There was a geocaching pizza event in Sebastipol today, so I thought we might as well combine it with the great map exhibit in Santa Rosa. We did make a try for a first to find in town on our way out, but there's a cacher who's been unable to look for the last few months, and his pent-up energy since his daughter's wedding Friday has led me to nickname him Hurricane Mikie. He was first while we were in church!

Other than that, we only stopped at the rest area and went straight to Santa Rosa. We pass within .7 mile of Roni, but because we'll see her Friday, we didn't bother them. On the way, we saw two of the Clover Dairy billboards: "Quart of Appeal" and "Catch Her in the Rye." The other day we'd spied "Litre of the Pack" and "Something in the Way She Moooves." I really MUST get a Clo the Cow to go with my other farm animals!!

We got to the Museum about 1. Unfortunately, Rich isn't old enough to be a senior. The maps are wonderful. I was struck by a couple of things on them. One, from 1700, has an advertisement on it! ("If you like this map, try some of our other products...") Another, a map of the world, shows "Isla de Plata" north of "Iapan." Hokkaido? Why the Silver Isle? I also noted "N.W. Georgia" in British Columbia.

OK, time to cache! We drove over the 6 miles to Sebastipol and started looking at a boxcar. As we walked up, I spied a guy in the parking lot looking down at his hand... hmm, another geocacher. He's from Grass Valley and his son-in-law from Napa. The GV guy finally was the one to find this cache. From there, Rich and I went to Ives Park. We were going in and someone coming out said "it's not far." Then we poked around in some trees and it started to rain. Rich went back to the car for the brollies and a woman and dog came up... another 'cacher. The dog didn't like Rich, and when she went back to HER car to get on a raincoat, Rich found the cache. We went under a roof as the rain was pelting down at this point, and 4 other cachers, from San Jose, came up. That's 8 "wild cachers" in the day. We already knew two of them.

Cachers we see at a party don't qualify as "wild", we think of them as "cache contents." This party had about 50 of us, from all over Northern California. It was neat to meet some of the people who have been driving us nuts. I turned over 4 travel bugs and ended up with 6, which is not a bad deal.

After the party broke up at 5, we went out looking again. We found one along a bike trail, and another in a county park (where we snuck in and didn't pay our parking, because we were only there a few minutes). Then we went to Florence Avenue, which is a MUST. There are all these junk sculptures (not an artistic judgement, it's what they're made of.) The virtual cache just had us answering some questions about them, and thus we got to walk the two blocks and get a good look.

OK, it was getting dark, but there was time to hunt up the new location of California Carnivores and get the "Little Shop of Horrors" cache. Previous cachers had mentioned that the owners of the nursery who lease to CC were unfriendly, but since it was so late I thought we could look without disturbing them. We found it, and signed the log, and put in a trinket, and were just about to put it back when "We haven't given permission for this game, get off our property NOW!" sounded. "Can I just put this back?" Rich asked. "NOW!" he roared. Rich put the cache down and we left, and the guy went into the bush and took the cache. I hope his plants wilt! I certainly don't think he's going to sell to any geocachers. Now, then, CC was closed this late, but we'll definitely be back when it's open. This store is much easier to get to and quite attractive. Mine are doing well, so it's time to add to them!! The last time, the sundews I got died, but now I have the greenhouse for them. I thought my current sundew was dead and it fooled me! It was only dormant.

That bad experience kind of made our trip home a little grim, but still, I got travel bugs and met nice people and found some nice caches. At home my mailbox was pretty full with all these people who have been finding our new caches. The gal who was robbed at BIT I went back to it, as well as others. There were 5 finders there, 4 at BIT II, 3 at BIT III, 2 at Pull! and one at both Wish You Were Here, and Going to the "Tent." More turned up as I was clearing the mailbox!

Polls on Kerry and Bush and VietNam.