Caching the Gold Rush Trail

We are back!!

Our trip was cut short this weekend and we got back home at 3am Sunday morning.

We found out Saturday afternoon that we had a slow transmission leak in our van.

We found out the hard way

We took the Curnew Red Mobile up a mountainous road that soon turned into a FSR road. The book we were using for this Geocaching Event said, “4×4 recommended”, and since we had taken our van 4x4ing before we decided it would be ok. It was a pretty good FSR (Forest Service Road) and it wasn’t the cause of our tranny problem.

We were trying to FTF (first to find) the cache that was hidden at the very top of this mountain. The event’s book said that up at GZ (ground zero) there’s a lookout and historical location so we were eager to see it! We got to about 2K away from GZ when our van ran out of juice/power. It wouldn’t go up the hill!! It reved. Vrroom Vrroom but it wouldn’t move!! That’s when we thought, “great! now what? are we stuck? will more cachers venture out this far to get the cache? and therefore rescue us? lol” we prayed too, well prayed the whole time going up because close to the top of where we broke down the road was becoming worse, but it was still fun nonetheless.

Soon after, we got out to see the trail of tranny fluid and big puddle, we heard another truck coming up, they stopped behind us and got out rather slowly knowing what had happened. They said they followed the trail the whole way up and were curious as to what they’d find! They were not geocachers but knew what it was. They were going up to see the view with their two little boys, about 4 and 6 years old. They were cute!

They helped us turn the van around, by pushing it and then they proceeded to go up to the view/ GZ while we got to as far as we could go by coasting down hill. Jeff’s leg was shaking so bad due to there being no power steering!! It was SO hard for him to steer the van and keep us from going over the edge/cliff, but he did it and we survived.

We got down hill till the road curved up hill and parked with emergency brake on. We pulled out our lawn chairs and sat to chat on the side of this FSR while we waited for help and discussed our options.

About 30 mins later we heard another truck coming up the road and luckily the guys that met us before got reception at GZ and were able to call their buddy to pick up some tranny fluid and bring it out to us to help us get back to town!!

We were grateful and on our way soon after that. Stopping ever so often to put more fluid in, just so we could drive that sucker all the way down the mountain and back into town. It cost $20 for 20K or so it ran. We just had to keep filling it up with fluid!!!

So once into town we parked it at the Husky trucker stop and gas station in the town of Cache Creek. Thanked and paid the Angel that helped us get back down into town, and got him to get his Mechanic friend to come down to SEE our under carriage to see how serious it was. Paid HIM $40 just for his eyes and him to tell us most likely the transmission seal is off, which could be a $3000 job to fix. So we thanked them both and headed into the Husky Restaurant to have some dinner and make some calls.

We ended up telling the Waitress what had happened. She said we could not leave our van there in the parking lot and that it would be safe on her ranch, so that’s where it is now.

Jeff’s paraplegic uncle came 3hrs away to pick us up in his HUGE van, so we unloaded/emptied the entire red mobile and loaded Adroit Seeker and our camping stuff all into it and were on our way.

Overall we had a good time in the desertess lands of Cache Creek, Lytton, and Ashcroft. I think the worse part was the cactus! I couldn’t get a picture of it stuck in my leg, but you can imagine!! Today I was still pulling pieces from out of my pants. Cactus plants are nasty to cache/hike/walk in!! And the plants I used to get myself up a steep dry slippery (slippery due to the dry rock and dirt desert type landscape) were so dry they cut me too. I was bleeding and it hurt but I cleaned it up right away and we were on our way. I think Adroit Seeker got the worst of that hike though. The way he chose to go up that hillside was far worse as there were not that many plants for him to grab hold of and he slid all the way down just to have to climb up it all again. He was scratched up all over his legs, arms and hands!! Sorry no pictures of that either. Man! I guess all the exciting things I couldn’t get pictures of because they were just too exciting I suppose and there was no time to pull out the camera :P

But we made it home safe and sound. With a great adventure and memories that will last.

I’ve shared some of the pictures I took from the Friday and Saturday. Enjoy!

And if you like visiting historical locations I would highly recommend looking into geocaching, it’s free to do and these events that bring you to monumental touristic locations is what makes it worth it for me!! I love being a Tourist in my own country, don’t you?

p.s. we did get ftf on a couple caches. Our goal WAS for us all to get at least one FTF each and we accomplished that goal so not all was lost on this geocaching adventure :)

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 11:37 am. Come visit me at demara.me thanks!!