Daniel Did It!

Daniel did it.

He completed the Duty To God Award.
It took all of the 6 years to complete it, but its done.
Daniel is the only young person I have seen received this in the Branch.

This is way cool, I'm really proud of Daniel for doing this.

A Day On Mountain Ashland

Labor day was the day I pick for the Big mountain bike ride off the hill.
We pick Mount Ashland.
We started out with 3 riders and ended up with 8 in the group.
In the picture to the right, going from left to right.
Noah, Dan (?), Randy, Ben, Paul, Daniel, Dan (Me), and John.
Two of the wifes drove the cars down from the ski area back to Litha park and stayed there with the babys.
It is a great ride, total of about 15 miles, and most of it was down hill.
It took about 2 hours to complete.















We found this nice jump, so it had to be jumped.
Daniel making a run at it in the yellow helmet.
Noah made a nice jump.
Than there was Dan, the picture only show Dan landing.
The then He dose this side ways,up side down, and land on his back.
I cut 2 hole in the front tube, and I think thats what made me crash.

Eight started and eight made it down the hill ok.

Maybe we can make the a Labor Day treadication.

Book Report Time, Undaunted Courage

Undaunted Courage, By Stephen E, Ambrose.
This is about the Lewis and Clark, hike, trip, adventure, and exploring or expedition.
I learn that the President Jefferson, had plan the trip out completely.
Lewis was the President's person secretary for some time and the President had been training Lewis for this trip, as He lived in the President home for over a year.

Lewis, also was sent off for 6 months to learn from experts in the fields of plant and animals, so as to be able to write down the description correctly.
Also, another expert in star observation, to learn to use a sexton as there was no know maps of the country that they would be crossing, this information would be helpful in drawing up the new maps.

As for the trip is self:
Jefferson was looking for a short cut to the Pacific ocean by a water way, it did not happen.
They would kill 10 elk, deer or buffalo a day for food.
They ate mostly meat, and at one point, they would consume 9 pounds of meat per man a day.
There favorite meat was dog meat, if the Indian's would sell it to them.

The bear was the hardest animal to kill.
One bear that they did kill, four men with 6 guns, four of the men shot four shots at the bear, 3 shot damage the bears lungs and chest, the forth shot hit the shoulder, the bear started chasing them, the next to guns shot and broke the bears shoulder this time, the bear still was coming after them two men went up a tree and the other two jump into the river, the bear jumped into the river to get the men.
A man in a boat shot one more shot into the bears head, and killed it.
When the bear was pulled out of the water, the bear had 8 holes in it, before its was killed.

Sacagawea, the only women in the group was along to help talk to the Shoshone Indians, so that there could get horses. She did have a baby on the trip, at age 16.
She was the youngest person in the group, until the baby was born.
She had become the property of her husband, because she had be won in a card game and make to be his wife, this was before the trip.

So to translate from Indian to English.
So heres how it worked.
Shoshone would talk to Sacagawea, and than,
Sacagawea, would talk to here husband in French,
Than He would talk to a French men,
And the French men would turn it into English,
So Lewis could understand what was said.

I could go on and on about thing like this, but will not.

This is like reading someones journal, so it was a bit slow at times, will a lot of the times.

My First 5 X 5 Cache

"Just Clowning Around"

GCPCTX


Difficulty: Terrain: (1 is
easiest, 5 is hardest)

This all started with BlazerFan saying it would be pretty cool to get the 5 X 5 cache, the only one in southern Oregon.
So on August 23, 2008 was the day.

The person who laid the cache had planned:
1. that you float down the river to get to this cache.
2. and the other way to get to this cache is to walk down the Rogue River trail about 15 miles and than swim across the river.
I believe that there as been only one person to to this swim.

The one other way to get to the cache is to drive to with in .65 of a mile.
And then walk down the hill, but the walk is a 2000 feet change in elevation in 6/10 of a mile, very steep.

So the plan was set and off we went, I pick up Blazerfan at 8 am and go to the walk off point on the hill and, started down the hill at 10 am.
The hill wasn't to bad, till we got near the river about 12 pm and the last 400 feet was the worsest because of the under brush was so thick. It took about 30 minutes to do.

We got to the cache spot about 12:30pm and spent, about 30 minutes looking for the cache and could not find it, there wasn't a lot of place to hide a bottle size cache on top of a house size rock on the river.

I had a small cache in my water pack and placed it were the GPSr zeroed out and called it good.
And so we start up the hill, it took about hour and half to go the 400 feet.
DrDan and BlazerFan, left the river about 1:00pm and start up the 2000 feet and 6/10 of a mile (total of about 7ooo feet in distance).

I run out of water near the top and left Blazerfan to get some more, I got to the car about 7 pm and than I walked back down to Blazerfan.
We left the parking area about 8 pm and got back in town 10pm.




This is from top of the rock at the cache site.

Bombs A Way

(click on picture to enlarge)

I found this information in a little park in Bly, Oregon, when I was traveling to the Steens Mt. Rang.
Its the only time, and one time, that bombs were drop in the USA by another county.
I didn't drive out to the site, there will be another trip for that.

A Day at The Lake

John did invited me to go for a boat ride, at Howard Prairie Lake.
John friend Randy, has a 19 foot Sail boat He bought last year, so he learning how to sail this boat.
I helps to have more than one person to sail with, one to steer, another to fix the sail and another to read the book on how to sail.

Its really a nice boat, not to big, but big enough to have different sails and sail set-ups.

I didn't get a picture of the out side, but here is one from the inside out.

We sailed around for about hour, and then wind just went away.

We tried different angles but there was nothing thing out there.

You no, the last time Sam and Me sail my little sail boat, (8 feet) the same thing happened to use.
Maybe I should do this, LOL

Ants every were

When drove to Portland for the dinner boat ride on the Columbia River that Randy had invited a bunch of uses to.
Thanks Randy for great boat ride and dinner.
We all got to see some real Indians working alone the bank for the river.

So the story of the Ants.
We stayed at Sam place and drove up to the boat ride from there.
The night we got there, I park in the road below Sam apartment , and I parked under a tree.


When we came out the next morning to go to REI and some other places, the tree had
drop this sticky stuff all over the car.
The windows would hardly work.
When we came back and I parked away from the sticky tree.
When we came out to leave for the dinner ride.
The car was covered in ants.
I parked next to some weeds that touch the front end of the car and so the ants came up the weed to cross over to the car.
You can see the weed in the top picture.
The Ants were eating the sticky pitch stuff off of the car.

So a hole bunch of ants went for a 60 mph ride, but by the time we got to the boat ride most of them didn't like the ride because there was none to be found.

The Day Of the 100

One of my Goals was to ride a 100 miles on my mountain bike in one day.
So on Thursday July 31, I start the riding at 7:30AM.
Because of the heat I had to break this up.
First run: 50 miles in 3.75 hours, avenge speed 13.8.
Second run: 30 miles in 2.25 hours, avenge speed 13.6
Third run: 20 mile in 1.50 hours, avenge speed 13.4

Total : 100 miles in 7.47 hours, avenge speed of 13.4 mph,
Or
starting 7:30 AM and finsh 9:30 PM.

I'll never do this again, my butt and hands were falling sleep.

Day 5 and 6 of the Steens Road Trip

On Day 5, Saturday:
Drove to camp site at Lake of the Woods and camp to do some MTB at the lake.
Found a new trail that runs between Lake of Woods and Fish lake, about 9 miles.
Lots of caches in the area.
On Day 6 Sunday:
Drove home and cleaning up cache alone the way.
This me on near the top of Steens Mt. Rang.

Grasshoppers hitting car between places.



Me at the highest cache in Oregon.
9733 feet.
One of 70 caches I found on this trip.

Day 3 and 4 of Steens Road Trip

On day 3 and 4.
I was at the base of Steens Mt. Rang.
Its a 60 mile loop up to 9700 feet.
So I drove the 3 miles in to Frenechglen to fuel up.
At only $5.00 gal. I only need about 4 gallons.
Only a 3 cache to day, but I do get a FTF on the highest cache in Oregon.

I saw this watch tower near a farm house, why?















The view from the road of the first canyon.





The great view from the rocks.















Look south at the hight point, 9733 feet.



















Wild Horses lake, there is 3 people down there.

The Road Trip to Steens Mountain Rang

I left July 22, heading out on highway 140 out of Medford going east.
I had set-up the GPSr to geocaching alone the way all the way to the Steens or as much as possible.
So I started picking up caches about Fish Lake and Lake of the Woods area, alone the road.
I pick up about 16 cache alone the way, all the way over to the other side of K-Fall pass Bonanza to a lake called Gerber Reservoir, and camped there in a nice little dry camp.
Its about 25 acer lake.
Seem to be the fishing spot for every one who was there.
There was 2 not find yet cache, but one was on and island and other was across this bay, the water was none to clean, so I passed on these as much as I hated not getting the FTF.
The smoke from the Cal. fires was blowing into this area, as you can see from the picture.
On Day II, I was up about 7:00AM because the sun was shinning on the tent, so no sleep in time and I had to make to the camp sit at the base of the Steens today.
I left the area about 8:AM or so and found some more caches, as I was leaving the area.
Heading back to highway 140 I had to cover about 30 mile of dirt road so this slow me down so till I hit 140.
I pick up 7 cache through the hole day, not to good, but no misses yet.

I push on for Lake View, not much of a town.
I had forgotten to get a tube for my MTB in Grants Pass, so I thought I would find one here, no luck at all.
Only one place had bike tubes, and there were the wrong ones.
A hardware store, and no bike shop in town.
So I fueled up, because this would be the last place to fuel till I get to Frenchglen, at the base of the Steens.
So I took the short cut to Frenchglen, and you know how short cuts work out.
I pass through one of the largest game and bird refuges.
Warner (bird) Refuge and Hart Mountain Antelope Refuges.






As you can see from the video, it is really big.
When I left Lake View, I cut up north to a little place called Plush, and that was were the pavement ended and the dirt road started.
The dirt road was under construction, so at about 25 miles from Plush I came across a flagger, who told me that she could not talk to the other end because the radios wouldn't reach that far, so go ahead and watch out for the big trucks.

So driving at the post speed limit, I drove the 65 miles of dirt, dodging big trucks and farmers and some cows.

There is a really nice place for sell out there, 420 acres with new house on the only hill out there, with lots of open space to do what ever you would like.
I got to the Page Spring camp ground about 4:30 and found a nice camp spot next the a river, the river was about 8 inches deep. LOL
I spent two night here.
Oh, the post speed was 35mph. LOL

Day 2, Alta Lake Hike

Got to the Alta lake about 4:00pm and set up camp in the same spot that Me and Ben used about 15 years ago.
This is the end you first come to when the trail ends, the camp site is way down at the other end. The camp site is at 6800 feet elevation.
The weather cools down pretty quick, I was in the tent and bag by 8:00pm because I got cold.










This the view from the camp site, in AM.


And the video is of the valley starting with Crater Lake at one end and ending at Devil's peak. This is the view I had for dinner and breakfast.

Picture to the right is of Grass Lake and Middle Lake is closes, this is looking south into California.








If you click on the picture, you can see witch is Crater Lake and Mt. Thelson.








The reflection in the lake was so nice, I had to add the picture.

And last...............

The Hike to Alta Lake

I finely started my vacation, about two weeks late, starting Thursday, NO WORK till August 4.

And guess what the first thing I did?
On Thursday morning I packed my back pack, and left for the 7 Lakes Wilderness area in the Sky Lakes Wilderness. This area is located between Crate Lake and Mt. McLoughling, and area about 15 miles wide and 50 miles long, with 100s of lake.
The trail head for Alta Lake, one of the 7 lakes, is the closes and shorts hike in.
A mirror 6 1/2 miles by the sign any ways.
Being on vacation I slept in and got a late start. So by the time got my pack set-up and found every thing, I did not get out of here till about noon.
The trail head is about 14 miles the other side of the town of Prospect.

Here I am at the trail head.

I drove into the TH, about 1:00pm, a mosquitoes go me in the first two minutes I was out of the car. So, out came the OFF stuff, the super strong stuff is the only thing that will work with these hungry bugs.
The trail is just wide enough for a unicycle, and climbs pretty good.
The first two miles, climbs from 5000 feet to 6000 feet, walking though woods and fields.















About 1 mile of open fields, as you can see in the pictures.
After 2 mile it got a interesting surprise, for the next 3 miles, I must have cross 50 of these.














As you can see that the snow is really there, in places, being up to eight feet deep. As luck would have it, it is very hard, so it made it easer to walk across, in most places.
More to come of what I saw, when I got to Alta Lake and the other 6 lakes.

More Item of Interest / Book Report

In another place in South America.
These brothers were touring the local churches, looking at the painting and art work that was done on the buildings.
So the early Spanish missionaries, were working on converting the locals to there way of thinking and so.
They needed a painting of the Last Supper, so the missionaries commissioned a local painter to paint this piece.
When it was done, it was found that the artiest had add to the plates of food, the type of food that only royal persons were aloud to eat in the painter's country.
On the table was found the bread and wine, and in front of Jesus was a plate of roasted guinea pig.
Weird.

On Easter Island, the place with the big statues all over it.
The statues were cut into the images of the chiefs, of the 18 tribes.
Most of these statues, had been turned over because of the 18 waring tribes, on the island.
The archaeologists put the statues back up, and never finished the job.
The statues, had eye ball, and now there is no eye ball in the statues.
There must of be short sighted archaeologists, haha.
The first eye balls were made of wood.
Interesting.

I have finished book so no more stuff to add at this time.
But there is others stuff to read about when you pick-up the book to read it.
The Sparks guy has wrote 9 other books as will, and two were made into moves,
"The Notebook" and "Message in a Bottle"

The story of going around the world is pretty cool, only for rich any ways.
I checked the web site of the travel agency, 55k to 65k.

The name of the company goes by TCS check out the link.

Interesting Points, Three Weeks with My Brother

I pick-up this book at a book Geocahes, over the week end at the coast.
It had to be good one because its on the New Yorks best sellers list.LOL

Three Weeks with My Brother by Nicholas Sparks and Micah Sparks.

So these brothers, Nicky and Micah, start out in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
First stop was in Yaxha' and Tikal, Guatemala.

So there walking down this path, following there guide as He is talking about Yaxha' temples and building, pointing this way and that way and saying this building was used for this and so and so was done here.
And the last time some one lived here was about 900 A.D., that was over a 1000 years ago.
The two brother were looking at each other, thinking WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT, all they could see, was lots and lots of trees, brush and vines every were.
So the guide explained that the trees and vines drop there leave, 3 times a year, it turns out that it is really is 3,000 years of drop leave and it turns into lots of dirt and more trees and vines, grow on top of this and so on..........
The Guide went on to say:
One of the Stone Temples was on earthed about 80 years ago, they run out of money to finish the job.
It is right over there, that big mountain of trees and dirt and that is only 240 dropping of leaves, and there nothing to see.

What is it ??

As I was going into one of my shops the other morning this monster was parked next to the entry door.
Pretty scary!

I really like the pattern on the wings.

And if you look closely it looks like a face of come kind.
Looking back at you. LOL

Spent some time looking around to ID the little guy.

Grammia parthenice, or better know as a
Tiger Moth.

Check out the link.

Normally not from this area.

The Night Hike On The Table

For Rochelle's B-Day, she wanted to hike Upper Table Rock at night.
So we drove over and made the hike.
As you can see the 2 baby made the hike as will.
The hike was great at this time of night, not to hot.
We started about 10pm and got back to the cars about 12am.

List L to R: Robyn, Alex, Paul, Serena, Daniel, Ben, Felipe, Randy, Pat, Molly, Dominic and (Rochelle, John and Dan not in picture).

Log Cabin

Caching south of Applegate Lake and came across the two story log cabin.
It was in pretty good shape, I would say it is about 50 years old.
It looks like someone was or is trying to restore it, a little at a time.
Even comes with a star gazing rock on the other side of the house.
The drive to town would be a little much, about 50 miles to the nearest story, one way. LOL
A way cool creek running near by as will.