Visitors at the wrong time

9/9/06

Let me ask a question: When no one else is around for as far as the eye can see, what is one sure-fire way to get someone to show up?

I was playing the geocaching game today and had a magnificent time. The area I chose for my exploration was Mission Trails Regional Park, which is where the PD Clan used to spend a lot of time running around. There were quite a few people milling around near the stream and dam in the park, which was to be expected, so I headed for the highlands. On the way up I came across a rather large rock with a flat surface at a sharp angle. I intended to leap over this rock by stepping onto the flat, angled surface, but the tread on the old Teva sandals I was wearing had been worn slick long ago and I slipped. My shin slammed into the rock and I ended up with quite the beauty of a goose-egg. I considered myself lucky that no one was around to witness this mere slip into mortality. I actually have a brand new pair of Tevas in the bedroom, but the old ones still fit fine so I figured I would still use them. But after today’s incident, I reckon the 50,000 miles are up on the old pair and it’s time to retire them. But I digress….

Geocaching, that’s the subject I’m writing about. I ended up finding seven out of eight caches for the afternoon. The best one by far had to be the cache located on the side of basically a cliff of boulders with a 150-ft vertical drop below, rolling out to a total of about 300 feet. I followed my GPS to the edge of the cliff and then laughed (out loud) when the little machine told me that I still had sixty horizontal feet to go before getting to the cache. Well, not to be stopped by a measly drop into oblivion, I inched my way down about fifty vertical feet until I couldn’t safely go any further, yet I still had forty horizontal feet to go. I had no choice but to climb back up to the top and start over from a different angle.

Down the cliff I went the second time, only to find myself in a similar predicament as the first time. I could see where I was supposed to go, but getting there was the tricky part. I debated on whether or not I was really at another turn-around point again, or maybe I could still get across that slope to the rocks on the other side – even with the slick sandals I had on. I hesitatingly took a small step forward when suddenly I heard a sound from somewhere. What a strange sound! Was it a rattler? The sound stopped so I shook my foot to get it going again. There, behind the grass covering the rock crevice…no, that’s no rattle…it almost sounds like a hissing, like from a cat. Hmm, this late in the season I wouldn’t expect to see any kittens and that crevice behind the clump of grass seemed too small for a cat. What other animal makes a hissing sound? Wait a minute, don’t snakes hiss? Perhaps I really was at a turn-around point and getting my tush back up the cliff wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I never did see what the critter was making that sound. I reckon I’ll just have to let my imagination conjure up something exotic.

On my third attempt down the cliff I finally managed to get myself into a position to grab the cache, and what a rewarding cache it was! There have been so many irritatingly “micro” caches popping up everywhere that are too small to contain trinkets to trade. I suppose these are ok if you’re only playing the game to ramp up your “find” numbers, but I personally like large containers that have decent, tradable swag items inside. The cache placed on the side of this cliff had a good-sized container and it was full of swag. I found a matching set of necklace and earrings that I think Kirstin would like so I made my trade, took some photos and then was on my way.

Have you come up with a scenario to answer the question I asked at the beginning?

I left the cliff and wandered back along the top of the mountain the way that I had come. I had been up there for hours and yet I hadn’t seen anyone. This was a good thing because I had been drinking a lot of water and eventually the water had to go somewhere…and it did. Onward I then continued until I rounded a bend and started heading toward one of the caches I had found earlier in the day. I noticed a daypack at the side of the trail with nobody attached to it. After all of the time I had spent up on the hill alone and someone was now in the area. I slowed my pace and walked toward the pack. Suddenly a head popped up higher on the slope. I stopped and looked closer. It was a female who had just stood up….but her britches were down to her knees. I reckon her water had to go somewhere too! This situation had the potential to be real embarrassing, for the both of us. What was I to do?

I didn’t figure I could just nonchalantly continue walking forward, wave my hand and say, “Howdy”, with the woman in her current situation. On the other hand, if I turned tail and ran down the trail she would have seen me and then if we crossed paths again the meeting would be real uncomfortable. So I just hunkered down where I was and turned to admire the ocean, or what I could see of it through the haze. Eventually I heard a rustling with the daypack, meaning the woman was back on the trail and was therefore clearly in my line of sight. Yelling back over my shoulder I asked, “Are you done”?, to which she replied that she was. I then stood up and walked toward her, continuing my journey down the trail.

As I approached the woman (I never did get her name), I mentioned that back when I was hiking with the San Diego Hiking Club we once went to an area that had been burnt out so that there wasn’t any vegetation nearby. When the women on the hike had to take a leak, the rest of us would stand in a line forming a “fence”, allowing the women to relieve themselves behind us with some sort of privacy. This story brought out some laughter between the woman I had just met and I, releasing any tension that might have been present.

Because of the fact that she had been near a cache that I had just found, I asked the woman if perhaps she was also looking for caches. She was not, and she was not familiar with the game. I quickly explained what geocaching was, and told her that there was a cache right close by. When she asked me to show it to her, I did, and she thought that that was quite interesting. We continued to chat as we returned to the trail and as we did I noticed that she had hairy legs. Wow! I told her that I used to hang out with a group which included women who left their legs natural and I think that remark brought our newfound friendship to a new level. But then again, I never did catch her name, nor did I give her mine, and we’ll probably never see each other again. C’est la vie.