Casa Grande, Again

Last Saturday was our third trip to Casa Grande in eight days. The first, undocumented trip, was to meet with former Watertown educators and their wives. The four of us had worked together 15+ years and known each other much longer. PI Day was the following day and we returned for geocaching and pie. Sherry joined us again, last Saturday, for some geocaching events and ... geocaching adventures.

We met at a city park outside of the community for a cache in, trash out event or CITO. We were assigned a quadrant in the park and proceeded to pick up trash.

One of the rules of the park is NO GLASS CONTAINERS. Guess what I am picking up? Shattered pieces of glass bottles.

Sherry and I worked together. My most disgusting items were a dirty diaper and used condom. We found lots of plastic bags, broken bottles, and the usual trash from picnickers. We also startled a large jackrabbit and many little geckos. It was a rewarding 90 minutes.

As you can see our group collected a lot of trash, including an old TV. Why do people use a city park for their dumping ground?

Following the CITO, geocachers met as a group, collected some information about soon-to-be-published geocaches, and headed out in small groups to find them.

The first stop was along the narrow road with no off-road parking. Our destination was a pile of boulders, one of the unique features of this city park.

Cachers climbed the boulders to get to ground zero, the location of the cache container, but were stopped by the sighting of a rattlesnake curled on the rocks below. (Hubby took the above photo. He does not know how to use the camera features on the iPhone. I would not climb on the boulders to check it out.)

Another geocacher got a very good photo of the snake. I asked him to send it to me. The snake did stir and hiss a bit when the dozen or so folks climbed on the boulders above his sunny spot, but it settled down when it realized no one was getting any closer. (The geocache was NOT in its territory.)
The experience was a good reminder: we were in the desert and snakes do live there! We stayed away from rock piles for the rest of the day. We walked with sticks everywhere we went.

Where's Waldo?

from the inside looking out

Who do you suppose got the cache?

fresh evidence of the food chain in the desert

The three of us hopped in Lil' Red to find a special cache outside the park area, but nearby in the desert. There are few good, direct roads so we did the best we could, given the GPS coordinates. Lil' Red encountered a steep wash.

we've done worse; let's do this!

needed low-4 wheel drive to make it up the hill

look at the dust fly & wheels spin

she & the driver did not make it the first try

...so they tried again

more gas, more spinning tires & flying dust

SUCCESS!

Sherry chose to walk (wonder why???) and documented Lil' Red's attempts as she worked her way down and back up, out of the wash.  

Less than a mile away we found the cache and a much better desert road for our return trip to the city park.

When we got back, most of the people had already left. We ate our lunch, thanked the host of the two events (CITO & Lunch Meet & Greet) and the seven new geocaches, and headed back home. 

Just one of many unique pile of boulders in North Mountain Park, Casa Grande. 

Any photographs without my tag are photos taken by Sherry. Thanks Sherry for tagging along on our adventures, for riding in the back seat of Lil' Red, and for willingly hopping in and out of the jeep while we geocache. We enjoy your company and are happy to have had you with us on these weekend adventures.