Murals and Geocaching with Team Clueless

It's our last Tuesday before our trip so we made sure to get the team together so we can geocache one last time.  Since I didn't want to drive around so much we stayed close to home this time and decided that we should try to do the mural walking tour that I've been wanting to do for a while. I figured there will be some geocaches along the way so we can be doing two things at the same time. 

Our first mural was a muted beauty and in the most unlikely place, on the freeway sound wall!  It's called Good Afternoon. I was hoping for a better response from the kids but sadly, I was probably the only one oohing and aahing. Art appreciation is definitely in an all time low.  I'm glad my girls at least had a bit of exposure while they were growing up, visiting museums and really just appreciating the many faces of art.

Moving on, we stumbled across a geocache while on our way to the second mural.  It was an easy magnetic key storage that we were able to leave some swag in.  It felt great to geocache again...I realized how much I missed it after finding it!

The second mural was a beautiful, colorful work of art!  It's called "Life Abundant in the Face of Death Imminent." I loved the combination of colors and how vibrant everything was.  It's obvious that this one gets maintained often.  I also enjoyed the fact that it was created on the wall of an art deco building, the De Anza Hotel.  It had beautiful detail that I know was just a preview of what could be a stunning interior.  Maybe someday, we can get to check it out.

The third mural was inside a popular dog park in the middle of the city, Hart's Dog Park. I took a couple of shots outside when we got invited in by a couple of dog owners with two eager retrievers who were ready for some ear scratching.  I was worried for a little bit since I know that the boys were allergic to pet hair but they didn't seem to mind and thankfully no sneezing ensued.  Besides, the dogs seemed to favor the girls anyway (especially Therese).  At the end of it all, like typical tweens and teens, the girls were pretty grossed out from all the drool but still quite thankful to have received some lovin.'

By the time we left the dog park, Mer was already complaining about her feet hurting since today of all days she forgot to put on some socks!  The blister in the back of her foot signaled the early end to our mural tour but I was determined to at least get them to the panda one so we sped down the last two blocks to take a quick picture of "Phylum of the Free" and finally, a collective "Wow!" for "Panda Cafe and Bakery" which was right on the bustle of South First street which is a beautiful, tree lined street littered with restaurants  and where the train goes through...pretty picturesque!

On our way back to San Pedro Square (where our parking was), we stumbled across another mural that was not on my list but equally beautiful.  

By now,  I know I have to give the kids some sugar otherwise the afternoon will abruptly end and since we were at San Pedro Square, the trip to Treatbot is a must! The usual 408 for Mer (but in double scoops...coz someone is in her cravy), Thai Tea for Myk (another one in her cravy) and Black Sesame Honey for me. The rest of the kids had ice cream, shakes and floats too!

Refreshed and ready again, we went back to the van to seek out a few geocaches that were not very far away but had a few favorite points.  One took us back and gave us a history lesson about the first video game makers who created video games like Pacman  (hence the cache container). Then another called Palindrome, caught us by surprise in a good way and was an awesome reminder of why we love this game so much!

Therese requested a park stop so I searched out another cache near a park to satisfy us both. But with daylight ending early now, this turned out to be our last cache for the day. 

After some park time, we dropped off Dominic and Therese in the theaters since they had a movie date with their mom and dad, Ashley and Jamin back home and then homeward bound for us as well...once again ending a very satisfying and memorable Tuesday with Team Clueless.  We'll miss you guys! See you in a month!