MARCH 20, 2011 – San Fernando Valley (central)

APRIL 3 update: Where is the dweeb? I’m doing long neglected house cleaning so that my place stops looking like an abandoned shack on Route 66. But beginning next weekend, for 9 straight days I’m going to cache, A LOT! Blogs to follow…

There was a time when my gc.com map showed nothing but smilies from Agoura to Burbank. In those days I had to drive far outside of the valley if I wanted to find more than a handful of caches. Recently some new SFV cachers became prolific hiders. On Saturday I didn’t feel like hike-caching or using a lot of $4./gallon gas. So I went after some of the new green boxes so annoyingly close to home on the map.

A lifetime’s knowledge of the valley’s streets let me reach the caches quickly with none of the wrong turns and other bad navigation decisions that I make when I’m far from home. On the negative side, the SFV has very few photo ops. Or maybe I’m so used to everything that nothing is interesting. See? Here’s a typical mid-size street going to Northridge.

On the way I detoured to the train station. True, it was Saturday, but it was utterly deserted. Judging by its pristine condition I don’t think it gets much traffic on weekdays either. What good is public transportation that no one uses?

Continuing north, I reached CSUN (California State University Northridge) and found several new caches.

One of them Celestrial (s/b CelesTIAL) Garden (GC2Q468) was an easy find next to an orange grove and pond. The air there smelled just like much of the valley did in the 1960s. Nostalgic! I also learned that squirrels eat oranges.

And there were lots of oranges.

The turtles in the pond wanted food too. They swarmed to the edge when I walked up. I don’t know what they eat. Probably not oranges.

Back on the road I drove at a leisurely pace and found mostly caches that were plastic prescription bottles hangered into the tops of chain link fenceposts. At The 3rd Time (GC2NHPM) I was vaguely intrigued by the sign below. But I’m 50 years old now so I decided that finding caches was more interesting.

Finally, after 20 caches I completely agreed with the sentiment below.

Why was I looking for caches when there was so much to do at home?!?! Just then my batteries died. It was a sign for me to get my customary after-caching Double-Double & fries combo. Now, a day later, I’m glad that I cached because it’s POURING rain.