365: Freshly Manicured

And no that's not an innuendo. Unless by innuendo you mean "IT SNOWED IN INDIANA TODAY AND ALL WE GOT WAS OUR CAMPUS LAWN MOWED AND TRIMMED?" Then yeah, maybe.

Tubing!

My Department Chair lives on a really cool little "island" along Big Chico Creek and she invited us to go "tubing" with her last week. Now, in Indiana the only tubing we really do is being dragged behind a high power boat but here in California they've perfected the ultimate living "lazy river" style of tubing. Much more relaxing and less likely to give you whiplash. Not to say that it is 100% safe...you could definitely crash into lots of water hazards, but overall, but more relaxing and enjoyable.

We went on one run from Mary's house to the covered bridge, which took about 30-40 minutes. She was a great teacher and gave us a lot of good tips. We had such a great time and loved it so much that we went down the run a second time and this time Mary drove down to the bridge before we got there  so she could snap some pictures of us on our tubes.

Here's me paddling like mad to stay away from the big rocks. The first time I got sucked in, but luckily the rapids and current aren't too big so I just bounced off them with my feet. The second time I got close, but my arms kept me far enough away that I just floated by.

Most of the time you just get to chill and float. Occasionally you have to do a "starfish" move to get your butt up and away from some of the bigger rocks in shallow water. 

And here's Ange floating along. This was after she hit a "snag" and got dumped out of her tube. She recovered nicely.

More floating leisurely...but about to pull a starfish move. No butt bruises for me!

Ange waving for the camera!

 

Two happy tubers coming out of the water with our tubes!

Piling into the back of their truck with the tubes for the short drive back to the house. We will definitely be taking part in this activity again! It was super fun!

Date Night!

 Yesterday we were invited out to dinner by one of my new colleagues (Thanks Rick!) so Ange and I decided to turn it into a full-fledged date night! 

We started out the evening at a lovely local Italian place called Panighetti's Eatery. The food was delicious, the conversation was great and we very much enjoyed ourselves. 

After that we decided to head over to Bidwell Park and check out the Chico Community Observatory! I'm telling you, Chico is AWESOME! There is so much to do here and most of it is FREE. We just can't get over it. 

We got to the park a little early so we pulled into one of the many, many parking lots to watch the sunset. It was of course amazing, and it's shocking how fast the sun sets around here. We could literally see the sun move behind the mountains in mere minutes. 

We also so a lot of crazbos going out for bike rides. Besides the topography, it was getting dark! It's a giant park and has very rough trails. We could not figure out how this seemed like a fun and successful recipe. In addition, someone got bit by a rattlesnake on the disc golf course earlier in the day so that further cemented into our minds that these people were taking the Crazytown Express to danger. Suit yourself peeps. 

We finally decided that it was dark enough to go over and start enjoying the stars! And boy oh boy did we. 

As soon as we got there the volunteer astronomer lady had already set up one of the big telescopes to look at Saturn. Ange and I could not believe it was actually Saturn! No joke it looked like a stencil. I google image searched it and seriously this is what it looked like:

So we took turns looking through the ginormous telescope and having our minds blown that we were actually looking at Saturn.

There's always some time for supermodel poses. Smart and sexy!

And just at the point where we were being overwhelmed by screaming children with non-disciplining parents we went outside to check out the smaller telescopes that were pointed at the moon. Also very cool!

After the moon viewing we decided to brave the screaming masses again so we could look at some different colored stars and an exploding nebula.

After that we went outside and sat in the planetarium viewing area and just enjoyed the cool night air and chatted for a while. All in all, it was a perfect evening!

Swimming Holes!

The other day Ange and I took a drive through Bidwell Park and we noticed that there were several swimming holes located in the park. We had just been talking about how we'd love to go swimming so like a good researcher (or maybe a cautious chicken :)) we decided to do a little research on these swimming holes and then possibly check them out. Sadly the Bidwell Park website was pretty useless when it came to information about the swimming holes other than general "be careful" advice. Luckily I stumbled upon this cool blog post that gave a lot of detailed information about each swimming hole and after reading up on them we were ready to tackle some swimming!

We set out for Bear Hole to check out the place. We had our suits and Teva sandals as we had read that it was best to have shoes on to navigate the rocks. We ended up creeping on some girls walking down the path in front of us and they ended up leading us to probably the furthest end of Bear Hole which was just fine with us. There was a very tall concrete wall in between the natural rock walls that people appeared to like jumping off of into the water below. It was probably about a 20 foot drop (I'm terrible at eyeballing measurements) into the water below. 

Here is a picture from the top:

It is a big drop but what makes it even worse is that there are giant rocks everywhere! You have to have pretty good aim or you could jump right onto a giant boulder and break your legs in 87 places. We did not opt to jump off of this wall. BUT! I did get some crazy teenage boy to do it for me so I could video it. He was a little excited to get going so it wasn't as long as I would have liked, but you get the idea:

There were some "steps" that led down to the water. I use quotation marks because they really used to be steps but over time they have broken down a bit. The first few steps are pretty good and then they kind of morph into a rocky slide until you get to the bottom. Luckily I've reached a stage in my life where I don't care if I look like a idiot so I crab walked down the last half of the steps. Going back up was much easier!

Ange was thoroughly enjoying being a little mermaid in the water and I took a chance to snap a few pics of her swimming like a fish!

After about an hour and a half we decided to walk back towards the other end of the Bear Hole and see what other spots were available. There was a big section in the middle that was swamped by a lot of teenagers so we skipped that part. It is really a gorgeous area so we stopped to take some pictures of us enjoying our new surroundings!

We got to the other end of the Bear Hole where we discovered an area that had a low rock that you could jump off of into a decent size area with fewer rocks. The only problem was that you had to cross over a little area that had a really strong water flow. I used my long legs and muscles to create a human bridge to help Ange get across so she could check it out.

Once she got over she was excited and ready to leap off the rock into the cold water!

Overall it was an excellent day! We are so glad to be here and can't wait to explore more of Chico and the surrounding area. We really feel like we are in paradise! (And not the town, though it is close!)

Geocaching Mania!!!

So about 3 months ago or so my mom urged my stepdad to get into geocaching. My mom's friend Justin (hahaha) has been a big geocacher for a while and it was something my mom thought Dale would enjoy AND it would get them exercising together. See my mom likes walking for fitness and Dale hates walking for no reason (other than fitness and living well I guess). So she thought if he had something to do while walking he would be much more up for it. Was she ever right...

So at this point you might be thinking, what the heck is geocaching?

Geocaching according to the Geocaching.com website is "a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment."

How do you get started?

Go to Geocaching.com to get started. There's all sorts of resources on the site to get you started. Mostly the only thing you need is a hand held GPS. You can find a range of GPS units from not too pricey to holy moly expensive. You can get them on ebay, Amazon.com, Best Buy or even your local pawn shop (each of the members of my family have gotten them from one of these sources). Also, iphones (or other Apple technology) has an app for it! Sign up for a Geocaching.com user name (make sure it's something fun and not just your real name) and find some caches!

Why do you want to do this nerdy thing?

1. It's soooo much FUN!
2. It promotes fitness! Who doesn't want to be more fit?
3. It promotes bonding! Whether it's with your whole family (like mine) or with a boyfriend/girlfriend/partner (also like me) or to make new friends geocaching is a great time to bond and spend time with other people. You can also do it with children so it's a great bonding and educational experience for families.
4. It gets you outside and more aware of your surroundings. It is a great way to get to know unknown parts of your city or state, can be a fun activity on vacations, and plain old gets you off the couch and away from the tv!

So Dale and my mom started the band wagon and I was the first to jump on it. I went with my mom and Dale a few times around Bloomington and I was hooked. Ange was totally making fun of me and thinking I was such a nerd, but I knew I'd soon convert her. It just so happened to be right before my birthday so I dropped some not to subtle hints to my family and lo and behold I got a GPS for my birthday!


My sister and brother-in-law got Dale an eTrex for the help he gave them fixing up their investment house and as you will quickly learn, there are always better GPS units on the market and if you are as nerdy as us you'll always want something better. Leslie and Clint picked out a reasonable priced one that had lots of good reviews and seemed to be user friendly. When I was looking for one, I went a step up from Dale's to pick out one that had a few more features (and put it on my Amazon wishlist so my family could easily locate and purchase it for me, haha). Dale later had been itching to upgrade and visited a few local pawn shops and found one that is a step above mine for only $50! When my sister jumped on the wagon she found an awesome one on ebay. My favorite part of it was our conversation.

Leslie: So I got my GPS today.
Lindsay: Cool. What kind?
Leslie: It's a Magellan.
Lindsay: Oooh, Magellan's are nice.
Leslie: You know me, I tend to get the fancier electronics.
Lindsay: Jealous.
Leslie: When I turned it on it had all this stuff about geocaching...
Lindsay: WAIT. What kind is it?
Leslie: Uhhh, an eXplorist...GC?
Lindsay: GC stands for geocaching you nit-wit! You go the one SPECIFICALLY made for geocaching!!! It's expensive! Now I'm really jealous!!!
Leslie: hahahaha, I didn't even know!

So that's how dear sister got her really awesome one--dumb luck! Hilary came home from Michigan for the week and we went geocaching yesterday and I mentioned that there was an app for geocaching.com that she could download. She downloaded the basic (free) version and it seemed to work pretty good. It was limited in searching capabilities but worked well to try it out. You can purchase a more fully functioning version which seems like it would work better.

In-between the upgrading and other people getting on the wagon, I managed to convince Ange to keep an open mind about it and join me on some expeditions. This was going to be a bit of a job at convincing because Ange HATES looking for things. Whenever she asks me where something is in the house, unless I give her the exact spot she will just say she can't find it. "On the kitchen table" is not specific enough. She looks at the table and will say "I don't see it." Unless I'm like, "It's on the left side of the table, approximately 4 inches from the back, under the water bill" she won't look. So a game all about looking was going to be a hard sell. However, the fitness and bonding and being out in nature part of it I knew she'd like. And I'll admit, I thought if she could get good at finding geocaching, maybe she could get good at finding my keys on a 3 foot round table. Bonus.

The first time out we went with my mom and Dale. The weather wasn't great and Dale likes to look forever and ever and my mom finds geocaches the fastest. Ange wasn't a big fan that night. I told her we'd go just me and her and maybe it would go better. We finally got around to it one day and I was right! She loved it and was hooked! Now she wants to go every day that she has off.

I was pretty sure Leslie would dig it, we just had to get her to go with one of us a few times and she'd be all over it. She's now hooked and has a snazzy GPS unit.

Hil was our last hold out, mostly because she now lives in Michigan. She's been here for a few days and while Leslie, Ange and I were out with her she downloaded the free app to her iphone to try it out. She loved it and has big plans to geocache all over Michigan.

So basically what I'm trying to tell you is to get on it and start geocaching. The only drawback I realize is buying the GPS unit. Keep your eyes peeled for deals and hopefully you'll be able to find one in your price range.

A few other tips for newbies:

1. Start collecting trinkets. Some geocaches have "treasures" for trade when you find the cache. These are usually not valuable but more fun little things. Think about the like 25 cent machines at the grocery store. Like that, but you get to choose. If you take something you should leave something.
   
2. Think about where you are going if you are going alone. Some places can be a little dangerous (unintentionally) if you are by yourself. If you are hiking around and fall and break your leg and you are by yourself it could be bad. If you are somewhere you might get lost it could also not be great. One thing we never really thought of, specifically for men, is that you are more likely to look like a creeper. Dale was out at the park one day geocaching and there happened to be a group of elementary students doing some kind of nature day. The park rangers stopped Dale because frankly when you are looking for a hidden treasure and trying to be discreet about it (watch out for muggles!) you can tend to look like some lurking creature who could possibly be a Chester-Molester and that's not great.
3. Always have a pen on you to sign the log book. Some caches are too small to house a pen, sometimes they get lost or sometimes they stop working.
   
4. Take a look at some of the caches available on the geocaching site or on ebay. I think one of the hardest things at first is to know what you are looking for. Once you get an idea of the variety of caching containers it becomes easier to look. Some are easy, some are tricky. You never really know what you are looking for, unless they give you a really specific description in the log.
   
5. Have fun!

A recent trip that Ange and I took:

Ange spotted the cache from above!

She had to dig down deep to reach it.

She got a good grip on it and pulled it out!

Yay! She finally found it and got it out! Success!