September 27, 2013 San Francisco, CA

We arrived in San Francisco earlier in the week and have
caught some things we've not seen.

We went in to ride a cable car today and that was a fun ride,
however, the ride home was exciting. We were waitng to catch
the cable car again when a cabbie came buy asking if he could
give use a ride downtown which was perfect since we were parked
in a garage. OMG he weaved in and out of cars lay down on his horn
pulling up to female pedestrians making comments, not quiet sure
what he said, but think he was being a flirt.

Needless to say we made it ok.

The Street fair that we planned to attend has brought people
from every where.

Last night we met guys from Detroit area, DC,Germany and obviously
there were a bunch from all over.

We took some nice pictures inside the rotunda at the court house.

We leave here on Monday to see my cousin, KC and we'll
spend a 5 days in Santa Rosa before heading off to Yosemite,
then our friends Jim and Sue who live in Ridgecrest, CA.

September 13-23 Oregon House, CA

We spent 10 days out in the middle of ???  Oregon House
was a place where we had about 20 % cell service and no
internet unless using the service at the club house.

It was nice we were able to get a little pool time and sun
as well as seeing plenty of wildlife.

Turkey's, bunny's, geese, dear that would come up to you
to see if you will feed them.

We managed to continue our daily cache search and finds
which was very challenging.

We had been out caching one day and I called my brother-in-law
and we pulled over to insure our signal wasn't lost. Then we got back on
the 2 lane road and suddenly a truck went shooting across the hwy hitting
a ditch, going airborne slinging everything in the back all in the field.

We and the guy had luck that day. One he could have hit us
head on if we had been minutes further down the road.
Apparently he had fallen asleep. He appeared to only have
a bloody nose. Where he exited the hwy he went between
a tree on one side and a telephone pole and a guy wire on the other.
While airborne he went over the barbed wire fence, so he didn't
even take a fence out. It was pretty freaky!

Otherwise our stay in Oregon House was peaceful.

September 12, 2013 Redding CA.

Today we drove out to Shasta Dam  and Power Plant which is now 75 years old.
Built during a seven year period between 1938 and 1945, the damn is a 602 foot 
high concrete gravity damn, providing flood control, power, and water supply 
benefits

We went 43 floors down into the damn into a gallery, what they call the hallways that 
allows inspections to take place inside the entire damn structure.

Power generated by the hydro turbines can provide enough power for the 
city of San Francisco and is used to meet demands to prevent brown outs.

We then proceeded to pick up a couple geocaches before making our way 
over to Sundial Bridge.

The Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay crosses the Sacramento River in the heart of Redding, California. Opened July 4, 2004, the bridge links the North and South campuses of Turtle Bay Exploration Park and serves as a new downtown entrance for Redding’s extensive Sacramento River Trail system.

The bridge celebrates human creativity and ingenuity, important themes of the 300 acre Turtle Bay Exploration Park. The steel, glass, and granite span evokes a sense of weightlessness and the translucent, non-skid decking provides for spectacular viewing at night. The bridge is also environmentally sensitive to its river setting. The tall pylon and cable stays allow the bridge to avoid the nearby salmon-spawning habitat there are no supports in the water while encouraging public appreciation for the river. Plazas are situated at both ends of the bridge for public use; the north-side plaza stretches to the water allowing patrons to sit at the river’s edge.

In addition to being a functional work of art, the Sundial Bridge is a technical marvel as well. The cable-stayed structure has an inclined, 217 foot pylon constructed of 580 tons of steel. The deck is made up of 200 tons of glass and granite and is supported by more than 4,300 feet of cable. The structure is stabilized by a steel truss, and rests on a foundation of more than 115 tons of steel and 1,900 cubic yards of concrete. The McConnell Foundation, a private, independent foundation established in Redding in 1964, funded the majority of the bridge’s $23 million cost.

World renowned Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava conceived the Sundial Bridge’s unusual design, his first free-standing bridge in the United States. Calatrava has built bridges, airports, rail terminals, stadiums, and other structures around the world. His notable designs include the new PATH transportation terminal at the World Trade Center site in New York City and several projects at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, including the main stadium where opening and closing ceremonies were held

We were leaving the bridge and saw a couple guys flying hang gliders propelled by a motor attached to the gliders back. We spoke to the gliders and were jokingly asked if we would like to take it for a spin. The guys land and take off from a green space and we were told there were no special licensing, it looked like lots of fun.

September 11, 2013 leaving Oregon and moving into CA

WOW, we enjoyed the state of Oregon so much!!

We enjoyed what the state offers in may ways, outdoors, arts and most of all
friendly people.

Continued our GEOCACHING streak :) found one in the Welcome center to CA
then found a couple here in Yreka, CA.

So Gary & Serena (aka; Princess) we aren't finding so many that you couldn't catch up!!

Get the remaining caches in Redmond ought to help you some HA HA

September 10,2013 Crater Lake

We started our morning off with our geocache find of the day to
continue our trend to find at least one a day. The August
challenge got us all charged up and we have watched
our numbers begin to grow nicely

We then took a couple hikes at Crater Lake today which in total amounted
to about 4 miles total. Crater Lake sees over 500,000 visitors
a year. Since this season is nearly over and the numbers have already
peaked, the park have been almost vacant and we have not had to
fight with any crowds or traffic.The park was established in 1902 and
covers 183,000 acres. The lake is over 1900 feet deep at its deepest point
and stretches over 5 miles wide. They see about 45 feet of snow annually.
Although they see temperatures as low as 18 and highs in the low 30's,
the last time the lake froze over was 1949.

One trail we hiked was the Watchman,  it lead to a forest tower where
rangers would look over the park in order to report possible fires. The
high vantage point gave a nice view of Crater Lake at over 8900 feet.

The Plaikni Falls trail took us thru some older forest with a steep
incline toward the falls. The falls were not as awesome as we
had hoped for, but still nice walk.

Vidae Falls was close to the parking area and was a nice sight.

Took a flora detour, the trail was nice but unfortunately the
flowers are more likely to be seen in June thru July.

Overall, the lake and park were just beautiful. I have never seen water
such a deep shade of blue. I could look at it every day and never grow tired
of the same sight.