Random Updates

• As promised in the Stanford Museum post, here’s the (very) small gallery. Supply your own captions. 🙂
• I attended Bud Gawlik’s memorial service at Henry Cowell State Park. Despite the sadness of the occasion, it was a perfect event with fun remembrances of a special person. It’s just how I’d want to be remembered. I’m certain Bud would have approved. They had his signature hat and hiking pole on display there, and most people seemed very moved by seeing them. In fact, one or two people said they cried when they saw the photo below that I posted to the GBA forum. I know that when I noticed them, it stopped me in my tracks.

• Joe and I hiked Bear Creek Redwoods OSP at the end of September. It was my first time there. Very nice park, with hiking by permit only. I’d been meaning to visit since I’d read about some history of the area, and I think I’d seen some of Troy Paiva’s unique photographs of the old Alma College buildings there. It’s been loaded up with random geocaches now, none of which are particularly noteworthy hides, but many do mark interesting locations. We had a nice four hours hiking there through the park, including through an old vineyard.
• I was also part of a group that got the FTF – after several months – on the Bluebeard’s Treasure puzzle cache. What a pain in the rear that one was! We had a great time mountain biking out to the final cache at 6:30 in the morning though. Geocaching is often more fun with a measure of insanity thrown in.
• Last weekend was the longest hike Allison has done on her own power, 3.5 miles with about 800′ of elevation gain. It was with a big group of geocachers, about two dozen, on a loop through Santa Teresa Park. I’d already found all of the caches along the route and nearby (except of course for the ones I’d placed) but we both had a great time. I was proud that Allison made it so far, and with much less whining than usual thanks to the presence of several other young kids. I need to get her an appropriately-sized hiking pole of her own. 🙂
• So far, so good on Twitter. It’s clearly not for everyone, but I like it.
• This weekend the Jeep got washed, the interior was cleaned, the inside of the windshield was washed, and the Thule roof box was pulled and stored in the garage. I topped off the oil, brake fluid, and wiper fluid, and checked the ATF and power steering fluid. I put the rainy season jackets back in, and restocked the first aid kit.
• Yesterday afternoon we did a short family hike on the west side of Santa Teresa Park. It was a bit warm but there was a nice breeze on top of the hills, and we had a very nice time apart from some drama from Allison at one point.
• I’m kinda dreading the Formula 1 off season, which starts in about two weeks.

I’m probably forgetting something in this update, but whatever it is will have to wait for another time…