After highs of well over 90 degrees and persistent drought conditions for so many weeks on end, it was a somewhat rude yet strangely welcome shock to wake up to frigid temperatures and steadily drizzling rain. The adverse weather did not stop a number of volunteers from gathering this morning at Frank Wilson Park, in Martinsville, to clean up its streams and plant trees and shrubs—all part of the 26th Annual International Coastal Cleanup effort, a series of concurrent events today sponsored by The Ocean Conservancy. Several geocachers from Martinsville, Danville, and Greensboro braved the weather and joined numerous other local volunteers, including folks from the Bassett school system and the Virginia Museum of Natural History, all prepared to get wet, dirty, and tired while turning a relatively well-manicured park into a pristine natural recreation area. Kimberly and I got back into our caving clothes from a couple of week back, armed ourselves with work gloves and trash bags, and did a fair bit of wading and bushwhacking, removing and actually taking inventory of the litter, much of which was glass that's probably older than I am. To add some allure for the geocachers in the bunch, I made it a CITO (Cache-In, Trash-Out) event so that we could get caching credit for attending. I'm sure the weather kept a good many folks at home, so it was an admirable morning's work for those who dared defy those dirty, double-crossing, dastardly rain gods. I provided doughnuts and sodas, and the Bassett folks hosted a cook-out for lunch. Kimberly and I had packed our own lunch, so we had ourselves a romantic little picnic in an isolated shelter while the rain came down with ever-increasing vehemence.
Needless to say, right about the time we all went home, the rain stopped. C'est la cache.
In the meantime, on the writing front, work progresses steadily on my latest endeavor—a story for a new, HPL-inspired anthology, edited by the redoubtable Robert M. Price. Stay tuned.
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| This little fellow, an Imperial Moth larva, was carefully escorted out of harm's way. |