Happy Birthday to Preia...

Hard to believe, but our feathery little acrobat is now 2 years old! Here are some photos of her from this week...



( More pictures of Preia and Branwen )

A helping hand from Palo Alto's finest...

So today my friends Patty and John and I were four stories up at this public garage in Palo Alto, taking our second attempt at finding this devilishly difficult cache that had eluded us before.

After our first failure, back in May, we carefully studied other peoples' find entries for hints. One entry included a photo of the general cache location; another described just how the 'cacher had positioned himself for the find -- "I finally took off my watch, laid down on my back (almost) got a good angle from the side and missed it.....But I tried again at a slightly longer angle and there it was."

Armed with all this info, we were sure that we'd snag it on our second trip. We tried all of the conceivable angles that involved laying down on the cement and angling one's hand around a corner. So engrossed were we that we never noticed the patrol officer coming up upon us.

"What are you folks doing?" he asked. "We're on a scavenger hunt," we said, which is our stock evasive reply when non-'cachers ask us what we're doing. Most people nod and walk off at this point, but no, our officer was really curious.

"Did you find it yet?" he asked. "No, this one's really hard," we said.

"Are you sure it's here?" he asked. "Yes, we have a bunch of clues that tell us that it's right around here," we replied.

"Let me see the clues," he said. Well, we weren't about to tell a cop no. We handed them over. He studied them... and then he began to help us search!

What the hey - we sure needed the help. He helped us reach around nooks and crannies, he suggested places for us to look, he told us sternly that we were not to climb up on the metal railing to get a better view. Several minutes went by.

"Well, you folks aren't allowed to climb up on the railing - but I can!" he said.

( And as he did, I just couldn't resist taking this one shot... )