Spring Break - Part 2

Back in California now, we spent Thursday unpacking, washing clothes, watching TV, and sleeping in our own beds!  (There is nothing like sleeping in your own bed!)

Friday we packed and headed out to the bay area, specifically San Francisco which is a favorite of ours to visit.

We arrived into the "City" on the Bay Bridge which is a very long (almost 8 1/2 miles long with a small tunnel in the middle)

The photo above was taken from the car window while driving on the Bay Bridge. You can see the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

 

 

This photo below is of an interesting building that as we passed it, all the kids all said at once: "COOOOOLLLLL!  Look at that building!" So we had to take a photo of it.

 

We started our adventures at the "Hyde Street Pier" where there are several museums of old ships.  There are a few ships that you can actually go on and tour. We had never done this part of town before.

We then went driving and exploring a little. We drove up some of the steep (very very steep) hills and the kids were worried the car was going to roll backwards, but it didn't!

Of course we had to drive down Lombard Street - the "Most Crooked Street In The World":

 

We ended up the 2nd half of the day at The Exploratorium which the kids love. We haven't been there in a few years.

Jacob and Hannah loved the bubble area!

 

We then headed to our hotel where the kids were very excited to go swimming.

There were some guests in the pool that were not paying customers of the hotel!

 

The next day on the way home, we made some stops to geo-cache. One was in a heavily wooded area behind the Oakland Temple in the hills of "smaller" Sequoia Redwood Trees.

Along the trail, we saw several slugs - but these slugs were like the trees - HUGE!

 

Right along the trail was a huge hollowed out stump. That's what we were looking for! What was inside? The cache of course!

 

We then stopped off at the Oakland Temple for two virtual caches and to enjoy the view and the wonderful beautiful grounds. There is 2nd story terrace that goes around the entire top of the temple to offer even more views and quiet places of reflection.

I think it's one of the most beautifully landscaped Temples.

Let's Go Find Some Hidden Treasure!

 

An unlikely spot at the Ophir Cemetery!  Doug grew up just a few miles around this and lived around it for more than 15 years, and never even knew there was an Ophir Cemetery! 

This headstone dated back to 1857 and was the most visible headstone there. There were only a handful of graves there (maybe 10-15) and most were like the one below:

Or this one which didn't even have writing at all:

We did finally find the cache hidden below: See the small canister in the middle of the tree?

 

We then went over to a new regional park in Auburn called Hidden Falls where there are 1200 acres of countryside trails, rivers, and of course, some "hidden" waterfalls. Below are a few pics of the countryside, which these pictures really don't do justice as to how nice and beautiful it was!

There are over 25 caches so far in this park and the park is only a few months old!  We only focused on two this time out, as some are really involved.

 

This jagged rock was along the trail, and although we didn't find this one online as a place where a geo was, Meghan said "I bet there is a geo in there somewhere!" Shelley agreed so we went back to look at.

Sure enough, there was one in there!  When we got home, we tried to look it up and find it, but we couldn't find it anywhere, so this one was a bonus!

Geo's Feb and March

With Winter behind us now (that sounds weird to say since it's only late Feb early March), it was time to go and find more geo's since we were having nice weather.

 

This first one was called "May I Take Your Order Please" and was under the drive up speaker of the now closed Krispy Kreme close by our house.  It was an easy find.

We then headed to Lincoln for a geo called "Titan Missile" and found some never before known history about Lincoln (which is right next to Roseville where we live).

 

See the white cement that is noticeable tot he left behind the two trees below?

Here is another cement piece that is easier to see:

These are two of three underground silo's for a huge underground complex for the Titan 1 Missiles that were once housed here in Lincoln from 1959 to 1965.

Here is a photo of the Titan 1 Missile:

Anyways, back to the geo cache. It was just outside the fenced area. We wanted to go beyond the fence area and "explore" but decided against it. We were sure satellites were watching us!

Marissa found the cache just under these rocks.

It was a medium sized cache with some pretty good items in it. There was a "Travel Bug" in this one, which we took.

A Travel Bug is placed by an "owner" of the Travel Bug. Each Bug has a different number on it so it can be tracked in it's travels across the world. So when we got it, we log on to the website and type in the Bug's number. It then is marked and attached to us. We then drop it into another cache somewhere, and again log in to the website and say where we dropped it off. And then someone else does it and so on. 

Whenever we go geo-caching, we mark all our finds and even non-finds on a special geocache website. It keeps track off all our finds, our Travel Bugs, and any caches we have placed.  We have a goal of placing a cache in the next month or two. We are on the lookout for good places.

Most places are already taken. There are over 500 caches within a 20 mile radius of our house!!

 

We then headed to Auburn in the foothills, (where Doug grew up) to a new regional park called "Hidden Falls". After a hike we came to a small river just ahead of the "hidden falls".

There were several caches in the park, we only had info for two of them. One we found, and the other was a little elusive.  Shelley and Meghan went to find it because the kids were tired of hiking, and Jacob found a huge branch/root and Marissa and Hannah were playing jump rope with it!

Shelley & Meghan did finally find the cache, but it was a difficult one. It was a big one though!  It was a big storage tub full of goodies buried in the brush and weeds. After we heard that, the rest of us were disappointed we didn't go find it!

 

Here are some other pictures of the park. It's beautiful this time of year! Everything is green!

Spring Break 08 - Part 1

Spring Break was early this year!  It was the 2nd week in March. We made our annual Spring Break trip back to Utah to keep the tradition alive.  We didn't stay as long as we usually do however, because it wasn't Spring Break for all the cousins in Utah so they were all in school and busy with other things.  So we split our time between Utah and San Francisco (which is another favorite tradition of places to visit).

 

We left Friday after school and got to Utah around 11 pm. It was very obvious it wasn't "Spring" in Utah!  We woke up the next morning to Grandma and Grandpa's backyard looking like below:

Through out our stay, it was cold almost every day and overcast and snowy sometimes. The snow quickly melted though.  The kids liked helping Grandpa feed the horses below (again it's snowing lightly).

Still snowing a little, it wasn't enough to keep the kids inside!  Here Caleb Anderson is showing us his strength in giving the kids rides.

On Sunday we attended a baby blessing for Erick and Melissa's baby (Shelley's sister) and Meghan and Marissa showed us a hidden talent they had:

They were Guitar Hero champs!  Marissa beat everyone there and went undefeated! She even played on "Medium" and everyone else played on "Easy".

 

 

One of our days was devoted to "sightseeing" in Salt Lake. One of Shelley and Doug's co-workers they used to work with at BYU Police was now serving a volunteer mission at the Conference Center as a tour guide/host.  She was able to arrange a private extended tour of the Conference Center for us. It was awesome!

We had all been in the Conference Center multiple times, but never when nobody else was in there! And we actually had time to see all the art, the busts of the prophets, and other things that you just walk quickly by when you are there with all the thousands of other people.

The steeple is called President Hinckley's Steeple because it was not originally part of the building. As the building was progressing being built, President Hinckley asked where the steeple was. He was told there is no steeple on the Conference Center. He then said there has to be as it's a house of worship. He then directed them to add a steeple - which of course, they did!

This mural is on the roof and was a "virtual" geo cache as well. For the virtual geo caches,  you have to take a photo of the location and then it counts as one of your "finds".  The roof was so beautiful! The fountain below is also on the roof top garden.

Again, President Hinckley was a big contributor to the roof area. He didn't want people living in apartments behind and above the Conference Center to look out onto a huge block wide black ugly roof full of vents, heating/ac units and just an eyesore. So he said he wanted a beautiful roof. One the is pleasing to look at.

The roof is actually split up into different sections. It's designed to represent the terrain that the pioneers left, past through, and finally arrived at in the Salt Lake Valley. So there is a section of marsh areas, heavily wooded and shrubbed areas, and finally a desert area which represents what the Salt Lake Valley looked like when the pioneers arrived. Below are two pics of these different areas:

Because normal dirt can be very heavy especially when watered, all the plants are in a synthetic type of dirt that  is lightweight and holds moisture, but provides no nutrients at all. Because of that, all the plants have to be fertilized and "fed" nutrients and vitamins.

 

Of course we couldn't leave without finding some other caches as well. There were several inside Temple Square which we found. As you can see from the above pictures, and the ones below of the Temple, the sun was out!!! Yeah!!

 

 

What is that thing in Marissa's hand?

It's a very very small "micro cache". Inside was a very small scroll of paper to log our visit.  It's also magnetic. This cache was just outside Temple Square, attached to a light pole, right at the crosswalk where hundreds of people pass by it daily! I'm sure we looked funny as we were looking all over the light pole trying to find it. It took us a few minutes as it blended in!  Can you see it in the picture below?

 

We did one more cache that was hidden in a non descript pole in a parking lot:

It was time to head back home to California!  We left Wednesday morning and did the 10 hour trip back to sunny and warm "spring" weather.

We stopped at a few points of interest at the rest stops between Wendover and Salt Lake.