Right now there's a war on, and the surest way for us to lose our liberty here at home is to let the Islamofascists and their murderous ideology survive the war intact. You and I are in the minority. The majority of people don't even understand what "liberty" is, let alone what's necessary to preserve it. Unless we defeat the Islamofascists abroad, we will be forced to play defense at home -- and that defense will consist of greater and greater encroachments on our liberty, with "public safety" the unimpeachable argument.
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I yield to nobody in my distrust and alarm over the growing power of the Federal Government. But right now, there's a war on for the future of civilization, and my own vote will go to the men who intend to win it.--- comment by Laura M. Hagen at Shots Across the Bow.

When I woke up, it was still storming out, so I thought there was no way we would be going to Stockton to cache. I padded out to the living room and spent time online. Rich continued to sleep in. But a couple of hours later, it had cleared, we were all behindhand, and I told Rich to go ahead and walk Sailor after all. What with one thing and another, we were 2 hours behind schedule, so we decided to skip the Pocket area caches that were there.

We did have time to get a Stockton map and a new Northern California book at AAA. My old book was from 2001 so we didn't know what changes had been made, but it appears you can still tour the Lawrence Livermore Lab, for instance. I also spy a new children's museum in Monterey, so if we end up babysitting the Button we have a couple of places to go. Roni doesn't know if she'll be kayaking, because of her knee surgery, but I kind of think she'll be ready to rumble by then.

We stopped at our cache where there was a travel bug and got it. I had hoped to trade, but none of the others fit. Arcade Creek is really high after the last two days of rain.

We dropped off the four bags of books I'd gathered at the Friends of the Library sorting area. And then we were off to Stockton at last!

We couldn't figure out how to get to one, and missed our turn, so on we went to Oak Grove Park. We spent the $2 to come in, but it's well worth it. There are four caches in there, and a Wildlife Center (which unfortunately wasn't open). The first cache was the hardest, a tiny flat mint tin in the crack of a dead log. It needed both of us to retrieve it. It took longer to get out, and to open, than it did to find it. Rich found that one. I located the virtual, big whoop, then we wound up on the wrong side of the water for #3, and had to walk around again. This was another tiny one stuck in the crack of a tree and again Rich found it. Then we walked across the park to the picnic ground and beyond. This was supposed to be a 1 terrain. Ha. With the uneven ground and the tall wet grass, it was something like walking through sand, and definitely tough.

We checked pedometers back at the car and we'd already walked 3 miles!

We headed on south and found somewhere to eat. Fuji Express isn't in Sacramento, and it was really good. I hope the chain expands our way. Then we went to look at a 7-11, and it was just too busy to spend time looking.

We found one called "Almost Stinky" real close to a dumpster and through a fence, then went to a marina and found another. And then the problems began. We couldn't find a 1/1 at a neighborhood sign. Then we went looking for another and couldn't even figure out how to get to it. Then we were off at a bridge, with a hard hide and easy terrain, and couldn't find it. Rich slid down the bank and got all muddy. I was beginning to remember all the bad things about Stockton. We have gone here a couple of times and enjoyed it, but we don't come very often and there have been a couple of really bad times, too. There was the time a couple of years ago when we were coming home from Bonfonte Gardens and stopped at the Marie Callendar's (which we passed today) and had a waiter who wouldn't deign to actually, you know, wait on us. He claimed the kitchen crew was having troubles and forgot my meal, though we suspected it wasn't THEIR mistake.

The really bad one was in 1976 while we still were in Novato. I was taking my Mom and baby Vincent to Stockton to visit my great-aunt. I was distracted, driving down some north-south street and didn't see the red light at Hammer Lane. BAM! I was hit on my side by a big blue truck. My Mother, who hated to wear seatbelts, had taken hers off to mess around in the back seat with the fussy baby, and was thrown to the floor of the van. She ended up with a big cut on her face (her "duelling scar", she said) but was OK. Vince had a tiny cut from the window glass on his face, and the doctor said if he hadn't been in the carseat (not required by law then) he'd have been killed. I screamed, after the hit, "Is the baby all right?" and then "Are you OK?" We had some very helpful bystanders. I got an ambulance ride with Mom and the baby, miles and miles away to south Stockton. I called Rich, in Sacramento, from there. He drove down to fetch us, to look at the van, which wasn't actually totalled after all, and to take us home. The big kids had been watched over by the neighbors after school and we weren't home much later than anticipated after all.

That part of town has really built up in the past 30 years, go figure, but I still cringe a bit about "Hammer Lane." I got fined for running a red light, and our insurance was up for awhile, but at least no one was hurt permanently.

We were just not having a good run, so it was time to go down to the Inn-n-Out where supercacher Lee had left a cache. This was a lightpost hide... the hardest thing is being discreet with all the people around. We managed. Then darned if we didn't have two more did-not-finds at Delta College, though we did manage to find the virtual. (Whooptidoo.)

So, with 5 failures behind us, what did we do? We went to a 4 hide, of course. And me, I, YES! found it. It's a tiny magnetic strip on the back of the metal strip behind homeplate at the softball field.

That chuffed us up, but there was another failure to come at the University of the Pacific. Rich was crawling around in the mud under a bench, but still no luck.

OK, fine, time for another virtual. This was the furthest south we went, to a little playground in the inner city. Then we started out of town toward the north, and as dusk was falling we walked across a field and got the last cache of the day. This was a McDonald's toy cache, and I'd brought a MickeyD toy. Most of the stuff in it wasn't on the theme.

And so home, 815 caches.