Caching for Cthulhu

Geocaching is always an adventure, for you never know where it's going to take you — high up into trees, up rocky cliffs, into storm drains, caverns, graveyards, Devils' Tramping Grounds, abandoned towers...even Cthulhu's lair. Yesterday, on a trip to Chapel Hill, I had great fun with a cache called Yuggoth V: The Great Cthulhu, which required obtaining information from certain eldritch books to fill in missing coordinates to the cache. Happiest for me is the fact that one of those books, The Azathoth Cycle, includes my story, "The Pit of Shoggoths" (a.k.a. "S"). By the grace of Yog, I managed to find the cache and even retain my sanity. Oh, I did too, so STFU.

One of the caches I found was hidden at a tiny graveyard in a shadowy corner of an otherwise bright residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Carrboro, a little community of no little character which adjoins Chapel Hill to the west. The graves go as far back as the early 19th century, and buried here are many slaves who later became free men and were among the founding fathers of Carrboro itself. Chalk up another educational and exhilarating experience while out caching.

The trip included some excellent dining at The Spotted Dog in downtown Carrboro and shopping for a few not-so-dark delicacies at A Southern Season and Trader Joe's, which — if there were any mercy — would have stores here in Greensboro.

There are several other caches in the Yuggoth series, courtesy of The Mad Cacher Maingray, which I'm sure would have made Chapel Hill's late, great master of darkness, Karl Edward Wagner, quite proud. I'll be heading back to hunt them as soon as my near-shattered inner reserves have recovered....