Palo Alto's Foothills Park

20121228 Foothills Park

Friday: (12/28) My last hike for the year and for several months with the San Jose Mid-Week Hikers. I led this hike in Palo Alto's residents only park, a nice 7.2 mile loop hike on the Los Trancos Trail. We've had a lot of rain recently but the trail wasn't too bad. Just a couple of slide areas, a couple of fallen trees blocking the trail and one really bad unavoidable muddy spot. We even had a few sunny periods along the trail and located a couple of geocaches as well.

Breakfast was my usual Don McMuffin, a sausage cheese and egg English muffin sandwich. Lunch was cheese, crackers, lunch meat, and Christmas goodies. Dinner was chicken alfredo with avocados.

Coyote Lake Park, Savannah Trail Hike

Friday: (12/21) Lou was off to her Friday morning shopping trip. I headed off to San Martin for my hike. First, I stopped by McDonnald's for a sausage McGriddle sandwich for breakfast. I made it to the park about 30 minutes early. I wanted to be sure to get there on time and it was 40 miles away. There was the possibility the hike might have to be cancelled because of rain. When I first looked out the window this morning, the sky was clear. 45 minutes later we had a really nice orange sunrise in the then present scattered clouds. 30 minutes later when I was departing for the hike the sky was dark gray and threatening rain. Fortunately I drove out of the clouds by the time I made it to San Martin. It was darned cold but no rain. This hike included an orientation to geocaching. When my fellow hikers arrived I gave them the orientation and we proceeded up th trail finding several caches along the way. We were hiking in Coyote Lake Park from the Harvey Bear entrance.


We took the Willow Springs Trail up to the Rancho San Yisidro Trail then out our destination trail the Savannah Trail. Along the way toward the end of the Savannah Trail it started to rain. We decided to cut our planned route short and return by the shortest path back on the Rancho San Yisdro Trail.


The rain stopped and, all in all, we had a nice hike. I had lunch with a couple of my fellow hiker Bob and Sharon at the Super Taqueria in Morgan Hill. After lunch I stopped at the Camping World for a quick look around and at the Hobby World which Lou and Dawn checked out yesterday. Lou made some more French Onion soup for dinner.

Quartzsite Without The Crowds

Wednesday: (02/09) We came back down to Quartzsite this morning. Our permit is still good so we'll take advantage of the services (dump, water, and garbage) when we can. We'll be heading up to Lake Havasu in a week or so for the Winter Blast fireworks shows. The weather is nice. We found a spot near where we were with some trees so it's more like camping. While we're here we'll do some geocaching and jeep roads nearby. Ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch. For dinner we went to the QIA where i enjoyed pancakes, sausage, and hash browned potatoes with gravy. Lou had corned beef and cabbage with jello.

Thursday: (02/10) I had oatmeal while Lou had leftover corned beef and cabbage. We drove down to Andrade, Ca and then visited Algodones Mexico. Lou's had a cold for about 10 days so she picked up some antibiotics. We had our usual lunch of shrimp tacos and a vanilla milkshake. Even though our agenda was finished in less than an hour we still got to enjoy the usual 40 minute wait in line to get back to these United States. We picked up a few necessities at Joann's (thread), the Yuma Park and Shop flea market (a hitch receiver riser), Harbor Freight Tools (a tow strap) and gas. We were on our way by 2pm back toward Quartzsite. Dinner was chicken with rice and some avocado for me and chicken soup and some avocado for Lou. One problem of such small quarters is that there is no way I'll escape getting Lou's cold, eventually. We had some very steady brisk winds while heading down, while there and on our return trip. Fortunately the wind died shortly after our return home.

Friday: (02/11) Oatmeal and bananas with honey for breakfast. Leftovers ham sandwich and an apple with peanut butter for me and Lou had a chef's salad for lunch.  For dinner we went out to the Grubstake for the fish and chips. We relaxed at home all day. I did go out and get bread and water at the market and made a stop at K&B tools for some wood to keep in the jeep for extraction needs. I also tried the hitch riser out but can't use it until I get another receiver pin and something to extend the safety cables. Always something that's forgotten. Lou's feeling much better today but we watched a lot of the TV series Rumpole Of The Bailey today.

Saturday: (02/12) I fixed pancakes and sausage for breakfast. We took a walk around the Tyson Wells vendors in the morning. Lunch was shrimp and onions at Rice Ranch. We relaxed at home most of the afternoon. We did drive out around Q mountain and locate some geocaches as it was getting dark. Dinner was chicken enchiladas, leftovers from the freezer.

Quartzsite SKP-Geocaching Rally

Monday: (01/31) A nice morning, no wind and clear skies. Toast, scrambled eggs and sausage for breakfast. I spent the morning working on the computer and also joined a new SKP group, the Geocache BOF. They are having a rally just north of town so I started that way after lunch. Cottage cheese for lunch. I made a stop at the General Store market for drinking water and a couple of other items. While there I crossed the street and picked up a pie at the bakery as well. Then I headed North 10 miles to Plomosa Rd. There is another BLM camping area there and the Geocache BOF meets there at mm2 on Plomosa Rd.


My campsite at the SKP Geocachers Rally on Plomosa Road. I attended the 4pm happy hour. I missed all the other activities of this first day of their rally.


Leftover stew with a chef's salad for dinner. Desert was a slice of apple pie from the Quartzsite bakery. At 6:30 I attended a presentation on the Geocashing.com website. I'm already familiar with it but I did learn a couple of things. After the presentation I enjoyed the group campfire. It was quite windy again today after about 10am until 6pm. In the evening the wind had finally stopped.

Tuesday: (02/01) Oatmeal for breakfast.


At 9:30 there was a presentation on GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) by Barbara Westerfield. 18 people crammed in to one of the RV's where there was floor space only. GSAK is an application for the PC that allows easier connection of the Geocache data with any GPS device. With the Android phones there are apps that provide more functionality already but with the large number of GPS devices out there, GSAK is very helpful.


I really enjoyed watching Barbara's cat. Even with 18 people in the coach, the cat said hello to every visitor and roamed around at ease.


After the presentation I joined a caravan of 4x4 vehicles on a geocaching run out in the desert. With 20 people it's more difficult to really find the caches yourself. We traveled some pretty rough roads to some of the caches. Lunch was a PBJ sandwich.


There was the usual happy hour at 4pm. The wind seems to start every day about 2pm and continue most of the eventing. Note the people standing in the sun in the right picture. The wind and cold made it less pleasant outside.

At 6pm there was a "Z". It's sort of like speed dating though not fast and not dating. Some RVers host a small group of visitors in their RV and a group of about six visitors move around to different coaches every hour. Interesting evening. No real dinner but there were lots of snacks at each stop.

Wednesday: (02/02) Oatmeal for breakfast. It was cold, about 28 degrees, and windy this morning.


One of the motorhomes had a small water leak. On one of our cold morning a stalagmite had formed. At the morning coffee, waymarks for two games were distributed.  For the poker game you just located the caches and selected a card in an envelope at each. I only got a pair of sixes. For the golf game you find a letter on a golf ball at each location some locations had one ball, others many balls, and others many balls in many locations. You have to identify the geocaching related word the letters spell and also make as many two word groups out of the letters. Lunch was a baked potato with salsa on top and a pork chop. There wasn't much going on all afternoon. Just as well since at 2pm it was all the way up to 38 degrees with even stronger winds. At tonight's happy hour I found out what I expected. I found 10 words for the golf game, the winner found 39 words out of the 6 letters "SIGNAL". I don't think I understood the rules?

Thursday: (02/03) Breakfast was oatmeal. At the morning coffee meet it was still cold at 38 degrees. It was a quick meeting which set next years dates and location and it was determined not to have a pot luck dinner since it was expected to be just as cold as yesterday. We all said our goodbyes. I was rolling out toward Parker before 10am.