Geocaching at Balboa Park

Jamie, Mae, and I decided to geocache around Balboa Park this morning since there were caches all around the park! It's funny when you realize that there are geocaches in places you've been millions of times that you were never aware of! We found 7 today!

Our first stop was called "Heart of San Diego". It was near the Botanical Garden so we stopped by the lily pad pond to take a picture of "Frankie the Fish" (the travel bug we picked up last week at Torrey Pines).

Mae found "Heart of San Diego" and now I know why the original geocacher who placed it came up with that name...the box is a heart! We loved the hiding spot for this geocache.

The next geocache was the first one I found today called "Spreckles Organ Pavillion". It was actually behind the pavillion so that's why my picture is in the trees lol. This one was a pretty easy find. Here I am putting it back where I found it!

Next we made our way to "Balboa Park and Cache" near the Aerospace Museum. This was our first magnetic find! We had a little trouble finding this one at first and there were a lot of muggles around so we were trying to act casual while looking lol. One of Mae's friends from church was driving the tram that kept passing by. He said he noticed us trying to be sneaky and he talked about how he always sees other people geocaching then trying to act normal when he sees them haha. Jamie found this one!

The next one I found was close by and it was called "San Diego Santa" because the box had Santa on it and the treasures left behind in the geocache were toys for all the little boys and girls who find the cache! We found a travel bug in this one! Jamie's holding onto that one because attached is a Lego Frodo and Jamie used to work at Legoland! Jamie decided that she'll give him a little companion (one of her Legos) to travel with. The goal of this travel bug is to travel all around San Diego so we thought it would be fitting to bring Frodo to a geocache near Legoland next week! 

We made our way towards Presidents Way to find another winter friend...this geocache is called "It's Frosty in Balboa Park". Mae found this one and look, it's a snowman!

We made our way to Park Blvd and walked along the street to the area where the playgrounds were. Here, we found our first puzzle geocache! The geocache was called "news". I won't post the riddle or how we solved it so that if any of you decide to look for this geocache, you can figure it our yourself ;) But if you are interested, it's a geocache only made available to premium geocache members (I couldn't resist so I upgrade our account from basic to premium a few nights ago lol so we have access to more than just the traditional geocaches). We all solved the riddle together but Mae was the one who found the geocache. This one was a tiny nano geocache! We've found micros before but this is the smallest we've ever found so far! It's crazy how they were able to fit the log inside this one!

Around the playground area are the letters N, S, E, and W to represent each cardinal direction. We took a pic with the W for WanderlustWarriors!

Our last one before heading out to lunch was called "The Cat in the Hat" because it had a Cat in the Hat box and logbook! Inside this geocache we found a compass rose geocoin! Because it is a compass, the goal of this geocache is to travel to all 4 corners of North America! Mae is keeping this one. Unfortunately we didn't get a picture for this one because we were too busy worrying about the things inside the box lol.

After our geocaching adventure, we decided to check out this place in Hillcrest called Bino's Bistro and Creperie. Lately I've been trying to yelp some nice places. And I don't mean chain restaurants or really well-known ones. I want to try out some more hole in the wall, hidden gem type of restaurants. So I found this one and the reviews looked good so we decided to have lunch here. All three of us got crepes then we got a strawberry martinique crepe for dessert. At first we couldn't decide whether to get the limoncello crepe or the strawberry martinique crepe so our waiter, Luis, convinced us to get the strawberry martinque. When he came back out, he had two crepes. The strawberry martinique which we ordered, and the limoncello which he gave us on the house! He was such a nice waiter! He explained the items on the menu and also gave a free dessert so we will definitely be giving a good yelp review for this place. Unfortunately we don't have a picture of Mae's Mediterranean crepe but here's Jamie's Smoked Salmon crepe, my Chicken Florentine crepe, and the 2 dessert crepes.

While we were waiting for our food to come, I took a picture of all our trackables since we all have one now! Mae has the compass rose geocoin, Jamie has the Frodo travel bug, and I have the Frankie the Fish Travel bug! We'll be geocaching around the Legoland/Carlsbad area next week to leave these all in geocaches! Until next time!

Geocaching Swag

So from the experience I have from geocaching for the past month and a half (not even that long lol), I've gotten to see what kinds of treasures, or "geocaching swag", my fellow geocachers leave in the caches. I see things like little toys that you'd get from like Party City or the dollar store, coins, and very rarely I see nice things like the pathtag and geodes the girls and I found in our last geocache at Torrey Pines. I wish I'd see a little more thought put into these things...even though technically your real "treasure" is the hunt for the geocache rather than what's inside it. When we were first starting, I'd leave random little trinkets and toys I had around the house that I had no use for.

After geocaching a couple times, Mae talked about how she wanted to leave thoughtful items like a mixed CD or a cute little personalized card. I wanted to start leaving more original and handmade stuff as well. So for our trip to Torrey Pines for hiking and geocaching, I decided to crochet some cute hearts with the hopes of other geocachers being more inclined to take the handmade items.

I wanted to take it up a notch and make something cool and geocache-related (and also something a male would take...these hearts are too girly) so I looked on Pinterest for some geocaching swag ideas. One idea that I really liked (which was also really cheap by the way lol) was mod podge stones! The only materials you need are clear stones/gems (the kind you use as a filler in vases), pictures/scrapbook paper/newspaper/etc., mod podge (not pictured), scissors, a pencil/pen, and a brush or even just your fingers if you don't mind getting down and dirty ;P

I bought 2 bags of stones at the Dollar Tree for $1 each. For the pictures, I printed out 1" x 1" pictures of what I wanted and cut them up in circles to glue onto the flat backside of the stones. I also wrote out "<3WanderlustWarriors" on the back of each one so people can recognize who these little stones are from ;) I used a DIY version of mod podge (2 parts Elmers Glue and 1 part water) to glue the pictures to the stones. Here's the link to the tutorial I followed by a fellow crafter to make the stones.

When I first printed the pictures out, I used regular printing paper. I wanted to write WanderlustWarriors on the back but the colors bled through the back. So scrapped those and I printed my pictures out on photo paper instead and....success! Here you can obviously see what I'm talking about...

I made 30 so far from the first bag, with a few dud stones I messed up on, and I plan on making more with the second bag! The girls and I are planning on doing a geocaching trip down at Balboa Park next Tuesday so I'll be sure to bring a bunch to leave in the geocaches there! Here's how the final product turned out! (It looks much better in person though)

Torrey Pines Geocaching

Went hiking and geocaching at Torrey Pines this morning with Mae and Jamie! We've hiked here a few times before but this was our first time geocaching in the area!

It was Jamie's 1st time geocaching but she was the one who found the only geocache we found today! She was super excited!

In the box we found some geodes (which Mae & I took), a pathtag (which Jamie kept as her 1st geocache treasure), and our first travel bug! 

Here's Jamie's pathtag:

Mae and I were very excited to finally come across a travel bug! This one is called "Frankie the Fish" and he came all the way from Arizona. His goal is to travel to as many bodies of water as he can! I'm thinking about maybe taking him to a geocache near Jacks Pond here in San Marcos. We haven't geocached there yet so it's the perfect time to go!

We never really take pictures of what we take/leave in the geocaches so here's one! I left some little crochet hearts and Mae left a card, bubbles, and a wristband!

Near the area were 3 other geocaches which were part of a series of 4 geocaches that the original geocacher set up so that the coordinates on the geocaching website/app were incorrect, and that the REAL coordinates are found in each geocache. So once you find the first geocache, it would have the GPS coordinates for the next one, and so on and so forth until you find the fourth and final geocache. Unfortunately, I didn't realize the first one in the series wasn't even on the beach, but 2.5 miles away on the east side of the I-5! So we will definitely have to go back to Torrey Pines to find those.

Here's a pic Mae took of Jamie and I trying to look for those geocaches we never found. Can you spot us?

Next week we plan to move the travel bug to a geocache near Jacks Pond, then afterwards do some geocaching down at Balboa Park!

Get Air Vista - Trampoline Park

So a few months ago I bought some vouchers for a trampoline park called Get Air. I've been to the Poway location with some friends back in March and these vouchers were for the Get Air in Vista. I brought 2 of my best friends, Mae and Fatima, along with me. It was their first time at a trampoline park so they had tons of fun. Not saying I didn't have any fun lol. I'm not sure if it really was or not but the Vista location seemed smaller than the one in Poway. The slackline was open at the Vista one though! But I did like that at the Poway location, the foam pits were lower than the trampolines so it was much easier to do flips.

We got a lot of fun actions shots but these are my favorite pictures of each of us from the entire evening :)




We took LOTS of videos! I compiled all the videos into one for each of us.

Fatima had the cleanest jumps:

Mae's video was the most entertaining since she couldn't get a backflip down and she had derpy-looking jumps haha. And FIY, the last clip of her was supposed to be a picture but apparently I had it on video mode lol.

Then here's mine. I squeal every time I jump, which is totally normal for me lol...except for the last clip, which might be why I did such a derpy backflip and hit the trampoline haha.

Geocaching at the "P" Mountain

For as long as I've lived in San Marcos (which is basically my whole life minus 5 months) I've NEVER hiked the P Mountain! ....until today! Mae and I hiked up, around, and down the P Mountain which took about 3 1/2 hours...which would've been a lot shorter had we not geocached. We unfortunately forgot to track our hike so we have no idea how far we hiked, but we're going to guess around 5 miles?

WARNING: Because of the fact that we had a long hike with 9 geocaches, this is going to be a VERY long post with lots of pics! Be prepared! Be sure to at least read our stories about geocaches #5 and #6 though for some good entertainment!

We borrowed a parking permit from other best friend, Jamie, so we could park on campus. If you plan on hiking the P Mountain in the future, the closest parking will be at the back parking lot of Palomar College off of Borden Road, although you need to have a parking permit. Otherwise you could probably park either east or west from the mountain on Borden Rd. Both sides have neighborhoods where you can park.

We left around 7:40am and took about 15-20mins to get to the "P". It was pretty steep! Here we are at the very bottom of the mountain right by the stoplight! ....our before-P Mountain pic.


Geocache #1 Along the way to the P, we stopped at the 1st geocache of the day called I Gotta "P". A lot of the geocaches in this area kept the theme of having some sort of "P" in the name. This one was a tiny pill bottle that Mae found.



Not that far up from the geocache and we reached the P! We couldn't really get a picture of the entire P since the mountain is VERY steep so we couldn't reach the bottom of the P.


We started walking to the very top of the mountain and stopped to take a few pics of the view! Here you can see Palomar College where Mae is gesturing to.


Here is a view of the west side of San Marcos towards Escondido.

Geocache #2 of the day is called "P" is for Pain. Mae spotted this one too! This is the first of several large ammo boxes we found today.




The pen died out on the last person. But they got creative in signing the log! Good thing we brought a pen with us!


Here was a little note in the box for those who found the geocache....intentionally and unintentionally!


Geocache #3 Mae was on a roll today...she also found this geocache! I think it was when we started the search for this geocache that we started getting attacked by these huge flying bugs! I'm not sure what kind of bugs they were since we had never seen these before but they were bigger than bumblebees. We were constantly screaming and running whenever we saw one or heard loud buzzing. Hopefully we didn't alarm any other hikers from our screams! We can get pretty loud haha.

 


Geocache #4 This one was a very special one. It was placed in remembrance of someone named Robby on his birthday. This was found by Mae as well. This hiding place was pretty tricky but a good one on the original geocacher's part! It was hidden in a way that you couldn't see it from the trail.



I wish I had recorded this but Mae starting singing and swinging her stick around like a sword on our way to geocache #5 lol.
 


Geocache #5 The hunt for #5 was a seriously hilarious but terrifying one! Mae saw underneath a pile of rocks what looked like something that could be the geocache. She started moving the rocks around with her stick and she didn't have her glasses on so she couldn't see very well. I looked at what was underneath the rock she moved and I FREAKED OUT. I screamed, "SNAAAAKE!!" and we both started screaming and running away from it. Nothing was moving from the spot and we didn't hear any rustling or anything. So I crept back to check and it was indeed the geocache, but the original geocacher who placed it wrapped it in this camouflaged fabric that had a snake-looking pattern! I told Mae and we started cracking up. You had to be there to understand the extreme fear instilled in us. Even though we knew it wasn't a real snake, we were still afraid to touch it so Mae tried picking it up with her stick haha.
ANOTHER scare we had in this spot, before Mae was able to pick up the geocache....we spotted a giant colorful bug walking by. So us being the scaredy-cats we are, we freaked out once again and ran away. I went back to see and it looked like a beetle. Fortunately it didn't have wings so I played look-out and watched the bug while Mae grabbed the geocache. As Mae started to put the geocache back where we found it, we heard some more rustling so we didn't properly hide the geocache the way we found it...Mae just threw it in the bush haha.
Here's Mae looking terrified lol. I wish we had taken a close up picture of the fabric so you can see exactly what I was talking about.



We saw lots of "car carcasses" during our hike. We spotted maybe 3? Here's the 2nd one we spotted. I have no idea why or how these cars even got here.


Geocache #6 This next cache was my favorite, and not just because it was my 1st find of the day lol. This one was the tiniest one we've ever found! AND it was actually hidden really well! The hint for this geocache was "one of these things is not like the other."


Can you figure it out?


Here it is! It's the tiny rock! And attached to it is the tiny geocache!




While we were here, we enjoyed more of the view!



Geocache #7 We started making our way down the hill to go back to the car and grabbed #7 on the way down! This one was super easy to find. It wasn't hidden underneath anything, just in the bushes.




Mae liked this streamer we found in the box lol.

Check out Mae's bum! Since a lot of the hike was on steep hills & mountain biking trails, we had to squat-slide down the trails to avoid tumbling down the mountain. And at one point we also sat down for a quick snack. Mae didn't bother brushing the dirt off her pants haha.

Geocache #8 This was the last geocache on the mountain. We liked this box since it had an official geocaching sticker on it!




We made our way to the street to walk back to the car. Here, Mae had trouble trying to get up lol.

The tree near the center of the photo is where we found geocache #8. Can you spot it at the base of the tree? It's a small spot in the picture but it's big enough to see from afar!


Our after-P Mountain shot!


Just being silly while crossing the street & showing off our "warrior" side (warriors...yeah right....we get scared of bugs haha) of the WanderlustWarriors (our geocaching name) before we abandoned the stick.

 

Geocache #9 Since we were parked by the soccer field, we decided to check out the only geocache at Palomar which was at the end of the parking lot right next to the soccer field.
 

Unfortunately I sweat very easily. Add a backpack and my whole backside gets drenched in sweat!




After our hike we were starving, so Mae treated me out to Greek food at Odysseys! Thanks Mae!

Until next time!