Sunburn, Spiders, and Savannah

Have returned from a very relaxing trip to Hilton Head, SC, with Mrs Death and some good friends of ours from Chicago. Geocaches aplenty (right about 50, which gives me a total of 1,994), some good food and drink, and a wee bit of red skin. Nothing serious, as that 30-caliber sunscreen is kind of like wrapping one's self in an Egyptian burial shroud. Spent a day in Savannah, GA, in the historical district, which I really loved; always knew Savannah had a long and colorful history, but no idea how rich until we went on one of those touristy but enjoyable and informative trolley tours. Even managed to be productive—got several pages done on my new Dark Shadows script, which is due in the not-too-distant future.

One of the most impressive sights of the trip was the web of a nephila (golden orb) spider, which extended from the top of the second floor of an old house to the ground — about 20 ft. high and 15 ft. wide. The spider itself was almost the size of my hand. At least he was pretty far up there and disinclined to come down and pay me a visit. However, while hunting for a geocache in the woods, I was proceeding along leisurely, keeping my eyes on the ground, and when I looked up, there was a big old nephila spider, about six inches from my face. "Dude!" I cried, and backed up quickly. The spider had a very distinctive "M" on its abdomen, in a nice script font; something I would never have noticed had I not seen it at such uncomfortably close range.

One of the caches I hunted was guarded by an alligator. Fortunately, Mr. Gator contented himself out in the middle of his pond. He was probably quite full from the last cachers he et.

I figured that, after having had several days off from work, it would be smart to ease myself back into the schedule by taking the afternoon off today, but for unknown reasons, this idea didn't seem consistent with the boss's reasoning. Sheesh! Well, it was good while it lasted.