For Veteran's Day weekend - a three-day weekend for me and Mary, but not for John - we decided to spend the weekend doing our two of our favorite activities at the same time: hiking and geocaching.

The original plan for the weekend was to spend the weekend out of town - at the Gaard-Chak in Overgaard - and go hiking and geocaching from there.  We would then spend some time on November 12 paying our respects to our dear William at Potato Lake.  However, life took over, and our plans had to change to accommodate that.  First, Mary was invited to a sleepover at her best friend Abby's house on Friday night, for Abby's seventh birthday.  We couldn't tell her no; she had missed Abby's birthday almost every year since 2003, and she had reached the age where these sleepovers were very important.

Then, we learned that Mary would have the opportunity to march in her first parade on Monday, November 12: the Hearts of Glory Veteran's Day Parade in Central Phoenix.  She would be marching with the Young Champions of America Cheerleaders.  We certainly couldn't pass up the chance to watch our little girl marching in a parade; so we completely scrapped our original plans and went with Plan C.

John and I spent Saturday morning hiking and geocaching in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve while Mary was still at Abby's house. We hiked in off of the trailhead on Tatum Blvd., just south of Shea, and walked about one mile, finding geocaches along the way.  Later that day, after picking Mary up from Abby's house, we continued to geocache for the rest of the day.

The next day, however, we decided to get out of town.  John suggested that we take off to an area that had always fascinated him: the area near Saddle Mountain, off of I-10 near Buckeye.  In that area, there were a bunch of geocaches that we could look for, and we could so some cross-country hiking at the same time. 

So, on Saturday morning, with the GPS loaded with geocaching waypoints, John and Mary and I loaded up our hiking gear and left the house. 

To get to Saddle Mountain, we took I-10 West towards Buckeye and exited on 411th Ave (at Tonopah).  We then followed the Buckeye-Hassayampa Highway out to the Palo Verde Mine, where we turned onto a Jeep road...our kind of road, of course!  We even managed to get some new "desert pin-striping" on the side of the 4Runner when we passed too close to a palo verde tree.

After traveling for some time on that Jeep road, we finally came within a tenth of a mile from the first cache that we wanted to find.  Nearby, there was a place for us to park; so we stopped there and prepared to hike the rest of the distance to the geocache.

Hiking up to the geocache wasn't too bad; we started out by crossing a wash then scrambling up a small bajada to the top of the ridge.  From there, however, we had to cross over the top of the ridgeline to the other side then descend down a short but steep scree slope to a small grotto.  The grotto was a bit out of our reach, but Mary was able to get to it with no problem...once we set her down inside of it!  She pulled out the ammo box for us and even buried it for us again once we were done trading and signing the log.

The next cache was a 0.20-mile walk to the top of the next hill: a walk that, from a distance didn't look to be that bad.  And then we started walking it.  First, we had to descend the rest of the scree slope; that was scary enough.  After that, we had to ascend another bajada, which was covered with lots of loose rock and small cacti. It was slow-going all the way to the top.

Meanwhile, we started hearing gunfire nearby.  We figured that there must have been someone target-shooting nearby; it quickly became quite the annoyance. 

We finally reached the top of the hill, and we set about to look for the geocache.  It took us a few minutes to find it, for it was well-hidden.  Once we did find it, we signed the log, traded items, and replaced it where we had found it.  Then, we decided to climb to the very top of the hill; since we had gone that far, we said that we might as well bag the peak!

Having accomplished our goal of finding the cache, it was now time to scramble back down the hill again.  Of course, that was going to be just as challenging as climbing up there in the first place...and, as everyone knows, I don't handle scree slopes very well!  We eventually made it back to the 4Runner, but it took a lot of very careful maneuvering to do so.

Once we were back in the 4Runner, we drove away from the area (which, of course, was still very noisy because of the target shooters) and started towards Saddle Mountain, our next destination.  Our plan was to hike cross-country about two miles and climb to the saddle of Saddle Mountain, where we would find stage one of a multi-cache.  As we drove closer to the mountain, though, we discovered that we were able to continue driving on the old Jeep road, up until it became very faint and disappeared entirely.  At that point, we were only six-tenths of a mile from the saddle!

With all of our hiking gear on, we started hiking across the desert towards the saddle.  Unfortunately, the 11:00 hour was upon us, meaning that it was Mary's meltdown time.  She slowed us down to the point where we might as well have been stopped.  That was when we decided that John should continue on towards the cache, and Mary and I would return to the 4Runner to wait for him.

It took us about fifteen minutes to return to the 4Runner; and there we sat and waited for John to finish his quest.  I opened up the tailgate, and the two of us sat in the back, eating snacks and enjoying the silence.

About ten minutes later, the silence was broken by the sound of an approaching ATV; Mary and I were soon joined by an older man out for a drive.  When he saw the 4Runner, he was quite surprised, and he asked, "You drove that all the way back here...on that road?"

"Well, I didn't, but my husband did," I replied. 

He chuckled and said that he had been camping and riding in that area for many years and often took his ATV out on that road to find solitude, but that was the first time he had ever seen a truck back there!  "So what are you all doing back here?" he asked us.

I explained that we were out geocaching and hiking and that John was still out looking for the treasure.  With that, we started chatting about the Saddle Mountain area and its rich history.  Having spent a lot of time in that area, he had come to know all about it and was happy to point out some of the places of interest, such as a memorial for a rancher who once lived in the area.  Then, after a few minutes, he wished us a good day and rode away.

John returned to the 4Runner only a few minutes later; and he didn't have good news.  After spending a long time trying to scramble up to the cache location and nearly falling several times, he decided that it just wasn't worth it and gave up.  Then, as he was hiking back to us, he saw the ATV nearby and got worried that we were in trouble; I had to explain to him that we were in no danger, that the rider was just a harmless camper.  He was relieved to hear that.

Having given up on the multi-cache, we decided that it was time to head out for our last cache of the day.  As we drove along the dirt roads, we followed the GPS, looking for the cache location.  One dirt road led to another and another, until finally, we came to a point where we had to park and walk.  By then, we were only two-tenths of a mile from the cache...just a short scramble away.

And so, once again, we found ourselves scrambling up a bajada, over the loose scree and the cacti, in search of a geocache.  This time, though, the bajada wasn't nearly as steep as before, and we made it up in no time.  We soon zeroed in on the cache and found it with no difficulty, buried under a couple of pieces of driftwood. Once we were done trading, we replaced the cache and started back towards the 4Runner.

By the time we were back at the 4Runner, it was getting late and we were ready to go home.  So, we called our day's adventure over and started back towards Phoenix...

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