FALL IS COMING

 

Aileen has been housesitting for our friend Karen.  She started last Tuesday and finishes this Friday.  The old cat Sidney is diabetic and requires insulin shots twice a day.  Aileen has been gardening and renewing acquaintances along her walking route.

I elected to stay at our house and have been doing lots of geocaching stuff.  I have placed twenty six around here so far that are active online and I have another eight ready to upload.  A few days ago I did a marathon day trip over to Greenwood where I finished the run that Aileen and I had been over twice so far.  It was nearly two hours driving each way then I cached for nine hours getting 74 caches.  I had another six that I couldn’t find that took a lot of time looking before giving up.

Locally, I have been scouring the thrift stores looking for suitable containers to use for geocaches and then preparing them.  If they are bright or colourful I spray them with camo paint to make them less obvious to the general public.  Ideally they are only found by geocachers actively searching, not stumbled on accidently.  While I was out placing a new run of caches the other day, I hiked up to a cache that someone else had placed.  It was a gorgeous morning and I enjoyed rambling around the hills before getting to work setting out mine. 

Setting out a cache is quite a slow process.  First you need to find the perfect location.  Then you have to make it so others can find it which entails getting GPS coordinates as accurate as possible.  You need to take multiple GPS readings letting the GPS settle down between them which can take ten to fifteen minutes in total.  Then you must decide whether to leave a hint or not.  You have to go online and fill out a form detailing your cache information which then is edited and hopefully approved by a volunteer at Geocaching.com headquarters.  Sometimes they require more information or tell you why that location is not acceptable.  All local laws must be adhered to, of course.

We are hoping to take the motorhome out for a few days next week and go somewhere a little different for a change.  We’ve stayed in a fairly small area ever since Covid grounded us.  We’ve had a bit of rain here at the house but a little north of us Penticton has had quite a bit of rain.  Hopefully, we’ve seen the last of the smoke and it is cooling down nicely for sleeping.  We’re hoping for some decent weather for travelling.

I spotted this old bruiser as I was driving to where I putting caches out

Yearling cub

This big momma and two yearling cubs I saw while on my big caching day

Milkweed

Historic Phoenix, BC graveyard.  A local group has taken over maintaining this old mining area cemetery.

The view from the geocache I hiked up to

Fall is coming

Further along from where I found the cache, if you look closely you may be able to see my car in the upper right.

Poplar leaves

Red leaves on some brush

These asters are just starting to bloom now.  So nice to have the colour when most other flowers have died off.

Looking down over Tucelnuit Lake and the western part of Oliver, BC.

A bit of colour on my walk the other evening

Almost dark photo of Sumac with the iPhone

The motorhome actually fits on our lot.  We have been busy cleaning inside and out.  It was amazing how much ash worked its way inside.  The low quality windows just don't cut it.