No need to state the obvious: it’s been way to long since we’ve updated. (Wait, did I just state the obvious? doh!)
With the quarter quickly approaching, this past weekend we resolved to do something we haven’t been doing enough of: have fun! We haven’t really been out geocaching much lately so I figured I would go through my gubb list of local geocaching spots and pick out something cool. Picking out a place was a bit tricky since it hasn’t been very hot here lately but it was probably too hot to go to some random canyon or desert. So, what did I pick? Palomar Mountain State Park, of course.
Palomar Mountain sounded very interesting because they claim it is the only “Sierra Nevada-like” place in SoCal. It also provided a stunning backdrop one morning this past winter when Colleen and I noticed its snowy peak (the first time we had ever seen snow around here). Colleen is a big fan of rocks and mountains so the choice was really a no brainer.
While Saturday has been our normal geocaching day, we decided to hold off until Sunday to go out this weekend. We were up bright and early, although we didn’t actually get out of the house until slightly after 9. I’m not sure why it takes so long for us to get ready for hiking but Colleen has no qualms about laying the blame on me 
I didn’t realize how long it would take to drive there—the 1 hour, 15 minutes from Google Maps was actually on the low side—but after a wrong turn that landed us at a Harrah’s Rincon Casino & Resort and a lot of winding up around the mountain, we finally pulled into the park around 11. The drive was actually quite interesting, even outside the beautiful mountain views, because we quickly found out where all the Indian Casinos are around here. Route 76 is seriously gambling alley.
I should have known things were in for a rocky start when, halfway through our drive, I realized that I forgot our camera. No worries, I figured, since we have our fancy 2MP camera phones as a backup. By some fit of luck, Colleen happened upon the “panorama” mode on our phones that lets you take three photos which it automatically stitches together into (you guessed it!) a panorama. Unfortunately we didn’t know that you had to manually line up the edges of the photos so most of the panorama shots we took ended up quite poorly. I was in a “ah, who cares?” type of mood anyway so I let this problem slide and we were on our way along the trails.
The scenery on the trails was quite nice but there was one thing that we didn’t take into account: flying insects! I’m not exactly sure what type of insect they were but they were swarming all around us as we walked. Luckily we had picked up some insect repellent during one of our shopping sprees so they weren’t biting us. Still, they made the hike very unpleasant as they were constantly buzzing around our face and going in our ears. The whole experience made me seriously consider buying a couple of these dorky bug hats to help avoid this problem in the future.
We were only out on the trails for a couple hours but that was long enough for us. I thought I was in decent shape from the jogging I do in the mornings but apparently I overestimated my abilities. Colleen was quite a trooper out there though, even thought she ended up with a strained muscle in her calf after the hike. We also made the rookie mistake of starting our hike from the highest point so the last half was all uphill. Colleen was extremely impressed by the quality of the restrooms though, if that matters to any of you prospective hikers out there.
This week has been a slow one for the most part. I’ve been handling some random CSE orientation business as well as helping to plan an outdoor movie for all the graduate students in the Jacobs School of Engineering. Colleen has been plugging away at work, doing that thing she do. It’s hard to believe that the summer is almost over. At least I have lots of yummy apples to look forward to this fall (oh, the joy of in-season eating).
- Sat
