Another late nite ride

Headed out for a ride around midnight. Did 14.2 miles in about 2.5 hours.

One of the reasons was that while planning a geocaching run, I noticed that the NW trails map "overlay" showed at least one trail I'd not noticed. Since it started where a trail segment I use a lot ended, I was rather surprised. So I rode over to check it out.

No trail. Just a wall of brush. I tried another, nearby "trail" that should have hooked up with the other end. That one was a segment of road (not unheard of) that ended at a set of locked gate.

Riding around to try to find the other end of both trails confirmed that there were no such trails. More underbrush at the other end of the first one (which by the map should have been *paved*) and another locked gate for the second.

Gonna have to report those to the guy who maintains NW Trails, along with a third trail segment that is apparently somebody re-submitting one I already did, but with their GPS off by enough to make it look like a second trail.

Since I was in the area, I decided to look for the caches I'd been planning to do on the run (even though I didn't have the cheat sheets with me). First one I didn't find, though now that I'm home, I think I know where I went wrong.

Second one, I found the location (and from a clue it was obvious I had the right spot), but no cache. I've emailed the cache owner about that one.

Third was an easy find. 4th & 5th turned out to be *just* far enough from home that (being micro caches) I didn't have them loaded. They'd likely have been easy as well.

6th was one I'd looked for many times, and again, turned out to not be loaded. 7th was yet another one I'd been trying to get for a couple of years, and given that (once again) the GPS said it was in the underbrush, I decided I'd save that for the daylight run in a day or two.

The final one was what would have been the *first* if I'd started on the caching run instead of trying to check out the trails. It was another I'd looked for several times. This time I remembered a clue from the cheat sheet, and that, plus the fact that the last person hadn't hidden the "container" as well as they might have let me spot it.

It was one of those evil 1.5" square ziplock bags covered with tape (black in this case). Managed to get the log out with tweezers and sign it. I hope I got it back in place better than the previous person had.

Relatively quick return home, and I've logged the finds and written this.

Next step is writing an email to the NW Trails guy about those bad entries. Then off to bed.

Evening ride

Around 6:30 I decided to go on a short ride. At least partly because too many of my recent rides had been at night, and I didn't want to get out of practice for riding in daylight)

I hadn't intended it when I started out, but I decided to head out to the caches I hadn't gotten last night. Still couldn't find the one near a post office, but I think that's because I just didn't feel like digging thru the bushes that badly.

The one I coiuldn't find and emailed the cache owner about I did find. I hadn't noticed that there were *three* of the key items there, partly because it was dark last night and partly because the GPs was pointing at one very clearly (the rare thing where it says something like 2 feet while you are standing next to the target).

This evening I saw as I was riding up that were were indeed three. And *this* time, rather than pointing at one on one end, it pointed to the one in the middle. And sure enough, there was the cache.

The two I didn't have co-ordinates for last night were easy finds except for people from the nearby stores making it hard to be inconspicuous.

I didn't try for the ones on the bike path because I was getting tired. Since I was only a few blocks from a Max station, I rode over and took it to the Parkrose TC where I was able to catch a bus home.

I only did 5 miles, but did it in about 45 minutes of actual riding. So that's not bad.