Hiking & Geocaching - Two Great Tastes

Geocaching is a strange and delightful activity, that's for sure.  It combines three of my favorite things in the world: seeing new places, gaming, and hiking.  So I thought I'd go back and look at some of my more interesting caching logs from the last few years, along with some accompanying images.  Good times and much adventure!  Please enjoy these stories; I'm pleased to say that I didn't wound myself on any of these adventures, although wrong moves are sometimes fatal ones on these lonely mountains.

Lookout Peak, Robledo Mountains (GCX89N)

We're back! So after our Sacramento Mt. adventure yesterday, Dave & Ganggreen called me up last night, wanting to know if I wanted to leave early to try and tackle the road up to Lookout Peak that we chickened out on driving up last November. I couldn't resist so after our rendezvous at Starbucks, we high tailed it up Faulkner Canyon Road and started the rock crawl in earnest.

Adrenaline ran high but Dave's amazing driving and remarkable Rubicon Jeep was up to the task. When we reached the first saddle, they wandered off to snag my neighboring cache and walked up the ridge to the top, where I met the white faced but exhilarated driving team. The find was easy and we enjoyed the spectacular views before we split up again, during which I placed another (evil) cache.

I skipped back down the ridge and met up with the boys before crawling down the initial obstacle from last year. Now it doesn't seem so bad.

Giving this a favorite for the awesome adventure. Thanks!

96 Tears, near Globe, AZ (GC18028)

So this was quite an adventure. I talked my sib to make the hike up from Highway 77 as a break from our drive to Phoenix, en route to a wedding in Vegas. It's a good thing we did because Phoenix was a hideous festering hell hole when we arrived, with traffic moving like frozen molasses and accidents blocking access everywhere (plus no good wine anywhere near our hotel). But I digress...

We started with a good pace up to the old jeep (?) road, remarking along the way as to why there was a long black tube running parallel to such a remote trail (much speculation ensued, including my theory about bear fluids being channeled to some secret government lab down in Globe; turns out it was just feeding a cattle tank). When we finally reached the GZ area, Roger just knew exactly where the cache was even without looking at the map; sure enough, he was spot on correct (his second find ever out of two hunts!).

GREAT cache and very very lonely (I decided we would seek this one when we saw that it hadn't been found in over two years!). It's always a pleasure to find something like this. The wooden box is starting to come unraveled a bit but I don't think it matters much given it's very well protected hiding place. Snagged a couple of tears and then high-tailed it back to his Prius. All told, we did the whole thing in about 2 hours, not bad for a couple of out of shape guys who were more concerned with getting their hands on some decent Malbec before bedtime.

Thanks! A definite favorite.  Did the mention the views and weather were spectacular today?

Big White Gap, Las Uvas Mts (GCWGRN)

BG and I reminisced last night about the time we got lost and ending driving over the Big White Gap in the Las Uvas, way back in the 90s. So the goal with the Da Boys today was clear. We were gonna go the White Gap again in his Toyota Tundra, choosing the Corralitos Ranch Road route as our entry point. Along the way, we stopped to get another cache and gawk at the amazing beauty this road has to offer. The drive up to the Magdalena Peak area has always been one of my favorites and today did not disappoint.

Afte this, the road got dicey, far worse than it was 10 odd years ago (and apparently worse than it was when this cache was placed). We cleared a few rough patches in the arroyos and near the White Gap tank, where we were greeted by cows and mule deer drinking at the pond. From here, it was all uphill to the pass. After getting out and helping our driver navigate his way through a particularly rough patch, we thought it would be clean sailing to the top, the rough being very rough but doable. After .5 miles from the top, our luck ended abruptly when the road in front of us decided to disappear into a chasm of avalanchee badness. From this point on, it would be impassible even for a 4x4 to navigate (although I'm sure ATVs could do it just fine). The hike up from here was not bad and we found ourselves to the pass within 15 minutes or so. A short rest and some awed gawking at both the Organs and the Black Range (from the place! who'd a thunk?), we made our way up to the cache site and the prize was at hand.

The boys celebrated with beers and I reveled in my first five terrain find! What an adventure. I took an amazingly cool bug and left one of my own, along with a few other goodies (earrings, $1, etc) for the next intrepid adventurer who wants to make this trek here. Thanks for the challenge! Next time we'll have to approach from Highway 26 to get the Las Uvas Springs cache.

PS The iPad worked brilliantly the whole way, even when we had no coverage at all (yet the GPSs and our satellite maps persevered throughout). I finally switched to the handheld for ease of movement during last .5 mile hike. All in all, a good day for cachers and good day for technology. Yay!

Ticket to the Superbowl, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, NM (GC21976)

What better way to celebrate 12/12/12 than to find what has to be the hardest cache I've done all year. That's not to say that any one aspect of it was particularly hard but in summation, it wins... hands down. Here's the quick and dirty version of the challenges we faced today.

1. We ran into an issue with the initial field puzzle involving the Stage One numbers. Seems we ended up a negative number for one of the coords; turns out this was the stage that the CO had to modify due to changes in signage but BB & I were pretty sure there was still a problem and a phone call to the last finder confirmed this.
2. We took the wrong road at first, trusting erroneously in our atlas maps, which took us into the heart of a ranch with no exit roads. After this, we back tracked to the road I thought I would need in the first place and we were in business.
3. Since BG couldn't join us today, BB & I were in my trusty Element, which is not ideal for this sort of thing but it fared fine apart from a bit of plastic covering over the right rear strut, which popped loose on some particularly prominent rock. Fortunately, nothing was broken and it snapped back in placed right away. The rest of the drive was rough but with no incidents, and only one bit where we drove over open desert instead of the road to avoid a particularly nasty patch of rock.
4. The climb was loose, volcanic, and somewhat treacherous because we didn't follow the CO's advice and took a different, stupider route up. 
5. The hide was HARD in these rocks. A need in a haystack hide for sure. But we got it! We also recovered Marauders stick. 
6. Downhill, especially on loose rock, is not my forte so it took me almost as long downhill as up.
7. Had to go to work so we hauled ass out of there. Now I'm 30 minutes from my meeting; no shower for me (just some freshening up!).

All in all, an adventure for the ages. Thanks BD!!!!!!!!!!! A definite favorite point for this one.

Conference Thoughts, Part II - Presentations

So this is a follow up from my last post.  I thought I'd give you a taste of the presentations I've been doing for the last few years at the conference.

Please... ENJOY!

• Technical Writing and Zombie Apocalypse: Using Popular Culture Icons to Enhance the Classroom

• Don't Be Evil: Using Google Drive for Collaborative Learning Activities

• The 7 Wonders of Pedagogy: Learning Style Theory & Antoine Bauza

• Using Social Networks to Adapt Our Classes to Limited-Attention Learners

• Teaching Teachers to Tweet Terrifically: A Conference Twitter Primer

Pop Culture Conference Fun

I've been slacking lately, at least regarding this blog.  The last couple of weeks were all about getting ready for making my annual pilgrimage to Albuquerque to be part of the Southwest Popular & American Culture Conference.  My friend Lewis- who I usually room with to save money- jokes that I run the conference, which is quite hyperbolic but it does sometimes feel that way.  After all, I remember attending for the first time in 2009 as a humble guest of his, having finished my duties at another nearby conference that was taking place at the same time.

Then it was in 2011- the year we merged with the national conference in San Antonio- that the delightful Dr. Leslie Donovan asked me to take over as chair of the Pedagogy area of the conference, for which she was currently serving as area chair.  She wanted to focus more on her Tolkien studies and wanted to pass the reigns to someone who showed the enthusiasm to do the daunting tasks that faced an area chair of a large conference area.  Since that time, Popular Culture Pedagogy has developed into one of the four largest of the conference, along with Science Fiction-Fantasy, Game Studies, and the Grateful Dead group.

The area chair job is relatively simple enough:  I send out a Call for Proposals every year- usually in late July or early August- soliciting papers and/or presentations from all over the world through various databases that specialize in advertising CFPs for conferences, symposiums, and workshops around the globe.  As proposals come in, I read them and either approve or reject them, sending out messages to submitters in either case (most of the time if there is a rejection, we allow for revised CFPs).  Then, when our deadline has finally passed, I form panels out of the submitted and approved CFPs, attempting to group them into topics of similarity.  Finally, when the conference arrives, I act as liaison for my presenters, usually "panel chairing" their discussions.  This can be a very time-consuming task, as we generally have between 10-15 panels of 90 minutes each, spanning the four days of the conference.  In the meantime, I still have to do my day job.

Is that enough?  Apparently not for me because I have subsequently volunteered to serve on the editorial board of the conference journal Dialogue, reading articles for publication in the journal (double blind submissions of course; that's the norm for academic journals).  Add to this that I also help select the graduate student paper stipend for an annual Pedagogy Award conference attendees (this part makes me the most nervous as I actually have to present the award at the conference keynote).

As a gaming nerd, I have also hosting an annual game night at the conference and helped to organize a dine around event for attendees to network with fellow academics.

Did I also mention I presented on Twitter and even managed to get an editorial publication in our journal this year?

All around, it's a busy, largely sleepless four days of academic and nerdy awesomeness and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  More on this later but for now, it's back to grading.  Yes, the day job doesn't ever end.

I Hate Money

NSFW!!!

Here's a little fiction for you, circa Y2K.  Any similarities to persons, living or dead, will result in me pleading the 5th.

Psychotropic forest

Dream wood forest warrior

Patterns light in darkness

Light fades into shadow

Batting silence

Bugs sidle the mirror face

Tartness flecks the tongue

Cellophane dried

On packing peanuts

And the journey begins

Marconi’s version of the truth:

            The Gila has always called me.  “Sooweet, motherfucker,” it screams, like Samuel L. Jackson would say as a guest on Green Acres. 

            So once again the Gila called to me so I knew I wanted to go somewhere into the Gila.  Upon Kruze’s suggestion of either Willow Creek or Snow Lake...

           

Marconi pauses mid joint rolling. 

He cackles madly as I type these words. 

He is upset that I have interrupted his words.

He spits the sweet venom

Of joy and innocence upon me

We light our way...

Marconi’s version of the truth:

            The paper must be clipped.  It was soooo tight...  No inspiration.  Lump o candle; even parents can love it has a beautiful household item.

            I had experimented with pot before and found it to be a very delightful and enlightening experienced.  It’s helped me see things in a new way, a gentle way compared to the other so called intoxicants.  It’s not harmless but it’s relatively so, especially compared to legal drugs like alcohol.

            I wanted to experience the new dimension that mushrooms would give me.  I hd read it was more intense but I was looking for something more than what pot has given me so far.  I knew I had nothing to fear about them.  I read it was gentle to your body like pot.  It sure tastes like shit though.

shit the flushing of the body

dream a little dream oh winking brown eye

we see the corn and peanuts

in your mound of the amorphous

bacterium

Marconi’s version of the truth:

            We loaded up the jeep with our supplies, the usual stuff for camping.  I rolled a couple of nice fat spliffs and Kruze grabbed the mushrooms.  The mushrooms weren’t what I expected.  They looked more like barnyard detritus, shit laying around a horses stable.  Possibly a mixture of straw, hay, and horse yummies thrown in?  Did I mention that they tasted bad?

oral nonplan

deconstructed trip

did I say that?

irony spews forth

liquid falling

in scenes to come...

Marconi’s version of the truth:

            Smart ass comments of sourpuss create laughter even in its deadly sting.  It’s time to back up.  We hit the road, hamburger... was waved through the bunghole patrol (Kruze’s note: are you a mexican sir?  *bang*) and pranced our way into the beautiful pastoral setting of the Gila.  the vulva.  our penetration of the gila puts us into a warm and pleasurable state of being (Kruze’s note: like a good hard shag).  in a way, we were making love with the forest.  as insignificant as we seemed, the warmth and spiritual wetness of the Gila rose to a perpetual swelling of our state of being.  engorged if you will.  The teasing strokes of the Gila coerced us in further and deeper, penetrating to the center of the forest’s potent vitality and creative force.

sexual mask

hair pie deep

spreading larger and deeper

until we

a green 4 wheel drive

vehicle of fertilization

descends to meet the

resin the cum

the juice of that protects

and gives life to the

pregnant woods

On the gravel road we saw a bear running up a hillside.  It was a rare treat for both of us.  Amazing how the wilderness inhabitants are rarely seen even here in their own home.

We continued north deeper into the forest.  Soon we drove through the tall ponderosa pines.  I love these trees because they symbolize the West so much for me.  Driving through these pines forests on such an isolated road makes me feel very much closer to nature.  I looked forward to mixing the mushroom experience with the beautiful vistas before my eyes.

fire danger low

dry as a fleck of desert sand

perhaps they want the fires

perhaps its time to raze the trees

and put micky dees and disney

in its place

The campground wasn’t exactly all we had hoped for, but we were definitely ready to get out of the car.  So we set up camp, had a bite to eat, then retired to the tent to begin the ritual.

Kruze divided the dried and crumbled mushrooms between us, giving me a bit more than half so I could have a more powerful first experience.  Awful nice of the guy since it was his mushrooms.

looks like dust

tiny fungal bones

white and dry

the desert of the birth

the desert of wonder

that does not share like

we do.  the desert does not

divide in two.

Despite the awful taste (did I tell you they taste like shit?), I managed to choke down my portion of the shrooms.  Now it was time to wait.  We decided to take a walk down by the nearby shallow lake.  It wasn’t until we returned with some firewood that I began to notice the mushrooms taking effect.  Things started to look closer.  As time passed, my sense of depth was increasingly distorted.  Objects halfway to eye level looked far closer to the ground than normal.  Kruze looked like a wise old gnome as he sat in his folding chair and peeled an orange.

sitting face aglow

the great gnome on his throne

no, it’s papa smurf

laughing his bearded laugh

tinted like neptunes orb

sinking reptilian into the patterned sand

During this time, I noticed a rapidly pulsing flicker, as if a weak strobe light were going on in my peripheral vision.  As the light faded, this strobe effect did as well, but I started noticing intricate geometric patterns in every object I stared at:  pine needles, tufts of grass, the bare earth, pieces of wood, and just about anything else I looked at.  (pause for a few tokes)

like snowflakes

patterns with no patterns

scattering chaos making order

“it’s in the darker areas too.”

yes.  yes it is.  and the strobe light has faded alot

like the arrival of night would accept

anything else