Tuesday, September 27, 2011 Lethbridge

5:00 am

The temperature is +12 C, with a high predicted of +21 C. From the Environment Canada website: Today Mainly sunny. Wind becoming southwest 30 km/h near noon then west 50 gusting to 70. High 21. UV index 4 or moderate. Tonight A few clouds. Wind west 50 km/h gusting to 70 diminishing to 20 gusting to 40 this evening. Low 6. Normals Max: 18°C Min: 3°C

3:00 PM Geocaching

I decided to put the remaining 5 geocaches located in south Lethbridge into my GPS unit and see if I could clear this section of the map. This turned out to be quicker than I anticipated. With a little extra time on my hands I put in the coordinates from a puzzle cache that I had solved a few days ago and drove out to Popson Park to see if I could find it. This involved a little more walking in a park known for its rattlesnakes. The last hundred meters were in fairly deep grass but I did not see (or hear) any snakes. The find was easy once I was near the area.

• GC2DQ8N - Sisters for a Century - Lethbridge

This was a nice cache on the edge of the coulee. It involved a walk of about a couple of hundred metres from where I parked the truck.

• GC33NFG - Snow White

A short walk in one of Lethbridge's many urban parks. Approaching the area it seemed to be in either a large spruce tree or a smaller crab-apple tree. The crab-apple tree had a film canister with a small white bird glued to one end. Neat.

• GC3485Y - Anika's Treasure Box (Sticker Exchange)

This one was hidden in a group of large juniper bushes in the Costco parking lot. I was able to park right beside the bushes. The container was actually a small treasure box (just like one sees in pirate movies). I liked the container but not the junipers.

• GC3360P - Oh Canada!

This turned out to be a bit more fun and it was not obvious how to drive close to the cache area. My GPS unit had me fairly close but I couldn't approach the area because of a row of houses. I then used my familiarity of the area to try another approach and was soon within 50 metres of the site. An easy find in a small spruce tree.

• GC2XEZV - You might be watched !!! CARL3

My GPS unit did a good job of finding the best spot for parking the truck and walking into the park. The cache was about half a kilometer from the truck. Another small container in a spruce tree. Since most of the CARL3 caches had to at least a small size (only one micro size per owner) this made the finds relatively easy once one figured out how to approach the sites.

• GC2XFJF - Search the Stars Carl3

This was a puzzle cache involving characters from the Star Trek series. I had solved this a few days ago and decided to see if could find it this afternoon. I parked the truck and walked almost half a kilometer to an astronomy club station before I realized that it was not located near the station. The grass was quite high to continue from there to the site area, and with the possibility of rattlesnakes in the grass also high, I opted to retrace my route on a gravel road and then approach the area from another gravel road. This only involved a walk of about 100 meters in tall grass - much better than my first route. The find itself was easy.

I did not take any photos of this trip and found that I enjoyed the searches even more as I didn't take any extra equipment with me (pack, camera, GeeCee - who is heavy). I travelled light, found the containers, signed the logs, and moved on).

7:00 PM History

I finished reading "The Last Stand" by Nathaniel Philbrick. Overall I liked the book, but I ignored the numerous notes at the back of the story. I particularly liked the numerous maps that showed the progress of the various groups as they converged on the Little Bighorn River. There was little mention of Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse which surprised me.