Making a big splash March 12 - 18, 2001 already before our wedding I promised Sid that if he tries to climb, I will try to scuba...

	We tracked this furball at Dumbarton Bridge for at least twenty minutes

Sid received an e-mail from Don with an invitation to scuba dive at the beginning of April in Monterey. I reassured him that I completely don't mind waiting for them on a beach, and painted a mental picture of my considerate spouse understanding when at eight o'clock in the morning I would not come to wave my handkerchief to the pier, staying in my warm bed instead, in the comfort of Kren's apartment in Monterey. In exchange for that I was ready for an evening at some port tavern, ready to listen to frightening diving stories of Sid, Don, and his friends.

Then Sid thought deeply and announced that with a little luck I could make it in time. Before I could protest, I found myself inside the Blue Water Divers, signing that I was not addicted to narcotics, nor pregnant, and thinking whether my anxiety attack at a medieval silver mine in Kutná Hora qualifies as claustrophobia. Meanwhile Sid happily chatted with Randy and in a moment they started pulling various uncomfortable things over me. Every time they selected a piece, Randy smiled knowingly at me and said "What color would you like?" That was about the most I myself could decide (knowing about scuba diving about as much as a goat knows about truck engines). Eventually I collected gloves, boots, a mask, a snorkel, fins, two video cassettes, a manual, and a multitude of hardly identifiable loose papers indicating that I should appear on Thursday at 7 PM for my first lesson. Sigh.

	Sid is actually very close to a hidden "cache"

I carefully studied for my Thursday class, I even viewed the video!). It was quite a job, I don't know how others do it, well, I know now -- they don't manage ... in our microclass consisting of four pupils, only Priscilla and I made it..

I am not sure I will ever become a devoted scuba diver, but since this week I became a Californian. DMV had finally sent me a driver license, which is a tremendous relief not only for me, but also (I assume) for local policemen -- they used to gaze at my Czech license, and only implicit courtesy prevented them from expressing any doubts about it being a swimming club annual pass.

I cannot complain about California, the climate is very moderate here, but of course nothing comes for free. Besides all possible sub-tropical bushes, one that grows here is very inconspicuous, yet the more devious. During your first and second year of residence here you would not notice -- nothing will happen to you. Then, your body saturates and one day you return from hiking in a forest with a hideous rash. If you don't do anything with it, it will spread all over your body and you start to swell. And - as our neighbor experienced personally - without a doctor it would simply get only worse. Once that happens you must be careful, as it will come back every time you touch this poison oak. Exactly this happened to Sid last weekend while hunting for treasures. Result? I have a sleepless, scratching, grumpy, pill swallowing Hippo at home. .

	Sid found it, but mine is the glory!

With or without pills, we're no losers, so we found two more caches on the weekend. One near Dumbarton Bridge, at a place that none of us would ever think of going. A freeway spans over the Bay, from the car it does not look like a preserve. But it's there -- an educational trail about local salt swamps. Many birds live there, but we also spotted lizards and ground squirrels (or similar furry rodents that live on rocks and always hold something in their paws, nibbling at it), sloughs through the swaps swarm with fish and even sharks (we saw a proud fisherman carrying one home, about three feet long). Besides the trail it was surprisingly empty. The author of the cache writes in his notes that if we desired to do something illegal, we can do it there. In the middle of a salt pond, one would see approaching unwanted company before they could register what's going on. We could not think of anything, so this amazing opportunity remained unexploited.

	A viewing deck at the southern summit of Mount St. Helena

We chose a relatively distant treasure for Sunday -- on Mount St. Helena, near Calistoga. The landscape is very pretty, valleys with lots of water and rolling hills that climb to more than four thousand feet, forests, vineyards, a romantic dream.

	Calistoga Valley

On the internet it seemed that we might be the first ones to spot this cache, and when we saw Helen in her full beauty, it was quite clear why. The author mentioned that he originally wanted to leave the cache at 2500 feet, but since he saw some people in their sixties happily returning from the top, he chose the southern tip (4,000 ft). It was no little hill for a trip with toddlers. Considering our usual late start (we started at noon) and obligatory traffic jam in San Francisco we hesitated at the foot of the mountain -- it was three PM and loooong way up. Eventually we concluded that our GPS would help us get back after dark, and went up. A dirt road, passable by car, goes all the way, fortunately closed for motorized traffic. It was a comfortable hike, with a beautiful view to Sonoma County, all the way to the coast, which was wrapped in fog. Sid found the cache, satisfied we ate an apple on a view deck near radio towers, and hurried back down. In toto we walked some eight miles, but a mountain is a mountain -- following two days, we hobbled around with aching muscles...

Copyright © 2001-2005 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.