Geocaching in Fairfax

We went for a walk this afternoon with geocaching as the reason. I don’t remember the exact number of caches we found but it was around six. With Bridget’s brother Jim along, it would have been hard not to find them. He’s had a lot of experience finding caches. It was over 80°F while we were walking around and, I thought, starting to get a bit humid. The trail was at Lake Mercer Park in Fairfax, VA. The screen capture shows the location of Lake Mercer.

We had dinner from a Mediterranean chain called Cava. It has been described as a Mediterranean Chipotle and the description seems accurate. They have an excellent website that allows you to build your pita or bowl with whatever toppings match your taste. Excellent food... 

Out Before Sunrise

Getting out before sunrise is getting easier and easier. This morning was 31°F. Today was the first day this year when the ride in to work was in the dark. No light on the horizon. Several friends from the College Coffeehouse have escaped south for the winter and one more leaving for good in a couple of weeks. Most of the trees have lost all of their leaves like the birch trees in the picture on the left. We're losing daylight at about five minutes per day so sunrise this morning was at 8:07. More signs that winter is coming soon.

The last couple of days have been beautiful for riding with the afternoons warming up into the low 40s (°F). I must admit that I've gotten into the habit of not wearing my riding pants during the Summer with the sidecar rig. I guess I sort of figured that I probably wasn't going to fall over at a stop light. (I know, poor excuse) I only used them when it was raining. And with the lower fairings back on, my legs are still out of the wind so still plenty warm especially once they start getting heat off of the cylinders.

It's still nice enough out to go geocaching. There was a new one planted out on the university ski trails so I felt obligated to go find it. This was cache #143 for me and it was pretty easy using the iPhone gps. I couldn't pass up sharing this view from the trail. As you can see, the early morning clouds have cleared and we have another beautiful Fall day.

As part of a university technology event, our department planted several geocaches around the university. This new official cache was only about 200m from one of our un-official caches (pictured below). The students just need to find them and collect a poker chip from each and trade them in for some sort of prize.

Some updates:
The standing desk is in the raised position for about 5 hours per day. Not continuously but spread throughout the day. My ankle gets stiff if I sit too long and this doesn't happen when standing. Plus, I was forced to clean my office.

Over the last week, the bicycle has been ridden around campus two more times and the hills are still a pain (literally!) but it's getting easier. Regular shoes instead of work boots makes a big difference. 

Rainy Weekend

Another wet weekend with cool, foggy mornings and maybe a little bit of clearing later in the day. The leaves are just starting to change but we don't get the incredible display seen in other parts of the country. Just yellow and brown. No shades of red or orange. Construction activity had this particular road closed to the public for a couple of years and I noticed that it has been reopened.

There was a ride scheduled for last week but only two of us showed up and we rescheduled it for this week. This time, I was the only one who showed up. I'm sensing a trend here. I was asked if I was going to announce a "end of the season ride" on the local BMW riders email list. I wasn't sure as it isn't the end of the riding season just yet.

It really is starting to feel like Autumn these days with morning temperatures in the high 30s to 40s (°F). There is a lot more traffic these days on my morning commute since the university is now in session. But the good thing is that, with the exception of my building, motorcycle parking is almost always empty and available so it's easy to run errands on campus. This was just a phone pic from our deck showing the remaining fog over the weekend. When it wasn't raining, it was foggy.

Saturday evening was spent at a geocaching "event" at Pioneer Park, aka Alaskaland, run by a local cacher. He set out numerous caches, scavenger hunts and kids activities. It took us a while to figure out that these stickers were the caches set out. Bridget and I teamed up with two other folks and before the last challenge, we were in first place. We ended up in third place but only because we "bet" half of our points on the last question. There was a good turnout with maybe 25 people there. Someone asked me if I was lost since I was wandering around with a gps.

Posted with Blogsy

Ester Dome Ride

Yesterday afternoon, I rode up to the top of Ester Dome, which is located just northwest of Fairbanks. The last time I was up there was back in September when I ran the Equinox Marathon. After the first half mile the pavement ended and the rest of the climb to the top was on dirt and gravel roads. It seemed like a long way up even on the bike. I vaguely remember the turn offs and road crossings from the marathon but seemed to have successfully blanked out much of that day from my memory. (I still hate running even more than ever!)

Many of the commercial TV and radio stations have their towers up here as it is the high point for the area at 2,323 ft. As you may notice in the lower photo, the rain had temporarily cleared out the smoke but you can see it building up again from the fire to the east which is on the right. I learned that I need to carry an easily deployed wheel chock since I don't have a parking brake. I do have folding chocks in case I need to remove a wheel but they are packed with all of the tools.

Sunday evening was spent looking for a different kind of geocache. The GPS coordinates just gave the starting point followed by directions following compass bearings. They were careful to specify using an uncorrected magnetic compass followed by distances ranging from 90 feet to 0.23 miles. It ended with 77 paces into the woods following your compass. It felt like we were following a pirate treasure map.

We found the ammo box in the woods right where they said it would be but the distances were more difficult to measure. I was using the Nike+ app to measure distances which used GPS. A simple pedometer would probably have worked better as that is what I think they used. The distances listed were always shorter than what I came up with. Fortunately, the distances were usually to trail intersections so we were able to figure out where we needed to be.

This photo was taken along the trail leading down to the "T" Field behind the university. The starting point was the Large Animal Research Station so this geocache was good for a few miles of trail walking. Nothing wrong with that.

Botanic Gardens and the Tanana Valley State Fair

On Friday, I walked down to the Botanic Gardens below the building and I noticed a new functional sculpture. I would definitely keep out some wildlife from your vegetables though it may make weeding and harvesting a little difficult. I don't think it was protecting anything but looked pretty cool.

The giant cabbages look like they're doing well in spite of the lack of rain. I think that the mostly volunteer crew at the gardens do a phenomenal job keeping the place up and running. And they give the residents a hint at what grows well in this climate. I was there for our annual, departmental barbecue. The plan was to have it close so folks could simply walk down the hill.

iPhone Panorama

The fair is in town for the week and we picked up season passes so we could come and go anytime this week. In Alaska, all of the regional fairs have the title "State Fair" so this would be similar to a county fair anywhere else. When we arrived this afternoon, it was surprisingly uncrowded (though that didn't last long). There was an antique tractor pulling contest though the weight transfer sled was sitting idle. They were just towing a trailer full of hay bales. Pictured is a small one engine running at only about 100 rpm powering a hand pump.

There was a nice display showing what your Alaska garden should look like. Any garden I've ever had anything to do with never looked like this. There was the usual mix of carnival rides, "as seen on TV" vendors and fair food. I was searching for something good for dinner but didn't find anything that really "spoke" to me. I ended up having leftovers at home.

We went for a sidecar ride after dinner to look for a couple of geocaches. Bridget is trying to log at least one find per day for the month of August. This was also the first passenger test of the newly installed sidecar spring and shock. At first, the rig really pulled to the right so at the first stop, I added one click on the spring preload. With that change, handling was neutral. I'm told that the ride was improved. We tried using the Sena SMH10's again but the battery died on Bridget's unit after about five minutes. I think it was left on after it's last use.

George Rahn, the local motorcycle guru, took a look at the new shock and spring setup, bounced on it a couple of times and commented that it was a whole lot better than stock. Plus, he liked the chrome plating. He is the one that recommended swapping the spring and shock out with one from an airhead as he had done the same thing with his Cozy sidecar.

Here is a quick shot showing our beautiful weather and the crowded motorcycle parking.

Posted with Blogsy

Out For a Walk

It really turned out to be a beautiful day and after dinner, I took a couple of loops around the NARL campus to enjoy the lack of wind. It was still only 1°F but without the wind, it was very pleasant. These pictures were taken at about 8:00PM which is still a couple of hours before sunset and many hours before it's actually dark. This is the location of a geocache which sees pretty good traffic. I dropped something off and picked something up.

The wind blown snow really sticks to things and I kind of like the way it looks. This is how utilities are run if you can't bury things into the ground and I believe that it is still used for natural gas lines. These overhead "tracks" run all over the NARL campus and seem to start at what I think was the former power plant when this place was first built back in the mid-40's. I really enjoy walking around this place with all of the rusted steel and frost covered paint.

I had to put in at least one ocean view though it isn't quite the same as where the water isn't solid. It's still nice in its own special way. I did manage to get in a nice five mile walk all the while looking out for polar bear. This morning, there was a polar bear alert as a one was spotted just a short distance from NARL on the ice. By 8:30am, the guards said that it looked like they were headed back out onto the ice away from town.

I now have about 95% of what I had intended to do on this visit done and looking forward to doing a training session for a couple of staff members on the use of the AV system tomorrow morning. Then I will be receiving training on the keyless entry system that has been in place since the building was constructed but has never worked. 

More Geocaching

We went geocaching again today and bagged seven caches around Fairbanks. Dropped off a travel bug and picked a couple up. I will be heading out to North Pole Wednesday evening so that would be a good chance to drop them off where they will be picked up by tourists leaving the state. I think the goal is to cover as much distance as they can. The mosquitoes were pretty bad where there wasn't any wind and we learned of a new micro-cache container. I guess this is a popular cache container in cities and it is a small metal cylinder about ½" in diameter with a strong magnet at one end. They are painted to match the metal they are stuck to. Unscrew one end, and you find a scroll of paper on which you can log your visit. Pretty cool. One of the caches we visited last week had one of these and we actually found it but didn't recognize it as the cache.

Not much walking this weekend. I had wanted to enter the Mosquito Meander 5k but forgot about it until I saw some people wearing the t-shirts at the local Farmers Market. My iPod Nano had some real problems today as it refused to shut off. I did a "restore" which basically wiped everything out and it looks like it's working again.

I did get the shocks and springs installed on the bike which should end the bottoming out on the frost heaves. The replacements aren't the same as the original equipment but use conventional springs and gas shocks. There is a special wrench to adjust the tension of the spring to match the load. The disadvantage is that now the bike sits up higher and my feet barely reach the ground. This will take some getting used to. When I originally purchased the bike, I was amazed that I could reach the ground. Now I know why. The springs were worn out. I'll try them out tomorrow on "Ride to Work Day".

Happy Mothers Day

It was pretty quiet around here today. We went looking for geocaches this afternoon and found all five of the ones we selected from the geocaching website. Most were pretty easy to find but it is a great way to get yourself out walking around. Most of them seem to be a modest walk from parking lots so didn't get very many miles in but that is probably just fine. My feet are still sore from very worn out shoes (probably close to 1500 miles) and a lot of walking on pavement. Walking or running on snow seems to be much kinder on your body. All in all, a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon. Came home and made burgers on the grill built into the new range. This was the first time we used the grille since I finally got the downdraft exhaust blower ducted outside yesterday afternoon. It took a while since the floor duct was 6" and the blower outlet was 5" and the location of the floor outlet was less than optimal. Plus, you are working underneath the range. Pretty cramped. At least it's done now.