We were attempting the A Tale of Two Bridges cache.  Here is the crew
in the parking lot at the head of the trail.  We had put together a nice bag of
trinkets to place in the cache when we found it.

After a short walk, we came upon the first view of the two bridges.
We drive over them everyday, but had never walked under them.

On the path, we saw this poor dead baby skunk.

Soon enough, we saw this live baby skunk.  We moved along quickly.
We didn't want to mess with Mama Skunk.

After arriving at the spot, we simply could not find the cache.
 We spent 45-60 minutes looking everywhere. I was on my hands looking into
 each crevase in the rocks. At the end, my father and I were lifting heavy rocks
 to see if it was buried. It must be hidden well.

Here you can see we were at the right location.

There was nowhere to go from here.

When we got home we checked pictures of the previous finders
 and I can see we were in the right spot. Perhaps I'll pick up a metal detector
 for the next attempt.

I was a nice walk and everyone enjoyed the outing. Too bad we couldn't find it.
 Next time we won't leave until we locate the cache.

The trip was not a complete loss.  Mira found this rock.

Second Attempt

It seems my mother LOST HER WEDDING RING on this geocache trip.
 She had hoped she had left it at home, but a review of the photos of the trip showed
 her wearing it near the site.

Ever since her new arthritis drugs have been working, her ring has been loose on her finger. It seems that while my dad and I were looking for the cache, my mom dropped her ring while playing with the girls.

She realized the ring was missing when we got back into the car at the trailhead.
We searched everywhere and my dad walked back to the site where we had been looking to no avail.

The next day, I talked to my mom and I could tell she was quite upset.
I found out that I could rent a metal detector for $10 in Pasadena. $10 bucks? It's worth a try.
 I picked up the detector, listened to the brief instructions, and headed home.

I changed out of work clothes and into some hiking clothes, grabbed Zoe, and drove to the park.
 Zoe and I hiked in to the spot where Mom had been sitting. Along the way, the metal detector
 had been going off and I thought the chances of finding the ring were low.

At the spot, I started hunting while Zoe played. I dug up a few metal things like part of a soy sauce packet and a bottle cap. The detector went off over a large rock, next to the boulder Mom had been sitting on.
I crouched down and started scraping and looking. It was tough to get my fingers between the rock and boulder. I decided to pull up the rock.  As I did, I saw a flash of gold roll into the hole created when I lifted the rock.

It was a gold ring. It was THE gold ring. Success.

Relieved to have found the ring, I was able to relax and enjoy this trip tot he cache.
We then searched for another 1/2 hour for the cache. Still no luck. It's got to be in those rocks somewhere. We will not give up.

Third Attempt

Found the cache on our third attempt, but it had been trashed.
I had come with my brother Matt and good friend Len to show them the joys of geocaching.

Here is the scene as we saw it from the trail.
 

I pondered with simply taking the cache away and dropping it off with the original cache placer,
 but I didn't know the etiquette for such things.
I placed our items, a Powerpuff Girl, a luck milagro, and a gold $1 coin inside then replaced the cache.

I emailed the LarsThorwald, the cache placer and told him it had been trashed.
He decided to remove the cache and find a better place nearby to stash it.
This had been the third time the cache had been destroyed.

A bittersweet moment to say the least.