How Challenging Was It??

Seventeen days / sixteen nights & 5,200 miles later, I think we've given the Silver Subie a pretty good test. It has its limitations, but some of those are likely to keep me out of trouble. All in all, it was a very successfully trip!

I decided to do the trip in a clockwise direction to give as much time as possible for snow melt in the Rockies. Much of the trip was high country, intentionally, to keep temperatures reasonable. I crossed the Sierra twice and flirted with it one other time. I lost count of the number of times I crossed the continental divide.

Day one was primarily a positioning day. Day two was a bit emotional as I spent time at what remains of Manzanar, one of the camps where we interned citizens who were the wrong color. This happened to be the same day the President was using military to move protesters so that he could do a photo-op in front of a church.

While BJ and I have driven Highway 395 and California 49 with the Scamp, it was much nicer driving these narrow (sometimes VERY narrow) and curvy roads in the car. It was much easier to find places to pull off and enjoy the views.

Very nearly all of the National Forest and National Park campgrounds in California were closed as they were in some other areas. Those that were open seemed to be open only if you held a reservation. It just helped confirm my intention to social distancing by boondocking.

My eye is always drawn to abandoned structures, especially those that reflect some quality construction. This one was in Harney County, Oregon, not far from the one and only geocache I've found in Harney County. With the exception of the broken windows, this place looks like it could be livable. The barn was built of stone as well.

I wasn't surprised to see visitor centers and other businesses closed. I was a bit surprised at the number of caches that weren't available because they were inside businesses or visitor centers without noting any access limitations in the cache description.

By the time I got to the high country of Colorado, most of the snow was gone. There was a big bank of snow on a side road  just a few hundred feet from the top of Rabbit's Ear Pass so I got to do a bit of hiking to pick up the first cache in one of the counties.

Choices, choices. 

I lost count how many times the Subie and I crossed the Continental Divide. At least twice on this day approaching Leadville. Leadville was a disappointment but the South Park region of Colorado was amazing! High elevation, rolling hills, open grassy meadows, etc. I want to return and spend more time there!

As is so often the case, the highlights weren't anticipated. One of the highlights for me was a cache that I'd selected because it sounds like it had a good view. Turns out, it overlooks the Arkansas River as it enters the Royal Gorge. The cache had not been found for over three years. Rust, history, railroad, whitewater, lonely cache. What more could you want?

Before the trip, I'd checked online and it looked like none of the pie places in Pie Town were open, but when I came through mid-afternoon on my last full day, the Gathering Place was open. They didn't have the New Mexico Apple that I was dreaming about, but...

A blueberry / peach pie had just come out of the oven. I made a place for it in my kitchen drawer and let it cool down while I put some more miles behind us. I could honestly say it didn't keep well, but I don't think I'll clarify that statement.

All told, I added 56 counties to the map and completed the Utah's Nearest Neighbor Challenge (GC2375Q) that had been the primary impetus for the trip. This challenge has only been claimed 14 times since it was published over 10 years ago. I also got the last two altitude bands I needed to complete Altitude Belt Challenge (GC56F47). It would only be honest to admit that I signed the log for the Absolutely No Life Challenge (GC56GY8) but I'd qualified for it before I left on the trip.

I've got a couple more projects to do on the car before I do another major boondocking trip with it. It needs a sliding shelf under the foot of the bed and I need to create a windscreen / shade for the open hatch area. The kitchen setup worked well EXCEPT that it needs an effective windscreen (or trips that aren't as windy as this one was.) More power and a low range gearbox would be nice but those are the things that likely keep me out of trouble!

Challenging

One of the blogs I read regularly mentioned that Blogger had a new blog development format so I decided I'd give it a try. Like anything new, I'm not sure yet...

It looks like this is going to be one of those years. With the exception of the year that BJ's back was a major issue, we've traveled every summer for the past 10 years or so. This year is going to be a bit of a challenge to see if I can check out some back roads while avoiding people.

Over a year ago, I noticed a challenge cache in Utah (GC2375Q) that requires you to find a cache in every Utah county as well as every county that borders Utah. I'm only missing 3 counties in Utah, one in Nevada, and a couple handfuls in the NE corner. Like most projects, it's grown more complex. I'm only short 4 counties to "black out" Nevada. Harney County, Oregon is the only SE Oregon county I'm missing... It leads one to wonder how far could I go?

While I have a plan, it's hard to say how this will turn out. It's dependent on boondocking locations with manageable temperatures and state guidelines with enough flexibility to allow solo travel.

I've figured out a way to get a bit of circulation if I'm sleeping in the car, and I'm taking my Hennessy Hammock along for those times I might have an appropriate tree to hold one end.

The car has a fresh oil change and is loaded with food and drink and all the other supplies and equipment needed to avoid people while enjoying some lonely roads. Should be fun. We'll see how far I get. 

Avoiding Idle Hands

With the Governor continuing to encourage us to stay home, my idle hands continued gravitating towards the garage. With the kitchen for the Subie done, it was time to start creating future smiles.

As is typically the case for my gadget caches, I started with Baltic birch plywood to build the boxes.

Yes, that was boxes - plural. It's always more challenging to build several different caches at the same time. There's some process advantage, but since I'm too lazy to draw up designs, there's a lot more thinking time to keep the details separate.

I've used baltic birch with a seal coat of epoxy since I started building gadget caches 4 1/2 years ago. I've discovered the limits of that construction tends to be 3 to 4 years in our climate, so 18 months ago I started adding a layer of 4 oz fiberglass cloth on the exterior of the boxes. I figure that will add at least an extra year, even if I don't do any other maintenance.

The glass cloth should be just enough extra strength to eliminate (I hope) the weather checking that starts around year three.

This one is a design that I've had on my list to do for a couple years. The conceptual test had worked well, and I've had the bits and pieces in stock for a long time.

Turns out, the conceptual test was inadaquate. My design tolerances were tight enough that when fully loaded there was too much friction. I thought it might have been a high maintenance cache, so I took a detour and created a totally different design with the container.

This is another partially formed idea that had bounced around in my head for at least a year, but recently another cacher provided some input that allowed this one to see the light of day. It's reprentative of how I sometimes feel these days - a bit unhinged.

If that weren't enough, I got a bit wired on this one. We'll see if it makes people light up.

There's more to this one but you'll have to find it to find out.

All of these are designed to mount on 4" parking lot light poles. They seem to be safer there than hanging in trees out in the forest.

Cachers (including me) talk disparagingly of lamp post caches aka LPCs, but I doubt these will fall into that same category. Now all I have to do is convince the right property owners to host one of these on their lamp posts.

My anticipated road trip for August has cancelled for this year since it involved large international gatherings. I'm hoping things open up enough that we can go wander some back roads.