Monday September 8, 2008 7:30 am Lethbridge

It is +2 C with a high forecast of +20 C. Sunrise 6:57 Sunset 20:00 Hours of daylight: 13:03.
See current Lethbridge forecast here. See current Lethbridge news here.

This page last updated on: Tuesday, September 9, 2008 5:18 PM

A. Morning Musings

Just time to set up this web page before going for coffee at Tim's.

The lawn needs mowing - probably for the last time this year. We had another frost warning for this morning. The hoses are all disconnected and drained and the water fountain has been dismantled and put away.

Yesterday was trains, today will be geo-caches.

Learning Category	Planned Activities for Today	Time
Literature	Continue reading "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie	1 hr
Geocaching	Look for 4 caches in coulee	3 hr

B. Actual Learning Activities

4:00 PM

Another successful geo-caching activity. I set out with the goal of finding 4 caches, three in the west side of the coulee and the fourth on the university campus. Here are a few photos:

Frog (GCPY01)

This was my first cache of the afternoon. I left home at noon and found this one at 12:30 PM. I was grateful for very accurate coordinates on my GPS unit and had no difficulty spotting it once I oriented myself in the proper direction.

cache is at base of tree

see

contents

Travel Bug WY1VP5

I took the travel bug with the intent of placing it "closer" to its goal. When I got home and inputted the ID # into the geocache web site I learned that it was originally placed in 2006 in Brandon Manitoba and was trying to get to Scotland. It clearly is having a tough time of it. All of my Scottish friends are muggles, so I am not sure I will be of much help.

A Weiring Hike (GCH3A9)

This was about a 20 minute walk up a trail that I was familiar with. When I got to the weir over the Oldman River I turned on my GPS and quickly determined which tree to focus on.The cache was below a small rock cairn at the base of the tree.

beaver dam on way to cache

weir

guardian pelicans

"rock cairn" in dense bush

this looks promising

success

I seem to be getting the hang of it. The accurate GPS reading made all the difference.

Where it all began (GC12ZD0)

This was the most difficult of the three. The cache was very well hidden in some deep shrubbery surrounding a decayed tree trunk.

strange sign

this looks like a hiking trail to me

lovely view of the bridge

dead tree

cache (hidden in dark spot under tree)

contents

The cache was almost invisible in the dark area under the tree, even though it was in plain view. This took care of all three caches that were in the coulee bottom. But there was one more on my list that I was going to try for on the way home.

This Rocks (GC1C5FE)

This was back on top of the coulee and on the university grounds. On the walk back I saw some Bohemian Waxwings, a helicopter, and a porcupine.

Bohemian Waxwings

Helicopter

Porcupine

wild flowers

cache in the open!

contents

I found all four caches, a new record for me for one day. These coulee trips are a real work-out. But what better way to spend a few hours! Today the thrill was the porcupine. It was only about 10 meters away and at eye level with myself. A couple of days ago it was two new birds (a Snow Bunting and a Western Tanager). After all of the searching, finding a cache just sitting in the open was a bit of a startle. It was supposed to be hidden under a rock but the construction people must have noticed it and placed it back on the surface after they were done with their work. Still, a cache is a cache, even if it isn't cached.

My total now is 14.