Another Barfday Come and Gone

Ranger Fox and Rodan (Damned) at Hidden Falls

How these blasted days keep coming around so fast boggles my hornswoggled mind, but there it is: 51 frakking years old, yesterday. True to the past two years — since I took up geocaching — it was a weekend dominated by hiking and caching, and I took today off from work to recuperate (which sometimes takes longer than it used to). Friday, headed to Mom's in Martinsville, had a great seafood dinner at the Dutch Inn, then took a nice long nighttime hike to snag a cache. Saturday morning, it was up at the crack of dawn, off on another hike at the Smith River Sports Complex to grab three more, and then hit the road to Hanging Rock, NC, for Sunday's 10-year geocaching anniversary event. Yes, went hiking and ran into Ranger Fox, so we trekked to several of the waterfalls in the park to get credit for a virtual and a couple of earth caches. Come evening, it was hot dogs (Nathan's) over the campfire and some brief socializing with other cachers who were also camping out for the weekend event.

Yesterday, more hiking to more waterfalls, and then the Geocaching 10-Year Anniversary Event at the Hanging Rock picnic grounds. Lots of faces familiar and some new to me, a bit of food, and a door prize: won a new NCGO geocoin, which made for a nice little birthday present. More caches on the way home, and then a fine Thai dinner. This morning, a brand new, terrain-challenging cache popped up at the nearby Reedy Fork trail, so I managed to snag a first-to-find (which required a special geotool that would have no doubt amused any passersby on the trail, though I didn't actually see any). All in all, a helluva nice barfday, and a relaxing day to rest and regroup.

At least for now, another day closer to death hasn't been too danged bad.

Yeah, it looks kind of like a smile. Go on, make something of it.