South Mountain Drive

I went to hike up South Mountain last week. I was feeling rough and did not want to hike but hoped I would feel better when I got to the gate. When I got to the gate it was open! I cheated, I drove all the way to the top of South Mountain. It was all socked in with fog at the top so I am glad I did not make the effort to hike up. I'm not even sure I would have made it to the top. I might have turned around and gone back without making it the way I felt.

I hid a geocache at the top. I put an alcohol stove (White Box Brand) in the cache that I bought on ebay but did not like because it burned too hot. There was a HAM at the top working on the repeater. Yep that's a HAM radio repeater sitting up there, now I know. He said it was fine for me to drive and be up there but he was going to leave in and hour and lock the gate behind him.

I sat at the top for about 30 seconds and then I headed over to the next logging road. I wandered around some in my Jeep and then got out and searched for and found a geocache but I really was not feeling up to it.

Spring break is coming. Most years I am sick from the start of school in September until the end of Spring Break. Yes I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I could have lost the 20-30 extra pounds that I am packing around if only I were not too sick to hike most of the time.

I was dizzy and had a fever yesterday but I hope to get out and hike again tomorrow. Where I'm going I don't know, but even if I did I would not post it in advance here.

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Oh well it is now tomorrow and I am not hiking. My husband went out drinking with a submarine sailor last night and he spent the night at the sailors house so he could avoid driving drunk. He's still not home at 11:34, he must be pretty hung over. So I have no child care again today, I'll hike tomorrow instead.

Yesterday a geocacher went to look for my South Mountain cache and was having trouble finding it because it turns out I posted the coordinates to the summit instead of to the cache at geocaching.com. Lukily he was able to call on his cell phone to a friend who then sent me an email. I realized I had put the wrong coordinates in so I called him where he was on the mountain top and gave him good coordinates. I also gave him directions to my South Mountain Terracache.

I made it all up to him by serving him a big plate of pasta, hot chocolate and a beer as he was passing through town on the way back to his house.