, you sort of expect them to be larger than life and yet, Khrushchev was only about 5' 3". Seen in the photo above is my youngest standing between Winston Churchill and Charles DeGaulle. My youngest stands about as tall as DeGaulle now.

Other highlights include Marine One, the helicopter that flew Nixon and his wife away from the White House on the day he resigned, which you can walk through. The house where he was born is also on the property and you can also tour this. Nixon and his wife are also buried on the grounds, so you can also pay your respects to the former president and First Lady.

The reason this one falls short, in my opinion is it was originally created by a group of "Friends of Nixon."  Apologies in advance for not knowing the exact organization, but you'll understand as you'll see a pattern in my ratings. This group wanted to keep Nixon's legacy strong and positive, so in the beginning, there literally was no mention of the events surrounding the Watergate Hotel. It was as if it had never happened. Eventually, the National Archives has taken over the running of the museum and the last time I was there, they were working on an exhibit explaining Watergate and what happened. This, I felt was the major downfall of the museum and I think it would be higher on my list if there was a more balanced presentation of Nixon's life and career.

#4

Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum & Boyhood Home

200 SE 4th Street

Abilene, KS 67410

As noted in the title, not only can you visit the museum, but you can also tour the boyhood home of the 34th president. You can also pay your respects at the gravesite of the former president and First Lady which are located on the grounds.

The museum has a well rounded amount of artifacts surrounding Eisenhower, throughout his military career and including his presidency and post presidential career. Clothing the president wore are on display as well as military vehicles the president used before retiring from the service. Known to be an avid golfer, there is even a scorecard for a round of golf the president had with Ben Hogan. Obviously Hogan won the round, but looking at the card, you can see that with handicaps figured into the scores, the President actually won the round that particular day. I found the Emmy, the only one won by a President to be very interesting, especially with Ronald Reagan's use of television in the subsequent years.

As I noted in this blog post however, there were a couple of things that I felt downgraded the museum making it fall to fourth on my list. There was very little mention of his wife Mamie. Yes, there were some artifacts, but it was almost as if she was an afterthought in this life, as opposed to his life partner. The second thing I found wanting was similar to Nixon's library, in that this library was originally established by "Friends of Eisenhower" and later taken over by the National Archives. Although the museum has a fair representation of Eisenhower's life, it still didn't seem very balanced, as if Eisenhower never did anything wrong in his life. This doesn't seem, in my mind, like a good telling of history at all if all you're going to do with a certain exhibit is tell about all of the good things and not balance them out with their mistakes. Imagine if a biographer did that about John F. Kennedy and never wrote about the Bay of Pigs? That wouldn't be a fair representation of the man or the time period. That's what I found to be the case at Eisenhower's museum.

#3

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

212 N. Sixth St.

Springfield, IL 62701

Lincoln Home National Historic Site (NHS)

413 S. 8th Street

Springfield, IL 62701

I've included both the Museum and the Lincoln Home in this review mainly because they are tied together. The first time I visited Springfield as a teenager, the museum didn't exist. My family toured the Lincoln Home, the only home the 16th president owned, as well as his gravesite in the main cemetery in Springfield. The museum is new addition to the arena of presidential libraries, as they are basically a 20th century phenomena starting with Herbert Hoover. I may be wrong, but no other president before Hoover, with the obvious exception of Lincoln has their own library.

The best word I can use to describe the Lincoln Museum is "Slick." Since it's a new museum, it uses the newest technology available to get the story of Lincoln out to you. There's one presentation in a theater where you're told the story of the Civil War through a skit that was amazing in scope. It took me until the very end of the presentation to realize that what we'd been watching, was not a flesh and blood actor acting out the lines that he'd rehearsed, but a holographic image. Very impressive and like I said previously, slick.

Because this library is run by the state of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln can do no wrong here. The great emancipator is portrayed as larger than life. There is a more balanced approach to the man at the Lincoln Home NHS, mainly because it's run by the National Park Service (NPS). One of the interesting tidbits I picked up at the Lincoln Home surrounds the tree out in front of the house. This tree is replaced every so often as they are trying to keep the house looking like it did in 1860 just before Lincoln left for Washington. Obviously, he never returned to life in the house afterwards, but because the NPS keeps replacing the tree, you still have a good view of the house, without it being obscured by a larger tree if they'd allowed the same tree to grow.

What the museum also lacked was any large scale collection of artifacts of the former president. I blame that on historical timeline. The fact that this museum showed up late in the game nearly 150 years after Lincoln's death is probably a prime factor in the lack of personal artifacts of Lincoln or his family. Most of the heirlooms can be found in the nearby Lincoln Home NHS, which I've listed above. That being said, I think the presentations more than make up for the lack of artifacts which is why it's here solidly in the middle of my rankings.

#2

Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute

40 Presidential Drive

Simi Valley, CA 93065

The library dedicated to our 40th president is located about an hour and a half west of where I presently live, yet I've only visited once, although I know I'll visit again once the pandemic is under control. The museum does a good job telling the story of Reagan, although, once again, because it's not run by the National Archives, it's not necessarily balance in approach, but the overall exhibits more than make up for this shortfall in my estimation.

There's a good collection of memorabilia associated with all aspects of the man's career, both before, during and after his presidency. There's an entire piece of the Berlin Wall on display outside in a courtyard. Obviously, it's fenced off to prevent idiots from walking off with small pieces of it, but it's impressive even from a short distance. Reagan and the First Lady Nancy are both buried here, although I haven't seen Nancy's grave as she was still alive when I last visited the museum.

When we visited, there was a temporary museum piece displaying an original Magna Carta document, one of three or four known versions of the original document. The nice thing is we were able to view it very close hand under glass and as I was viewing it, I realized that I was looking at one of the most important documents in the world and it had creases and folds in it. Obviously, the people of the time, when they transported it around probably folded it up and put it inside a pocket for safe keeping. Can you imagine if someone did that today, with say, the original Declaration of Independence? Yeah, it wouldn't happen, but it was interesting to note it.

By far and away, the coolest permanent exhibit at the Reagan Library is Air Force One. It's located in its own building, put up on pedestals and you get to enter the plane from the front fuselage and then walk through the entire plane seeing what it looked like at the time and then exit out from the rear of the plane. You can also see another Marine One, similar to the helicopter at Nixon's library there. I would also like to add at this time, that in all but Lincoln's Library, there was a recreation of the Oval Office in the White House as it looked during that particular president's tenure in office. It was very interesting to see the different styles of each president and the artwork, paintings and rugs they chose to adorn their working office.

#1 

Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum

500 W US Hwy 24

Independence, MO 64050

Harry S Truman National Historic Site (NHS)

223 North Main Street

Independence, MO 64050

Once again, I've included both the museum and the NHS in this rating, mainly because they're so close to each other.

As with other presidential libraries, this one had a great collection of memorabilia from the 33rd president's life, before, during and after. Included in the artifacts were several of the cars Truman owned in his lifetime. The delegate badges both he and his wife wore during the 1944 Democratic Convention were also on display. There were several interactive exhibits inviting the visitor to express their opinion about the man who became president during one of the scariest times in American History, the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War.

The museum did not shy away from controversial topics either, having an interactive piece on the dropping of the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Visitors were encouraged to express their opinions about the dropping of the bomb and how to access the man who made the ultimate decision. As noted above, there was a recreation of his Oval Office. I have to say, I think Truman's favorite color was green. Located on the grounds is his gravesite where he and his wife, as well as his daughter and son-in-law are buried, so visitors can pay their respects.

About 5 blocks away is the house Truman lived in for most of his adult life and tours were offered there, which we took full advantage of to learn a little bit more about him. Even without the tour of his house, which was not part of the museum, but part of the NHS, Truman's museum was by far and away, the most balanced in its portrayal of the President. There were lots of artifacts and the museum didn't avoid some of those controversial decisions he made while president much like the other museums did. As we were leaving, near Truman's gravesite, this quote stood out as a testament to him, "The Truth is all I want for History."

And there you have it, my most likely biased opinions on the five presidential libraries I've visited. Once everything settles down again and I'm able to travel more freely, I'll be looking for other presidential libraries to visit. I believe the closest one to me that I haven't visited is in Texas. I look forward to any comments you have. 

Change and Hope

It's hard to believe that another month has passed and it's time to start photo blogging about P.J.'s photo blogging challenge for the month of January - Change and Hope. There might be some political commentary in this one, so if you disagree that's fine, but we'll probably have to agree to disagree. The first two photos fall into the change category, in my mind and the last three photos fall into the hope category.

1 & 2. Change

Both of these shots don't seem like there's much change associated with them, except when you consider that both were taken in the middle of January. In years gone by, the thought of seeing sunflowers blooming on January 10th would have been unheard of, with the exception of inside a hothouse, but out in a garden somewhere? The same thing goes for seeing not one, but two different snakes slithering out and about in the middle of January. They should be underground, hibernating the cold months away.

What can we do about it? Lots of things, but we really need to think about this on a long term scale. To blindly say, maybe we are, and maybe we aren't affecting the climate isn't good enough anymore in my opinion. What we need to do is to further invest in alternative energy sources, ones that don't have as big of a carbon footprint as our current energy usage is. Can we get there immediately? Obviously, no, but every little step in that direction will help. 

3. Hope

As noted above, the last three photos I have are centered around hope in my mind, with the first of the three sort of a bridge between the two different themes. Once again, a changing climate is allowing us to see butterflies out and about more frequently in colder months. Granted, I love seeing butterflies, but not when they're not supposed to be out. However, this Common Buckeye butterfly gives me hope for the resiliency of the species. As you can see, it's pretty battered and bruised, but it obviously hadn't given up on its life mission. It was still flying around, either looking for food, or looking for a mate so it could pass on its genetic material to the next generation.

4. Hope

Those of you who know me, know I've been obsessed with painted rocks. I started seeing them during the spring and summer of this year while I was out on walks. There's a local artist who has been planting a variety of different kinds of painted rocks around the neighborhood. Either they've finally gotten bored with that activity and have moved on to something else, or perhaps they're getting discouraged that many of their pieces of art keep disappearing. This is one of the reasons why I've been photographically documenting them when I see them, so there's some kind of permanent record of them existing. I also thought this new one I spotted this month had a great message that fit in with the hope theme.

5. Hope

Finally, with the vaccine starting to roll out, there's hope for the future again. Hope that I'll be able to get back on the hiking trail with longer hikes and more camping. I've been staying very close to home, not spending any overnighters anywhere since a year ago February and I'm hoping, at least, that that aspect of my life can return to a semblance of normal. I have a couple of backpacking excursions planned over the next couple of years and I hope I can get back on the trail soon. I also want to label my posts more than just with the California tag.

Well, there you have it. My take on the them of Change and Hope. As always, I welcome your comments. Please click on the link above to see how other people interpreted the same theme.

Geocaching Goals for 2021

This post will once again, be about geocaching, so if you're not interested, you can stop. Trust me when I say I won't be offended if you leave.

Last week, I reviewed my geocaching accomplishments from the previous year. In this post, I'm going to write about goals that I'm going to set for myself for the upcoming 2021 geocaching year. Nothing really exciting or eye opening, but I want to put them down in writing so to give me something to shoot for. 

1. Have fun - I always put this as my first goal. I'm a firm believer that things that you do in life should be fun, challenging possibly, hard possibly, but they should also be fun. If they're not fun, why do them?

2. Average 100 cache finds per month - Last year, my goal was to find at least 100 per month, and average 125 per month overall. I didn't reach either of those goals, mainly due to the pandemic. I'm not sure how long before I can get in line for a vaccine, which will allow me to take some longer trips again, so I'm committing to just an average of 100 per month. That will put me above last year when I found slightly over 1000 geocaches in the entire year. Granted, the first 500 were found in the first two months, so I was off to a roaring start, but as noted above, the pandemic hit and everything shut down.

3. Hide good quality caches, including more non-traditional caches - This is a continuation of two of my goals from last year. I hid only 5 traditional cache hides last year, but I also hosted 5 events, and hid 6 Multi-caches, 4 Wherigo caches, 8 Mystery caches, and 2 Letterbox Hybrid caches. So I want to continue with this, probably less Mystery caches and more of the other types listed above. Once events are allowed again, I'll start back up hosting them as well, but I suspect that that won't happen until most of us are vaccinated, so perhaps in the fall?

4. Color the grid - If you look at the grid, you'll notice the bottom half of the calendar has all of the dates in a darker shade of green than the top half. There are several challenge caches out there that challenge geocachers to find a certain number of caches on each calendar date, the obvious first one is to find one on every day of the year. The geocaching grid, changes colors at the following number intervals, 1, 11, 26, 100, and I believe 500, but I'm not sure on the last one. Anyway, after the pandemic set in and a lot of outdoor activity was curtailed originally, most of my goals went out the window, so I set up new goals in my mind, one being to get all of the numbers up to at least 26 find per date, since I'd already accomplished 11 per date several years ago. As you can see, I started working on this in earnest sometime in late July. The next date to color is this Friday and Saturday, the 22nd, and 23rd.

This is, in my mind, a challenging goal since there aren't a whole lot of unfound caches close to my house anymore, so I have to travel farther to find caches, either up to the high desert, or east to Redlands, or south into Orange County. I don't mind that, but when there are 4 or 5 days in a row, where I'm going to need to find caches if I want to accomplish this goal, then the logistics of finding areas where there are enough caches to find comes into play. The end of this month, or the months of April and May will be more challenging if I'm going to complete this goal. It's a game though and if I don't complete this goal, it's not the end of the world, but I'd like to complete it on July 28th, which would be the last date I need to color. There are at least two challenge caches south of me that want 20 or 26 finds per date for all calendar dates. I'm close to that, so it would be cool to finish that goal this year, then plan a trip down to San Diego County to get those two caches.

4. Find some caches in new counties - As you can see on the map, I've found at least one cache in every county in California, Arizona, and Nevada, so this will involve some travel, which I'm OK with, once I've gotten vaccinated against COVID-19. One of the goals I had last year was to complete my Jasmer Challenge (finding a cache hidden every month since geocaching started), and to accomplish this, I'll have to travel to Oregon. So I figured, I might be able to accomplish last year's goal and this year's in a similar trip. This is all contingent on getting the vaccine in the near future, but I'm confidant this will happen sooner as opposed to later.

5. Complete at least 2 challenge caches I've already signed - The beauty of challenge caches is you don't have to wait to sign the log until you've accomplished that particular challenge. You sign the logsheet, post a note on the cache page and then work toward that particular goal. Up in Kern County, there is a series of challenge caches, of which at this time, I've only not signed on of them, but I haven't qualified for all of them (got that?), so I can work on any one of those. The easiest to accomplish would be to go up to Kern County and find 17 more caches there. One of the challenges I've signed is to find 500 caches in Kern County. I'm at 483 right now, so once I can travel a little bit more freely, that one should be easy to complete. Then I need to start working on some of the others that I don't qualify for yet.

6. Have fun - As noted last year, and above, I've already posted this, but I just want to reiterate that if it's not fun, then I shouldn't be doing this.

So there you have it, my geocaching goals for this year. Comments on this page are, as always, welcome. Thanks go to my friend Monica, who took the first photo of me finding a cache this summer.

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.