[admiral]

Seems as though Yamamont and I had the same idea about a Tuesday ride, just in different states!



Well, my ride had been in the planning stages for a long, long time. Probably 24 hours or so! Actually, I was gonna ride on Monday, but Monday went a little like this:



The Admiral-wife was tired, so on Sunday I offered to do the grocery shopping. On Monday, she took me up on this offer! No problem, I'll quick do the shopping and get home to ride.



Oh yeah, I was also suppose to stop off at the bank while in town. I remembered this just as I was about to get home. I turn around and go back to town. Argh!



Anyway, I get home and still have time to go... Phone rings as I'm getting ready to leave. Father-in-law asks if I will help him move some furniture from relatives house. I say "today". He says "yes". I say "what's the weather forcast for tomorrow". He says "same as today". So, now you know why my ride was Tuesday instead of Monday.





Green = Planned route. Magenta (Purple to me) = Actual route.



Plan was to ride from geocache to geocache.

First goal, Hollow Woods Cache. Before I leave home I'm thinking to myself, I never seen no woods out in the BLM land. This gotta be one of those switch-a-rooney names to throw me off.



When I get about 3/4 mile from Hollow Woods I see some scruffy bush like stuff, but no real tree's.

Turning around in the same spot, the only tree's I can kinda see are um, sagebrush and possibly those mountains off yonder! Good view though!

After I get close, I have to dismount the TW and walk the rest of the way. Darn wildlife management area. Still...sagebrush (foreground) and scruffy tree like thing (distance).

Once on location though, I'm suprised at what I find "Hollow Woods".

Here I spot a bear cub in the woods.

Oh wait, it's Georgie. Ofta, got scarred there for a second! And by the way...failure-to-find the geocache.

My second cache is on a wind swept barren ridge. Yep, another failure-to-find. No photo, getting discouraged. On to the next cache.



But before I get to the next cache, I must cross the highway through these fences. And here the frustration level is gaining ground. After I push the TW through the barbed wire fence I take a break. No car has passed in over 10 miniutes. I decide to get going and while getting on the TW, through a series of events, the kickstand pushes back, the TW falls over on its side, with me rolling on the ground like the Michelin tire man.....as not 1, but 2 cars go by. They had to be laughing seeing me rolling on the ground. What timing. At least they didn't come back to see if I was alright. I was so embarrassed.

Anyway, on to the next cache named "Stumped", with the hint "well rooted". Surely in this treeless barren land there aren't anymore tree's? Well, not really as someone has hauled this stump out here, but it looked like it grew hear. And by the way...another FTF. I'm really doubting my geocaching skills. Could there be something wrong with the GPS or is it me?

So on to my next destination, the old railroad trestlel with a cache. I hope to find this one as I'm 0 for 3 so far.

To be continued...

 

[MrDNA]

Like someone told me recently... Like my neck of the woods, without the woods

 

[admiral]

So, on to the trestle. The trestle is next to a large irrigation canal. Here is one of a couple tunnel's through the hillside the canal travels through.

On a sad note, many people like to swin in these canal's. They are very dangerous to swin in. Tragically, a teenager drowned playing in this canal a couple of years ago. At the time I knew he had gone through one of these canal tunnel's. I will assume this memorial is near the spot.

I finally make it to the old railroad trestle.

It appears I can't cross it and would have to walk out on one of the beams to find the cache. Ain't gonna do it though due to the guard on the other side of the trestle. 0 for 4. Looks like a government worker hard at work. I assume it's a irrigation canal worker, so I don't try to find the cache...I don't want to get killed...or even worse!

Here's a photo of the single track trail I had to take to get too and from the trestle. Couldn't cross the trestle as I thought, so I had to backtrack.

Here's what I would have encountered if I had tried the railroad grade way first. Property rights!

Here's a short video of my trestle adventure. In my original plan, I was gonna ride the old railroad grade from the crossroads down to the trestle. Because I was closer after stopping at "Stumpted", I decided to take the gulch down instead. So, what you are going to see is me going to and from the trestle via the gulch trail, then my attempt to get there via the railroad grade...not so much!



[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u29Gal0_Ydg[/media]



To be continued.

 

[admiral]

Well, I'm running out of time and gotta be at my daughters basketball game later, so I gotta cut my ride short, but not before one last attempt at a cache. It's more or less on the way home, so I say what the heck. Indeed I find the cache. It's called "The Cats Meow". 1 for 5. I wonder what the heck that would mean way out here in the middle of nowhere.

Upon opening the cache, I discover why it's call "The Cats Meow". Cute!

Before heading home, I take one last photo near the cache.

Ended up being a good riding day. Winter ain't here yet, so I hope you enjoy, and get inspired to get out and ride.

 

[yamamont]

Hey man looks like a nice day to be out ridin! What front tire are you running? I am needing to get a diferent front tire as things are getting pretty sloppy here in the Seattle area. My secret spot is ridable year round so I am on the hunt for the right front tire for Christmas!!

 

[admiral]

Like someone told me recently... Like my neck of the woods, without the woods

Good one! I'm smiling and chuckling.



At least I did find some woods. Couldn't ride in them, but I found some. Still, this time of year...gotta ride' without woods if I gonna get some ridin' done at all. There's snow in them thar hills!

 

[admiral]

Hey man looks like a nice day to be out ridin! What front tire are you running? I am needing to get a diferent front tire as things are getting pretty sloppy here in the Seattle area. My secret spot is ridable year round so I am on the hunt for the right front tire for Christmas!!

I'm running a Shinko SR244 Golden Boy, which is very similar to the Kenda 270. Buddy of mine has the Kenda and we both like how they feel on or off pavement. Either one is good, I just got the Shinko cause I found one on the local craigs for $30 brand new and couldn't pass it up. Otherwise I was probably headed the Kenda way. Mine is 5.10-18 just cause that's what was available. Normally I don't ride too much pavement on the same day I ride dirt roads, (or anyday come to think about it), so I don't worry about airing up the tire to road pressures very often. I usually air down to 10-12 psi. for the dirt roads. Found that keeping more air in than that, it doesn't handle like I want it too.



Oh, and everday is Christmas when you own a TW

. . . and ride it!