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Archived Newsletter |
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June 2007
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MANZANITA TRAIL Well, it was time to do a little geocaching and visit a trail that none of us have ever done. With the prospect of 30 geocaches over a 20 mile trail, it sounded like we would have our work cut out for us. A few of us did one end of the trail back in October and got about 15 caches so this time we were trying for the other 15. The Sullivans, Pat, Molly and I left home at 7:30 am and about 5 minutes later Tom Pastore and guest Mark Miller dropped in line behind us on the freeway and we headed to McDonalds. It was at Mc Donalds that I realized that I had a MAJOR senior moment and had not loaded the waypoints to either my or Pat’s GPS’s. Fortunately the Sullivans printed out all the sheets so I sat down and entered about a dozen of the coordinates by hand. Well, it turned out that most of the ones I had entered we had done back in October and didn’t do much good, so I decided that I’d just get two at a time and go from there. While I was having my fun, and waiting to see if anyone else would show up, Tom and Mark found the cache at McDonalds. One down, ?? to go. At about 9:30 we hit the trail and soon found our first cache. The route took us to the east of Hwy-15 and we were soon at a staging area complete with toilets. We continued on and went under the freeway a couple of times and found a couple more caches. We were overlooking Cajon Pass when we heard Paul Coursey calling out to us on the CB. He had told me earlier that he would be out later and would catch up with us on the trail. I back tracked about a mile to get him and then we were back into the hunt. While we were at one cache a group of cars worked their way past us. They were from a model glider club that was putting on a big event there over Memorial Day weekend and were getting setup for it. It was a nice place for something like that, it had a great view of Cajon Pass on one side and on the other you could see all the way to El Mirage. GREAT VIEW! We managed to find a little shade for lunch. It was warm, probably high 80's and the shade was welcome. After lunch we hit a few more caches and decided to call it a day, having found ALL that we sought. The biggest problem I had after the waypoint fiasco was getting Pat to wait until everyone else pulled up to a cache before she darted off. At a couple of early caches she had found the cache before most were out of their Jeeps. By 2:30 we were at McDonalds having ice cream and home in plenty of time for the Angels game. It’s all good! Along for the fun were Dennis and Casey Sullivan, Tom Pastore, Paul Coursey, guest Mark Miller and Pat and our wonder dog Molly.
MEETINGS IN THE PARK This month starts our summer tradition of holding our meeting at Simon Bolivar park in Lakewood. Along with the meeting, this month we will have a BBQ with burgers and hot dogs and a lot of other goodies. We start at 6:30 to allow for cooking and extended time for socializing. So plan on attending.
GPS TRAINING On Thursday July 12th at 7:00 I will be giving another GPS training class. Last time I covered the GPS it’s self, this time I will be covering different software packages and what they can do with the GPS’s tracks, routes and waypoints. I will also cover POI’s (points of interest) and how to find the nearest gas station or restaurant. If you plan to attend please let me know so I can plan accordingly.
If you are thinking about getting a GPS but aren’t ready to fork out close to $400 for one, and something in the $250 range is more within budget, Garmin has come out with the ETREX Vista CX. It can be picked up for around $250 and it has all the features of the top of the line 60CSX and 76CSX but about $150 cheaper. Dennis bought one for Casey and so far she really likes it.
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