'Caching with Funcrunch

[cyan_blue]

Had a lovely Saturday afternoon geocaching with funcrunch the other day :-) First we went to find a cache near Lake Merced, which my geocaching buddy Bucky had hidden impressively well. funcrunch and I spent a full *half-hour* circling the few-hundred-foot radius that our GPS's were jumping around, and we even both looked in the area where the cache was, but it was wrapped in black camo tape and so it blended right into its crevice.

Lots of other geocachers had also commented in the log that the cache was very well concealed. Oddly, despite its stealth, this is one of the few caches I've seen where the log was also signed by 2 non-geocachers who'd stumbled across it and had been kind enough to replace it after checking it out. Go figure...

So here are some pics...

This is funcrunch signing the log:



And me dropping a slightly off-course Montana-bound travel bug in:





After we put the cache back, we agreed that it was time for brunch. funcrunch introduced me to Geranium, a wonderful vegetarian restaurant in Bernal Heights on Cortland. We got perfectly chilled lemonade, and the food came in pretty good time. I got a tofu veggie scramble, which was artfully arranged on a plate with toast, orange wedges, and hash brown potatoes.

Then we somehow managed to squeeze in room for vegan ice cream cones from Maggie Mudd 3 blocks east. Oh, what a delight! I got a double-decker cone with anise-poppyseed-chocolate-chip ice cream on top, and chocolate cardamom on the bottom. Purr...

Thus refreshed, we had time to do one more cache. This one was in McLaren Park, a large, serene, and wonderful park not far from the Cow Palace arena in SF. The cache we sought boasted some serious views of the Bay and SF:





funcrunch found the cache beneath some benches near this pretty star.



On our way out of the park, I picked up this unusual pine-cone, with only half of its petals opened:



I put it on my dashboard. When Emmett and I were driving down to Vasona Park yesterday, we suddenly heard a popping sound, and the pine-cone *jumped*. I've heard horror stories of plants being filled on the inside with spiders, and I was wondering if I'd unwittingly brought such visitors aboard. But Emmett, who's got more outback savvy than I do, realized what was going on - the sun's heat was causing the pine cone to open. Over the next hours we were treated to several more pops as the cone expanded, and by the end of the day, it looked like this -- see the contrast with the first picture, on the lower end?

Comments

[2wanda.livejournal.com]

Ever eat a pine tree? Some parts are edible.

Oh, you probably aren't old enough to get that reference. I'm showing my age here.