While most of America was sleeping and Mr. Kerry was playing antiwar games with Hanoi Jane Fonda, we were answering 3 a.m. scrambles for who knows what inbound threat over the Canadian subarctic, the cold North Atlantic and the shark-filled Gulf of Mexico. We were the pathfinders in showing that the Guard and Reserves could become reliable members of the first team in the total force, so proudly evidenced today in Afghanistan and Iraq. ---A flyer who served with Lt. Bush during VietNam.

Well, it was a nice day, mostly. We went over to Sonoma to take in the olive festival, look at the Mission and other historic sites, and, oh yeah, do some caching. We started out at 8:30 and went to the rest area without stops. Then there's a new bird-watching platform just before the bridge over the Sonoma River. A cacher who is kind of ditzy about his marks and about his maintenance left a cache there, and the supercacher and friends left another "on the way" to help point out (he'd said you had to come eastbound when it's westbound, for instance.) We found the way to the platforms, walked to the first cache, and looked for about 15 minutes. There are workmen there, sealing the fence, so we thought maybe they'd found it. Eventually we asked them. Rich also hopped the fence and went to look at a rusted-out car, which is probably wrong, but again he found nothing. Oh, well. I found the one "on the way" which is stuck up a pole. I looked down from the top and spied not only the cache, but a couple of black widows on the way. No problem taking it out from the bottom, though, and we were second-to-find.

Next we were able to pick up one we had to ignore for the road construction a couple of weeks ago, on a really rusty but interesting piece of old mining equipment. Then we stopped at Viansa winery. This is up on a hill with a marvellous view of some wetlands. We did some winetasting (they have some really nice ones) and also browsed at all the sample tables. Rich was taken with some of the flavored vinegars, and I loved a mozzarella sauce (but couldn't figure when I'd cook to use it) and another garlic-blue cheese butter which I'll use on the garlic bread on Sunday. I also liked a lot of the dessert sauces.

We took pictures of the eagle with the GPS in hopes there was a locationless involving this. It appears, though, there is not.

We left about noon, stopped shortly at the visitor's center, then drove into Sonoma proper. The first cache we tried was at the medical center, and we looked for quite a while where the hint suggested and didn't find it. Then we had a virtual at a labyrinth put out by a church. I followed the path in, and it's interesting how it does help you to center. The "cache guardian," a black-and-white cat, came by for a tummy rub. Boy, is he friendly!

The next virtual was up at the cemetery. I forgot one question (on a different page) but the two places it took us were interesting. One was General Mariano Vallejo's grave. He was in charge of Sonoma when the Bear Flag Rebellion occurred. California declared independence from Mexico and 20 days later the U.S. took it in. Vallejo continued to be an important person in the territory. The other site was gobsmacking. William Smith is the only Revolutionary War veteran buried in California. He was 8 when the war broke out so was probably 12 or a little older when he served on the Hazard in the Colonial Navy.

We also spied a "babies' plot" with these infants, all kinds of toys and things. Such a sad part of the cemetery! nearby is the grave of Mary Fazio who started the Mary's Pizza Shack restaurants. We also found Ernest Boyes of Boyes' Hot Springs.

Back in town, we parked and walked around the plaza. There are some neat little shops there, and the old Carnegie library (now, THAT would have been a locationless we could have done!) and the State Historic Park. Before we did that, though, we needed lunch, so we went to a Mary's Pizza Shack. Yumm.

I left my pen there. Grumble. Before we went to the Mission we walked down a half block and said hello to the Clydesdales there. Rich pulled some grass on our side of the fence and handed it to one, and then looked up to discover the other three headed our way too. Like ducks, they don't miss a trick. He had to keep pulling grass and offering it as we moseyed away. Lovely horses, even though they don't work for Budweiser!

This was the last mission in the chain, the end of El Camino Real. It's the only one founded (1824) during Mexican rule. I was last here with my older son when he was 11, almost a quarter-century ago. We were getting information for his Ad Altare Dei medal. Rich has never toured the historic sites here. It was time. There's not much left of the Mission and it's all reconstructed, but there's a little museum anyway and a nice church with original-style paintings. Across the street are the Sonoma Barracks. Mexico put a fortress here because they were worried about the prescence of the Russians at Fort Ross. Here there is the oldest extant copy of the original Bear Flag. This was made in 1896 and the main difference between it and the original is that the guy painting the original messed up on spelling "California" and wrote over it. That one was in San Francisco and was destroyed in the '06 earthquake. This one has the rather primitive bear... the bear and star were painted on, the red stripe was from a petticoat. The independent Bear Flag Republic lasted 23 days. The capital was first in Vallejo, then Benicia (named for his wife) then eventually moved to Sacramento. Thanks a lot, guys!

We finished by driving up to Lachryma Montis, which was Mariano Vallejo's home (his brother, General Salvadore, had an adobe on the Plaza.) There's a virtual up there. The name means "tears of the mountain" from the spring. What really interested us was the little outbuilding where the 15-year-old's bedroom was, where he lived with his 14 dogs, 2 monkeys, 3 cats and a parrot. It's up the hill away from the folks, talk about teen heaven! Then he went off to Santa Clara College so he's an alum of Monica's school.

OK, it was past 4, too late to go up to Glen Ellen and Jack London state park, so we'll save that for another day. At least this time, we didn't have more "someday" things after caching than we started with!

I decided to go back to Napa and attempt a couple there that we missed before. It was getting too late to try any of the tough top-of-mountain ones, but there was the High Caliber cache we hadn't gotten a month ago. Someone wrote us that it was touchy-feely and that the name was important. I'd figured the name was important, but hadn't known to get tactile with the looking. It's in plain sight, so we speculated that it might have something to do with the address on the electric box, "3006."

Well. It's a busy street so I was still getting across it when Rich screamed! He'd touched the number strip and it came away, and on the back were the directions to verify the find.

Now, you'd think that would have pumped him up so he'd be willing to try a picture cache? Ha. These have intriged me since I first discovered them... you follow the pictures till you get to the cache. He hates anything that is a little different, so I solve the puzzles and figure these things out. Sadly, I'd done a lengthy one that involved a lot of words made out of only 9 letters just in time to have it muggled and removed. I forgot these pictures at home last time, but really wanted to get started today. Rich started arguing... we don't have time to finish (actually, with a hour of daylight left, we probably did), this is stupid, etc. till I said (400 feet away from the start!) "OK, let's just go home" so we did.

Nearly home, he apologized, maybe there was time to do it, etc. Grumble.