California 2025 Trip--Day Three

Day three of our California trip took us to a couple of different places.

I went and did some caching while everyone else visited a Google office, discovering a dino with a flamingo and finding other treats.

Neither dino nor flamingo is in good shape!

Getting your picture taken may not be a treat

We visited Shoreline with the historic Rengstorff House (which was not open for touring). The nearby lake and bit of San Francisco Bay provided nice walks.

Rengstorff House

The original owners bought a windmill from Montgomery Ward for less than $50 in the early 1900s. They had to put it together to irrigate their farm and home, but probably well worth it!

Water house and wind mill in the backyard

The shoreline...no, really!

We drove over to a local library to kill some time before meeting family at Stanford University for a picnic and some exploring.

Mitchell Park Library

On campus, our first stop was the Rodin Sculpture Garden to see some of the great works of Auguste Rodin.

Sign we were in the right place

Claude Lorrain stands up high

Orpheus

The family was cool enough to recreate Three Shades, the sculpture, in real life!

Three Shades become six!

Martyr

The star of the garden is a casting of The Gates of Hell, one of Rodin's masterpieces that incorporates The Thinker and Three Shades at the top. The Gates are flanked by statues of Adam and Eve.

The Gates of Hell

Adam

Eve

A Burgher of Calais and Jules Bastian Lepage were also immortalized by Rodin.

Burgher of Calais

Jean Bastian Lapage

Further in the campus, we saw their bell tower and the campus church.

Bell Tower and outer buildings

Church exterior

Inside was quiet and interesting.

Nave

Main altar

Organ

A fun thing about Stanford is that some of the fountains are okay for people to wade in! This fountain outside the bookstore was a favorite, though the student union had a deeper one that was more popular.

People allowed, not books

Smaller, deeper fountain

Trying to make a whirlpool

California Geocaching 2025

Considering the considerable amount of cache finds on our trip to California (and the fact that it straddles two months), I am making a separate post of those finds (and a preview of what we did in the Golden State, so a sneak peek at upcoming posts)!

Our geocaching adventures started just outside Berkeley with The Path to Indian Rock Park. The hide was in a rock that was not the big rock sticking out of the neighborhood! Like the cache title indicates, ground zero was just off a path leading up to the rock.

Not the cache location

The next day, we found an earthcache on the Hayward Fault - Fremont, along with Letters to Shore - Marlin and Where's it Hanging? in Redwood City. The first cache was a letterbox that had me following photos through a park which was busy on a Sunday afternoon. I was worried about muggles! The final cache was in a tree with a limb down, but not the limb hiding the cache.

Okay, maybe the park only looks busy to a geocacher

Lost limb does not mean lost cache

The next day, I found Shirley Temple, a virtual cache at the final resting place of Shirley Temple Black, famous child actor and advocate.

At her resting place

Further away is Rengstorff House, another virtual near the Googleplex. Also by the house are Rengstorff Ratsel, HOHOHO, and It's Not My Fault (another earthcache related to fault lines!).

Rengstorff House

To kill some time before meeting family, we stopped off at a library which had a multicache in a nearby park. The Old Man and the Sea is an easy find once the final coordinates are calculated.

The library

We visited Stanford University's campus and found The Road Less Traveled, Rock Star (an earthcache), and Tongue Radius: A Looneytunes Puzzle Cache (a mystery involving the sculpture garden below).

Yeah, that's the cache up there

The Gates of Hell did not prevail against this geocacher!

The next day, we found several caches in and around the Presidio, a former army base turned into parks and businesses. Park Curiosity Lab is a regular cache hidden by a playground overlooking the bay and bridge.

The fog almost lets visitors see the bridge

The visitor center for the park has Buffalo Soldiers and Centro de Visitantes del Presidio, both based on the center, which has information about the history including Buffalo Soldier units assigned to the area.

Lucasfilm has office in the Presidio, featuring a Yoda fountain along with several props and things in the lobby. The fountain is also the start of a Wherigo cache Stars, Films and Wars.  

Yoda!

The wherigo took me all the way down to the waterfront area. The Palace of Fine Arts was across the street so I took a picture at the dome for a virtual cache.

Not the dome

After dinner, we had dessert in San Mateo and picked up the Architecture of San Mateo AL Bonus cache, since I had finished the Adventure Lab last year but hadn't had the chance to go back for the find, which was nowhere near the last location we visited. Pays to go in order, I guess!

The next day we were in South San Francisco. I found Taryam: Nuru, the easiest of the Taryam caches (which mostly seem to involve tree-climbing, based on the attributes of the caches and the Taryam-Tarzan connection). In the same park I found NINE HUNDRED, the nine-hundredth hide by caccbag. According to their stats page, they are up to 1175 hides as I write this! Also in the area, I qualified for the challenges Warninja's Distance Challenge (find a cache over 415 miles from home, easy since we've cached in New Zealand) and Warninja's Best Day Challenge (find more than 14 caches in one day). 

Path of the Warninja

Which way to 900?

The next day we started traveling south, finding San Andreas Fault Scarp and Just Juan in San Juan Bautista, then Split Volcano - Pinnacles NP West Earthcache at Pinnacles National Park. 

At the mission

In the park

We went further south and found Schwartz Park: A Muster of Storks in Paso Robles. Then Mission Haunted as Mission San Miguel, then an Adventure Lab with its bonus, Historic Atascadero - Bonus Cache. 

Mission San Miguel Entrance

Atascadero City Hall

Going further south, we found Rock n Roll and Dewey or Don't We Look for REF 423 CACHE 2020, the second being a library hide in San Luis Obispo County Library's main branch.

The library final!

At the beginning of July, I found Circular Logic and Waters of Caltech Adventure Lab bonus cache on the campus of Caltech in Pasadena, California. Naturally, I found all of the Adventure Lab before making the final find just off campus.

The circular bit

Water means...turtles!

I went to a social event in Pasadena, the Taco Twednesday #42 - Don't Panic, which was a lot of fun. After the event, I made finds for That's Not Trash, That's Art (someone who has decorated their house and yard with "recyclables"), Norton (a cache'n'dash), Rosie the Ribeter (a mystery cache involving frogs), and Altadena's Very Tall Tale Monument (a not entirely truthful cache).

Artful Lawn

Ribeter's home

Fire damage near the Tall Tale cache

In Disneyland, I found the virtual Disney's Horseshoe Revue and the Happiest EarthCache on Earth by a piece of petrified wood in the park.

The venue

The stone

Before we flew home from LAX, I scored the Los Angeles International Airport virtual cache with a photo by some servicemen and women from California. I used the sheet of paper from the Munich Airport cache which was still in my wallet from two years ago!

Good spot for the 4th of July